What's the difference between asking someone title or someone's pronouns ?
What's the difference between asking someone title or someone's pronouns ?
I never got why conservative got crazy if you specify a pronoun, but at the same time expect you to specify whether its, it's Mr/Ms/Miss (and often don't take Dr as an answer), looks like the same question
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Conservatives (with a lowercase 'c', I'm not talking about Republicans) prefer a series of small incremental changes over a longer period of time while progressives believe in big leaps. Both are valid viewpoints depending on the issue, sometimes we should take things slowly but other times we needed that change yesterday.
Asking titles has been around for a long time so conservatives are ok with it. It also conforms to their existing ideas about gender and roles in society.
Asking for pronouns is a relatively new thing and the whole debate around them is a big and sudden change (at least as far as they see), and it turns everything they believed in on its head.
Of course, there are people who are just plain hateful but I think there's more nuance to it than that most of the time.
I've always thought "it's okay because it's old" is a pretty poor metric. It's cheap but it's accuracy isn't very good.
It's not really about that, sometimes conservatives also agree that a change is needed but they disagree on how to get there.
They see the current state as something that was built up naturally over a long period of time and everything has its place for a reason. Sometimes those reasons are not apparent immediately and making a sudden change will bite us in the long run in an unexpected way, maybe 100 years down the road.
They might agree that the status quo is bad but they think change should come gradually in small steps, allowing things to settle down a bit, and reflect on the consequences before moving forward. They might say that at least we understand the situation and the rules of what we have now, we shouldn't stray too far ahead into the unknown.
For example, imagine that you live in a country under foreign rule. Should you start a war of independence and risk getting crushed or should you try to force concessions gradually over time and risk not getting anywhere? This is roughly the debate that took place in my home country in the 1800s.
While it's true that the extremes are that conservatives want time to stay still while progressives want to burn the world down and reform everything in a single day, but most of the time people are somewhere in between, or even change their positions depending on the issue.
I mean. Maybe. But much of the time it's like "hello I'm gay and I would like to live peacefully" and conservatives are like "whoa let's not go crazy."
It's easy to argue for slow change when you benefit from the current state of things.
Also most conservatives in the US seem to be reactionaries or radicals that want to make sweeping changes like abolishing the DoE.
I'm not an expert on American politics but my impression is that there are a bunch of people with conservative attitudes towards change, and politicians know exactly how to play them.
They get riled up with the proper slogans and become what you have described. I'm not saying they are innocent victims here, they definitely should know better and everything they do is on them, but I still think this is mostly what's going on.
Not conservative.
I’ve gotten very very used to being asked for titles on forms and the like. I’ve gotten used to respecting other peoples’ pronouns.
I have not gotten used to being asked for my own, and I don’t like it.
I understand that you can look just like me while having a gender identity that does not match my own—some men like to present in a feminine manner sometimes while still being men, and some people are non-binary, third gender, agender, etc. but might still dress in a very feminine way for whatever reason. To cover all your bases, ask pronouns, because guessing “she/her” at a feminine presentation in a body with a feminine shape won’t always be right. If you want to maximize your chances of being correct, you need to ask.
But whenever I’m asked, I also wonder if I’ve presented in a way that signals anything other than “woman” (which frequently but does not always line up with feminine presentations from feminine bodies). Did I just totally fail at presenting the way I want to and if forced to assume you’d guess I’m third gender, or are you being inclusive and considering that people who present like me aren’t always women? It’s the privileged, cis-woman version of “did you have to ask because I failed hard at passing, or did I pass and you just ask everyone this because not everyone conforms to the gender binary?” I’m really used to my gender being assumed and assumed correctly, and am not comfortable with people being unsure or even assuming wrong. I’m basically getting a microdose of what many non-cis, non-binary, and/or nongenderconforming people have to deal with, and I don’t like it.
I also understand it is probably for the benefit of most people (I’m aware of some non-cis people also disliking people asking pronouns, with reasons being along the lines of “please assume, I’m a binary trans person and asking makes me worry I don’t pass” or “I’m in the closet right now and asking my pronouns makes me choose between outing myself and misgendering myself” and it’s worth finding some solution for this) for asking to be normalized, so I let my personal discomfort and dislike go. After I ask if they asked pronouns because they honestly thought it’s super likely I don’t use she/her in which case oh god what do I change so I can make the assumption be that I use she/her, or if it’s just them trying to be inclusive and cover all bases which is good and respectable.
It might also just be that the person asking you just always asks. Because as you mentioned, only asking when someone "looks" trans or non-binary can be rather invalidating. So to avoid that, they just don't assume.
For your last paragraph, I'm personally of the opinion that, short of de-gendering the language entirely, a good solution would basically just be a gender/pronoun badge, but stylised to be more easily readable from a distance. Like a bracelet or a necklace or something of that nature. That would eliminate the need to ask in the vast majority of cases, because the person would be wearing something that unambiguously signals the answer. And it would be completely detached from the presentation of their body, which might not match their gender, or their clothing, which probably shouldn't be gendered anyway. Changing pronouns, for whatever reason like coming out or just being fluid, would just be a matter of swapping out the single symbol.
It's not really feasible, of course, but even as a queer person I find asking and being asked quite clunky. But whenever I go into LGBT+ or geek spaces, I find that wearing a badge just sidesteps the whole issue.
We should use a pink triangle.
Easy to know who falls under the tag.
I can think of a few differences between a universally voluntarily chosen pronoun badge, and a pink triangle forced on queer people to mark them as other.
Either way makes it a really easy target identifier though, just saying.
By all means, don't live in fear or isolation.
Unfortunately, the places where this would do the most good are also the places where they would be in the most danger by wearing one.
It doesn't affect me either way, I am neither queer nor a hater thereof, it's just a fucked up world right now.
Hopefully not for much longer though.
Also, can we address how weird it is that queer is the chosen word now?
They nailed reclaiming that word.
The idea would be that the badge would be worn by everyone. Which is why I said it isn't really feasible.
My bad, I read it as everyone who had a different gender than sex, not everybody everybody
It might also just be that the person asking you just always asks.
did I pass and you just ask everyone this because not everyone conforms to the gender binary?”
… I already brought up that possibility :(
Yes. I wasn't disagreeing with you or anything. Just saying what I thought would be most likely.
Damn. You’ve broken that down in a way that’s made me realize exactly why I don’t like being asked my pronouns (without me previously having actually thought through this exercise). Thank you for that! I’ll get over my discomfort with the idea, check my privilege, and answer the question next time.