Superseding "Gender"

[Osias]

I thought those were for the gender "neutral".

[vijayjohn]

I thought those were for the gender "neutral".

Nope. I mean, "they" can be used gender-neutrally, but not "hir" AFAIK.

[Osias]

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hir

[linguoboy]

I thought those were for the gender "neutral".

Right, but they're two different forms. So just specifying "neutral" won't tell you which a person prefers (nor whether they prefer a third option).

[Osias]

[vijayjohn]

Why is that so puzzling?

[linguoboy]

"Hir", in fact, corresponds to a number of subject forms. I've seen "zie", "sie", and "ze" just from various people I know personally.

[Osias]

Why is that so puzzling?

I never talked/met online or not any non-binary people, is something I'm still trying to grasp. I'm wondering how would they use the forum. (maybe they're already here and I wasn't paying attention)

[vijayjohn]

I'm wondering how would they use the forum.

...The same way anybody else does?

maybe they're already here

Yeah, there are, although I never really saw you around the general forums until very recently (and haven't even been a member all that long myself anyway), so I don't blame you for not knowing.

[Osias]

I'm wondering how would they use the forum.

...The same way anybody else does?

I mean the proposed field for pronouns and the non-mandatory gender field. Also, if they would be annoyed a lot by being misgendering or just a little. Now I've spoken this aloud it seems obvious that the answer is "it depends on the person".

[Lauren]

Okay, I'll admit, being able to put in your pronouns is a good thing in general. On the AVEN forum, the Asexuality forum, you are able to write in your pronouns. But there, everyone is queer and many are trans/non-binary and are aware of the importance of using correct pronouns for people, and are aware that some people use pronouns other than he or she (and let's face it, most people that use they neutrally in speech, for an arbitrary/unknown person, still have a hard time using that as an individual's pronoun). Here, the vast majority of people are cis and are unaware of the importance of trans/non-binary people using different pronouns, or even that done people don't use he or she. And yeah, as Osias is trying to say, "non-standard" pronouns are a very English-centric thing. So if you present a Pronouns field to users here, most won't know what the hell it's even there for.

I'm wondering how would they use the forum.

...The same way anybody else does?

I mean the proposed field for pronouns and the non-mandatory gender field. Also, if they would be annoyed a lot by being misgendering or just a little. Now I've spoken this aloud it seems obvious that the answer is "it depends on the person".

I'm non-binary. I really fucking hate being misgendered. I use the pronoun she because I identify as mostly feminine, and also because it's easier for people to use than they or new pronouns like hir.

[Osias]

I'm non-binary.

Hi! Pleased to meet you!

[kevin]

And yeah, as Osias is trying to say, "non-standard" pronouns are a very English-centric thing. So if you present a Pronouns field to users here, most won't know what the hell it's even there for.

Not only that. Even if you know what the pronouns mean, I wouldn't know how to address someone in German if they say that the correct pronoun is "they" or even some of the constructed ones that most people haven't even heard of. Singular "they" isn't a thing in German, and I guess there are more languages like that. And this is a forum about and in various languages, so maybe English-centric is worse here than elsewhere.

The only way out seems to choose a pronoun for each language in your profile, though that feels like going overboard to me. Of course, the concerned persons might see this differently, but in that case I feel this should be requested by someone who would actually use the feature.

[Koko]

There's also signatures. You could write your preferred pronoun in English there, but your gender on your profile will tell others how to refer to you in other languages.

[Saaropean]

Could the Gender field in the user information be replaced with something less ideological and more directly useful, namely "Preferred Pronouns"? The only reason I really need to know what gender someone identifies as is in order to choose whether to refer back to them as "she" or "he" or default to "they".

But that would only apply to English. Some languages (such as Finnish) don't distinguish between "she" and "he". Some languages (such as German) don't have a gender-neutral pronoun. Remember we're a languages forum.

Besides, most people identify either as male or as female. For the others (and for those who don't want to reveal their gender), there is the option "unspecified".

[Johanna]

Personally, I don't think that using 'preferred pronoun' would be such a good idea, like others have said, it's very English-centric.

Adding more than 'male', 'female' and [unspecified] would be a much better choice, but I wonder what the options should be then... 'Male', 'female', 'in between', 'outside the binary', 'fluid', 'no gender' and [unspecified] maybe?

More than that and it becomes too confusing I think, and I hope that those who are outside the binary, fluid or no gender see it as an honest mistake and don't get offended if you for example happen to use singular 'they' instead of 'zir' (if they prefer the latter I mean)

[Car]

What about something like "other"?

For other languages, even if people started making up their own pronouns, there's always the problem of declension as well.

[Johanna]

Simply 'male', 'female' and 'other' wouldn't be inclusive enough I think, considering the rather large portion of active users who identify as neither male or female on this forum. Looking at the Gender thread, only 58% identify as cis, then there are another 8% who identify as trans women, but that leaves 34% who don't identify as either male or female.

Enough to take this under very serious consideration, especially since we try to be an inclusive community open to everyone.

Edit: I think that for practical reasons we should add a disclaimer, that if you want people to use a feminine pronoun despite being fluid for example, you should either choose 'female' or state that you prefer this in your signature.

Edit 2: About other languages, specifying your gender helps. In Swedish the pronoun to use for everything except 'male' or 'female' would be 'hen' (but for someone who does identify as male or female it can be seen as an insult), in English there are a bunch to choose from that you can specify in your signature, in yet others there is a third gender that is just that and not simply unknown (unlike English singular 'they', which can be both).

[Car]

Simply 'male', 'female' and 'other' wouldn't be inclusive enough I think, considering the rather large portion of active users who identify as neither male or female on this forum.

What could "other" stand for other than neither male nor female?

[Koko]

The problem is that "other" is too broad. You might as well have the options be "binary / non-binary / no gender."

I agree with the suggestions Johanna gives. And it seems she agrees with the signatures being used to tell others your pronoun.