Skip to main content
Meta Stack Exchange

You are not logged in. Your edit will be placed in a queue until it is peer reviewed.

We welcome edits that make the post easier to understand and more valuable for readers. Because community members review edits, please try to make the post substantially better than how you found it, for example, by fixing grammar or adding additional resources and hyperlinks.

21
  • 29
    @SurpriseDog I can see how deferring to an academic authority may be tempting here, but that paper is not at all meant to draw boundaries around gender expression. Rather, it describes observed gender expression.
    – De Novo
    Commented Nov 15, 2019 at 21:45
  • 27
    @SurpriseDog: If you're looking for an authoritative list of "acceptable pronouns," that's not it. The paper states that "Respondents report a variety of reasons for choosing their particular pronouns, ranging from phonetic and visual appeal to feeling an instinctive sense of “rightness”/“comfort”, and goes on to say that "Many found their pronouns on websites such as Pronoun Dressing Room, which has lists of existing pronouns and tools for constructing new ones.
    – user102937
    Commented Nov 15, 2019 at 21:48
  • 7
    So what I'd like to know is "How do I get my own personal pronoun that feels right to me on that list, so that it can be widely-accepted as well?"
    – user102937
    Commented Nov 15, 2019 at 21:49
  • 60
    The enforcement of "let's respect non-binary users and use their pronouns" has been a disaster since week negative one, but now it's so disastrous it's turned into "and let's do that by disrespecting non-binary users and refusing to use their pronouns". I'm sort of awed.
    – Leopold says Reinstate Monica
    Commented Nov 15, 2019 at 22:26
  • 29
    Have at least one staff member go through some quality diversity training. If gender must be policed, let that staff member do it. And be accountable/answerable for their actions. No more of this detached 'i nuked your profile because I don't like it'. If you're going to deny a chosen identity you better damn well be ready to answer for it.
    – David says Reinstate Monica
    Commented Nov 16, 2019 at 3:23
  • 6
    I have two words for you: Grimble/Gromble.
    – einpoklum
    Commented Nov 16, 2019 at 10:31
  • 9
    @einpoklum-reinstateMonica that was posted when guidance was to leave extraneous information in the post. Grimble/gromble are perfectly fine pronouns. I would welcome grimble to try out this gender expressions if it is new to gromble. Regardless, with current guidelines their is no need to tell the story of the four friends. The old policy of requiring us to treat any post with pronouns differently then we've treated every other post here is what opened the door to trolling, not the pronouns grimble/gromble
    – De Novo
    Commented Nov 16, 2019 at 14:34
  • 14
    @SurpriseDog: Then why do you need an official list? Any neopronoun should do.
    – user102937
    Commented Nov 16, 2019 at 17:03
  • 9
    In the end a pronoun is used to avoid using a noun ( the name ) all the time, but that's it. Using the noun as fallback is verbose, but valid. Some languages don't use pronouns all the time like english does, or have a very strict small subset of them that can't be modified without altering the whole language.
    – CptEric
    Commented Nov 18, 2019 at 8:12
  • 3
    @einpoklum-reinstateMonica Serious question: What makes "grimble" a less legitimate pronoun than "shpee", "xim" or "peilonrayzelf"?
    – MechMK1
    Commented Nov 22, 2019 at 14:36
  • 2
    @einpoklum-reinstateMonica that similarity may make xim less challenging (or more challenging, depending on who you ask) but it doesn't make it more valid. Some people explicitly don't want their gender expression to be defined in relationship to male or female.
    – De Novo
    Commented Nov 22, 2019 at 15:59
  • 1
    @einpoklum-reinstateMonica So your definition, if I understand correctly, is that a neo-pronoun is not allowed to be longer than 3 or 4 characters? I have not seen this restriction mentioned anywhere, be it on Stack Exchange or anywhere else.
    – MechMK1
    Commented Nov 25, 2019 at 14:28
  • 1
    @MechMK1: No, for several reasons: 1. It's not my definition, I'm just trying to interpret what other people do. 2. It's not a definition, it's more of a rule of thumb. 3. It's not about length per se, but rather whether it seems to have some rationale. If someone told me their pronouns were abc/def I'd tell them to get lost.
    – einpoklum
    Commented Nov 25, 2019 at 15:10
  • 1
    @einpoklum-reinstateMonica But why? I could decide that I want to be refered to by neo-pronouons, regardless of how well they adapt to existing pronouns. Perhaps in an effort to express how I feel like existing norms don't apply to me, I desire my pronouns to be "bahtreplohmep", and according to the current CoC, anyone has to respect that. The whole point is that it is impossible in practice to tell "legitimate" and "illegitimate" neo-pronoun users apart, because that would require the ability to read minds, a skill I assume few moderators possess.
    – MechMK1
    Commented Nov 25, 2019 at 19:49
  • 2
    @einpoklum-reinstateMonica I disagree. It assumes that neo-pronouns follow any specific rules, which could be applied to tell if any word is a valid neo-pronoun. This assertion is simply false. Furthermore, pronouns don't express intent, they express identity. If I would say my pronouns are him/his, what can you judge about my intent? I might be a neo-pronoun user usually, but the recent controversy made me pick "wrong" pronouns on purpose.
    – MechMK1
    Commented Nov 26, 2019 at 12:28