I’ve been waiting until after Christmas day to make this post, but some of our communities recently have had a lot of noise and upset over someone that uses neopronouns that most people are unfamiliar with.
So I want to make this clear. A persons pronouns are to be respected. This is true when the user is using neopronouns that you’re unfamiliar with. It’s true even if you think someone is trolling. Pronouns are not rewards for good behaviour. They aren’t only to be respected when you like the person you’re interacting with, or if their pronouns “make sense” to you. Trolls, spammers, twitter users, it doesn’t matter who they are, your options are to respect their pronouns, or to not engage with them.
I really want to re-iterate the importance of this. Gender diverse folk are undermined, invalidated and questioned at every step of our lives. As a community, we need to be working to undo that, not creating more of it, and that means there is no space for treating pronouns (including neopronouns) as a reward for good behaviour.
This isn’t a free reign for trolls and spammers. The rules still apply. Trolling, spamming, etc will continue to be dealt with, but it’s not an excuse to act as if respecting someones pronouns is optional.
Sometimes that is the point. Some folk who don’t fit in to the binary, but for whom “non binary” isn’t right either, who don’t have the language to describe their experience and feel trapped by the impact of the binary system, and for them, subverting the system itself and dislodging the expectations that come with it is part of the reason they choose their pronouns.
It’s still an act of claiming ones own identity and of reclaiming power, whilst also being a middle finger to the system.
And as I’ve said elsewhere, your opinions or my opinions on the validity of someone elses identity is irrelevant. You can think whatever it is you think, but you don’t get to invalidate their identity in this space, because normalising invalidation for people you don’t understand hurts every gender diverse person more than the act of a single troll.
Edit - And I removed your post, because at some point you verged from questioning and trying to gain understanding, to outright invalidation. If you can remove those parts, I’ll restore the post
I couldn’t figure out how to edit it while it was “removed” so I just deleted it, it probably isn’t really helpful for me to have a post on this that is, in essence “I won’t misgender you buuuuuut” and dump all my misconceptions and realizations about irrational anxieties like y’all are my therapist. I agree with you, no matter what I believe respect requires using somebody’s preferred pronouns.