It's about respect.

[rogueslayer452]

It's so interesting to me seeing people who don't understand the concept of nonbinary deciding that just because they don't get it, it means that they can be not only completely rude but also discredit and invalidate anyone who identifies as such, along with other dismissive and ignorant attitudes all because it challenges their limited worldview that they don't want to change.

In elementary school, when we were learning about pronouns during English lessons (in the context of writing and language), it was taught that you used they/them when you either don't know a person's gender or are trying to not reveal someone's gender. This was something that I learned and used quite often ever since, both in writing and when speaking. So when learning more about gender identity, it makes perfect sense to me that someone who doesn't want to identity as of either gender binaries would prefer to use they/them, since I had a pretty good understanding of how it was used in language and, even though that wasn't what we were learning it for, it was just a natural progression of me understanding it being used for gender identity. If you can use they/them in context of not knowing someone's identity or wanting to keep someone anonymous, it shouldn't be hard to continue using those pronouns once you learn that that's how they want to be addressed as.

So please, be respectful of people's gender identities, or any other personal identity they may have.

Comments

[rogueslayer452.livejournal.com]

Ugh, people who are two-faced like that are horrible. I don't know what's worse, people who fake being accepting and then turn around and seethe/rant/let out their toxicity when they think nobody is looking, or those who are within the community who basically like to gatekeep because they don't like the expansion of the community becoming more inclusive of other identities.

Same here re:learning pronouns in school, which made it odd when I encountered some teachers in college who insisted they/them couldn't be used as a singular in language.

It's so strange.