Disclaimer: cis man here. just here to understand and learn, not to troll anyone. :transshork-happy:

I genuinely would like someone to explain to me why claiming/using pronouns for non-binary people is viewed as so important. I have nothing against that but, and I know it can sound like a chud argument, it seems "low priority" to me and I do not understand why some fight so hard for this. I mean fighting against discrimination, M4A to help people transitioning, the fact that 40% of the homeless youth in the US is LGBT, ... seem like more important fights to me.

And I know fighting for pronouns and the things I just listed is not incompatible. Still, I would be curious to know the history of how the pronouns became a revendication in the first place, and why they became such a big topic.

I was discussing this with a friend who pointed out that naming things is the very first step to recognizing they exist, the importance of linguistics in the way mentalities evolve. I also think it's something that libs in power can implement happily, appearing to fight actively for the community, without addressing the more complex issues. But neither of us really identifies as non-binary so I thought the best way to know more was to ask you directly.

PS: trans right are human rights

  • MichelLouise [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    Ok now I read the full response. I would feel helped if you read mine:

    You seem to assume that I’m against the “fight” for pronouns (yes for me it’s a fight, even if it’s absurd, as absurd as the fight to be called by one’s correct name would be if it existed), and even sometimes seem to imply that I will refuse to use the correct pronouns until you explain me why I should.

    But again I’m not asking you to dance or anything. Being called by the “correct” (I hope by the end of my answer you will understand why I use quotes) pronoun is obvious. But correct me if I’m wrong, trans people revendication for the use of “they” is pretty recent. I’m curious to learn more about how it appeared, when, etc...

    I’m also thinking about “xe” or “ze”: it’s not like these pronouns have always existed as the “correct” ones while people refused to use them: these words were created and again I’m curious to know more about how they came to be.

    For instance, in my mother tongue there was no gender neutral pronoun as “they” in English. So all pronouns that are specific to non binary people in my country are words that have been created pretty recently.

    So basically I learned from other answers that calling this “low priority” was super dumb. But when I’m asking how and why this revendication came to be, I don’t know why you assume I have a maggot brain or I care about Kamala Harris because I’m cis.