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Piment [they/them, comrade/them] @hexbear.net

On using pronouns as a proxy for gender identity

Forgive me if this was addressed, but I don't think it was. During a previous struggle session in a statement from the mod team something was said along the lines of "the he/hims aren't beating the allegations".

Personally I do not think this is acceptable, to me this is just using "he/hims" as a proxy for saying men. No one in IRL settings uses "he/hims" as a term to describe people who use him/him pronouns, no one is categorized into a grouping in general based on their pronouns as it is just a preferred pronoun not a characteristic like gender identity.

If there is misogyny going on, just say there is misogyny among users, their pronouns do not change the content of what they said, if someone with he/him pronouns and someone with she/her pronouns typed the exact same degrading thing about a woman, their pronouns would not factor into whether what they said was misogynistic or not.

I am bringing this up as it seems like people in the mod chat are still using "he/hims" to refer to people who have indicated they prefer he/him as their pronouns, you might think this is progressive because you are not directly making a gender identity assumption, but I believe this is in fact reactionary and you are just using pronouns as a proxy for the gender that is most commonly associated with the given pronoun i.e. men in the case of saying "he/hims".

I think this is at least counterproductive and at most harmful, if knowing someone's gender identity is relevant or useful, it should just be asked for.

The point of having pronouns is to accommodate and to treat people with respect and dignity about what they prefer to be called. Using pronouns as a proxy for gender identity undermines this as, treating someone with dignity would involve asking them directly what their gender identity is, not making judgments or assumptions based off of their preferred pronouns.

The only thing that having he/him pronouns indicates is that the person prefers to be referred to with the pronouns he and him. They are just personal pronouns, they are not equivalent to an ethnicity, a gender identity, a gender expression, etc.

If someone with he/him pronouns seems like they are misogynistic, that may have something to do with their gender identity, but it has nothing to do with their pronouns. It is not fair nor accurate to make assumptions of gender identity from pronouns and I think this should be avoided.

This is not to undermine any concerns about misogyny, but misogyny can and should be fought against regardless of what pronouns are involved in any instance of it.

Thanks for reading this, please know all I want is for pronouns and gender identity not to be conflated and to create a safe and respectful space for all users. And I think a good way to work towards this would be to stop using "he/hims", "she/hers", "they/thems", etc. as a way to refer to people who specify they would like to be referred to as those pronouns.

115 comments

  • GOOD post!
    Also kinda related, I'm sick of the mods using their own identity as a shield for being told they're doing something bigoted. Every time this blows up we see the same excuse: "The mod team contains members of [minority] and they're fine with it". Neat! So since I'm queer does that mean I can't be transphobic? I'm neurodivergent, guess I can't be ableist.

    The site culture got so much worse after we implemented the wrecker jacketing rule.

    Finally and once again to all the people who dont understand this: You not liking something does not make it "reactionary".

    Also what's this about screenshots? New drama ig, but you're also pointing out the last session when @ZoomeristLeninist@hexbear.net made the "he/hims" comment and then an incredible not-apology showing impressive lack of introspection, yet theres mods here acting as if you're taking things out of context lmao.

    Edit: I read the screenshots and from the context I've gotten the green user is incredibly patient, rehashing the same polite reflections again and again, despite being accused of outrageous shit. At some point they crack and hey wow yay they went over our arbitrary line. It's a piss-poor bullying tactic I've seen used too many times here now. I had to stop reading a bit past halfway because I got too mad, so unless that pattern changes it's bs.

    It also rehashes the "he/him" argument while ignoring the main point - it's not at all valid. It wasn't just a bunch of "he/hims" and saying so is just a way to stop the nasty feeling of maybe having to consider that people disagreeing with you isn't inherently bad and maybe you should look inwards. The green user is talking about noticing a pattern being valid, which it is (being scared of men is fine, we all have trauma), but that pattern isn't applicable when you're not talking about a bunch of men, but a bunch of people. Incredible that the mods still don't get that saying "everyone I disagree with is a man" is a shitty thing to do.

    Also calling them a debate pervert is such obvious bullshit. Modteam is full of feds children who have social influence for the first time in their lives.

  • I am a cisgendered man with a generally drab sense of style and a rather boring life, but I'm also bisexual/pansexual and, deep within me, is the soul of a raging and flamboyant queer dying to love and to be loved. I loathe the idea of being lumped in with straight, cisgendered men just because I use he/him pronouns. Oh, and if anyone wants to levy any "allegations" towards me, you had better do to publicly and with receipts; my love for my queer comrades in general -- and my trans comrades specifically -- burns with the heat of ten thousand suns.

    • I do not want to levy any allegations or challenge your care for your queer comrades. What I take issue with is the idea that only straight cis men are capable of chauvinistic behavior towards women, which is untrue. For the record I don’t believe you specifically are guilty of such behavior so this is not in any way meant as an accusation, I’m speaking in general terms. As an analogy, I live in the west, and just because I’m a queer POC doesn’t mean I’m incapable of exhibiting western chauvinism.

      • The CIA literally did ads to that effect "queer imposter syndrome POC" or whatever. We should always remember that more important than identity is action, and identity isn't a substitute for theory or praxis.

        This doesn't mean that cishet comrades shouldn't be doing selfcrit nor does it mean that those of us in the west should recognize when to defer to our comrades in the third world. There's obviously a difference (personal identity vs position as a subject of a particular historical regime). However, essentializing any identity -cishet, queer, POC, etc. - is anti-marxist and anti-materialist.

        The reasons for the predominant misogyny from cishet men isn't something inherent to being cishet men. It's their historical becoming in a culture that has normalized that misogyny, and their choice not to do the work to cleanly break from it.

        I'm too tired to tie this back into the beating the allegations meme. If someone wants to continue the materialist thread be my guest, but I just think its important to keep some perspective about these things and remember that there are limits to identity analyses we should recognize as Marxists and materialists.

      • You are absolutely correct, and I by no means intended to use my queerness as any sort of shield from criticism or critique. And, I suppose, my comment about "'allegations' towards me" was written in a moment of passion. What I think I'm trying to say is that I need to learn to be a better person, and having specific instances my own behavior, rather than the general behavior of cisgendered men, "under the microsope" would be more helpful. Of course, this is no one else's responsibility, nor am I implying it should be. Am I rambling? I'm rambling.

  • I'm not sure I understand the significance of the difference between preferred pronouns and gender identity in this sense. Saying "he/hims" to mean "people with male gender identity" makes sense to me on the surface. Aren't masculine pronouns for masculine people? Is it that some people use multiple sets of pronouns? Or I guess people who identify as gender fluid sometimes use he/him pronouns while not identifying as male? Not asking to contradict, just asking so I can better understand.

    Edit: Thanks for taking the time to respond y'all! Makes total sense.

    • masc pronouns and terms can be used by people who aren't men (e.g. I, an afab lesbian, go by "uncle crime" with my niblings, or how me and my sapphic friends call each other "bro" and "sir" and "dude" a lot) just like female pronouns and terms can be used by people who aren't women (e.g. the way some queer men refer to each other as "girl" or "sis" or use she/her pronouns for each other)

      there isn't a direct relationship between terminology and gender identity

    • Here’s one way I’ve been thinking about this: Before I realized I was trans, there was a time on this site where I did use he/him pronouns but felt very uncomfortable being grouped in with men for reasons I’m now aware of, but wasn’t fully aware of then. Would it be fair to identify my past self as a “man” or would that be offensive? If someone did that now, I’d obviously feel like I was being misgendered and take offense. There are also maybe certain aspects of misogyny I might not be as attuned to yet since for most of my life I wasn’t treated as a woman typically would be. There are also trans men who use he/him pronouns and who may have been targets of misogyny due to the gender they were wrongly perceived as.

      So… I realize this is complicated and maybe difficult to make sense of, but that’s kind of the point I think. Gender is complicated. People are complicated. Trying to oversimplify pronouns and gender in order to pinpoint problems can itself become problematic, and I believe this is OP’s concern if I’m reading the post correctly. I think if the issue is that there is a tendency of some cishet men on the site to either ignore or perpetuate misogyny (and I absolutely believe there is), then it seems more productive to call out the problematic behavior itself while highlighting how it may related to their status in society as cishet men, rather than to just boil it down to “he/hims” and risk unnecessarily harmful friendly fire.

      I’m up way past my bedtime and need sleep, but I hope that makes sense and doesn’t come off as contrarian or something. I think this is the first time I’ve really gotten these specific thoughts and feelings out on the site since thinking about the issue, so please feel free to give constructive feedback if anything I’m saying here seems problematic.

      • Trying to oversimplify pronouns and gender in order to pinpoint problems can itself become problematic, and I believe this is OP’s concern if I’m reading the post correctly.

        I would say this is what I was going for, I also just frankly wouldn't want to be referred to as a "they/them" and it makes me uncomfortable that people are being referred to as something analogous to that

    • I don't think for everyone, he/him pronouns indicate being masculine or identifying as a man, I don't think that's a controversial thing to say. If that was the case people wouldn't bother referring to people with he/him pronouns as "he/hims" here they would just say men. I think that what you said about people who use multiple pronouns and people who identity as gender fluid, would fit cases of someone using he/him pronouns at various points, but not* identifying as a man.

  • it's true that he/him pronouns do not mean someone (like me) is a man, or cis, or a cis man, and we should speak accordingly.

    That said, there is a noticeable statistical correlation between he/him users and misogyny on his site. If I had to guess why: site polls indicate that most he/him users on hexbear identify as cis men, and just as white people tend to be more racist than average, cis men tend to be more misogynistic than average.

    I do think we should find the language to talk about that somehow.

    It's already difficult to talk about misogyny, here or anywhere. Just as part of white supremacy is white fragility and defensiveness, part of misogyny is male fragility and defensiveness, and it can lead to dogpiling, which can have a chilling effect. We're not gamergate-tier but I do see subtler shades of that behavior sometimes.

    I think we need to strike a balance. When someone says something like "he/hims are not beating the allegations," we need to correct the language, but then listen to what the person is saying, make sure their effort to communicate still ultimately succeeds, without creating another barrier to talking about misogyny on this site.

115 comments