This is easier than it sounds. You almost never use personal pronouns first-person, at least to the snowflake-in-rage. "JoeAnne, is this your paper?" Even "Is this yours?" is still gender-free. "JoeAnne's paper was well-written, but it needed pronoun definition." The pronoun "it" refers to zir paper, not zir. Try it for a while and it does not feel as silly as looking up the snowflake's preferred pronoun in your pronoun database. (You have one on your cellphone, don't you?)
No. Just use the correct one - not the made-up idiotic nonsense "they" want. Let 'em squirm in their own cesspool.
ReplyDeleteI prefer seeing them get angry over not being misgendered but still not using their made-up pronouns.
DeleteThis is the best way to combat the lunacy. You didn't misgender them, but they aren't getting to corrupt the language more than it is naturally corrupted by playing their pronoun game.
DeleteYou do have to refrain from using their "dead" name, though.
PS: I use "it" a lot.
ReplyDeleteMy pronouns:
ReplyDeletehttps://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKf84LmHCNSvTI6NHITPaOYbo9beAuyKE_CJMiE9RzAM_tQ0RHa8dfl3BKMyJ6JYpoY3X-gvjXt02T6zq4w3vafvx4cZSfQEDAM34qfaqvjCGIdcN29KyPe53IxSkQXocPmpkSoBM32nufaP4TQV9Y5WnuGcvIqZcs9rv4FPeQXTKjmjHqoDlDO6dBT_02/w622-h640/904.png
When I bought some books as Christmas gifts at REI in November, I was helped by a young woman who had the official REI name badge with her name and her Preferred pronouns, "She and Her." What a relief.
ReplyDeleteI have told some people that if I have to choose a set of pronouns for me, mine will be "His Eminence", or possibly "His Excellency." Unlike Doctor or Professor (which can work as pronouns, too), those are not the names of ranks or offices.
What about just using surnames? Smith! Jones! Wisniewski!
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