I’ve been waiting until after Christmas day to make this post, but some of our communities recently have had a lot of noise and upset over someone that uses neopronouns that most people are unfamiliar with.
So I want to make this clear. A persons pronouns are to be respected. This is true when the user is using neopronouns that you’re unfamiliar with. It’s true even if you think someone is trolling. Pronouns are not rewards for good behaviour. They aren’t only to be respected when you like the person you’re interacting with, or if their pronouns “make sense” to you. Trolls, spammers, twitter users, it doesn’t matter who they are, your options are to respect their pronouns, or to not engage with them.
I really want to re-iterate the importance of this. Gender diverse folk are undermined, invalidated and questioned at every step of our lives. As a community, we need to be working to undo that, not creating more of it, and that means there is no space for treating pronouns (including neopronouns) as a reward for good behaviour.
This isn’t a free reign for trolls and spammers. The rules still apply. Trolling, spamming, etc will continue to be dealt with, but it’s not an excuse to act as if respecting someones pronouns is optional.
The admin’s chosen examples, in this thread, include demanding people use a slur, if that’s what some rando insists you insert, instead of the “they” that should work for any human being.
It’s really fucking difficult to argue ‘that absolutist or-else seems like a poor idea’ without sounding wishy-washy - or catching a boot in the ass.
look the whole point of this thread is that if you didn’t want to respect somebody’s pronouns then just don’t interact with them or report them if you think they are genuinely trolling, not encourage them. if you don’t do that so your giving trolls what they want and hurting trans people who do identify with those pronouns.