like idk i just think that the only solution to the problem of getting pronouns right is to do your best and be ready to apologize. any other solution offered is just an attempt to get out of that work.
like i really think these conversations are a product of contemporary performative progressive politics where everyone is more concerned with not being seen to make a mistake ever than with like, actually trying to be kind. so “just use they” is offered not as a solution to the problem of avoiding hurting people’s feelings but as a quick-fix, “can we all agree that no one can be mad at me as long as i do this.” it’s an attempt to cement a Right thing to do merely for its own sake, so that people can feel comfortable being Right, in spite of the many, many people (trans women, mostly - surprise) who say that actually, your “solution” still hurts us.
just, like, i promise that being misgendered once, on accident, and being immediately apologised to has never done anyone any lasting damage. that’s fine. we all know that assumptions take place. trying to replace them with one universal assumption - that everyone is fine being referred to by ‘they’, regardless of prior experience of that word being used deliberately to hurt them - that’s not the answer.
people are always going to get hurt where gendered language is involved because gender hurts. it is violent. that violence will not be resolved by changing what words we use, it will be resolved when the economic and political structures that enable the domination and exploitation of women by men are abolished.
but like, i know why nobody wants to hear this, because it is almost exclusively trans women who have experience with ‘they’ being used as a means of misgendering us - and even then it is only a certain subset of trans women, which, as history has taught me, even other trans women have a hard time listening to when the alternative is siding with anyone else. but for those of us who have this experience, ‘they’ is no better than ‘he.’ and i don’t see why just because we are in minority that we should be told our preference is irrelevant since everyone else is so eager to find a one-size-fits-all solution. like if you want to default to they you just need to admit that you’ve chosen that because it works for most people - and that the minority it doesn’t work for are almost all trans women who’s pain you’ve weighed against everyone else’s and found it less important.
at the end of the day, unless you’re asking everyone their pronouns as soon as you meet them, which you cant and shouldnt do in a lot of contexts, you are always going to end up hurting somebody, because there are always going to be assumptions involved. so just do your best. apologize when you get it wrong. if you want to default to they/them for everyone you meet then okay, but stop telling people that that’s what’s Right when it’s just the particular assumption you’ve decided to make, the particular risk you’ve decided to take within the inevitable possibility of hurting somebody’s feelings. stop saying that yours is the solution where nobody gets hurt. we all know who “nobody” is by now.
‘they’ isnt neutral. its just another pronoun that’s not mine.
