Blahaj Lemmy Meta

I think this page gives some good info on Neopronouns for those who might not be entirely in the know about them.

You're allowed to make mistakes and find it difficult. You're not allowed to decide that you're not even going to try. If you are at that point, your options are to get it right, or to not engage with the person in question.

I'm in agreement with this, but I think people should complain about the trolling behavior and the abusive behavior, and not about the pronouns, because the trolling and abusive behavior is the real problem. Not people using different pronouns or having non-standard identities.

The alternative, is an queer instance that is built from the ground up with gatekeeping baked in to its core. You may be ok with that. I am not. This instance will never be that.

Lemmy seems to be getting worse unfortunately :\

To be fair, pugjesus is an asshole about a lot of things, not just drag.

/s

I took a look and this is their normal behavior: just the topic du jour that they can use to whip up drama.

is there a definitive list of pronouns

Not really, there are lists of the more well known ones. But they absolutely are not definitive. Much like gender, prounons are a social construct. It's just a quickie handhold to communicate how that particular person sees themselves. They're essentially stereotypes of stereotypes that mold and change over time. Which is why what's considered women's work (cooking) and men's work (grilling) have shifted over time. Redneck, goth, jock & etc are all different forms of gender because it loosely describes how that person presents to the world. So a new gender/prounons is born, valid and inherently correct the moment someone says it. Gender is a social performance and there is no way to do it wrong.

Wouldn't putting neo pronouns in a profile open you up for targeting?

When I was in the early days of my transition, I literally asked the same thing! Good question! You're right, to put your new name/prounons into your name is inherently sorta doxxing yourself. You're unfortunately entirely correct that it's a risk depending on where you live. However the answer is also unfortunate and that's its worth the risk to most people. All of our situations are different, but without question there are trans folk, out or closeted, that do not get to use their chosen name/prounons in real life. If they don't use it online, the they effectively don't get to be correctly identified in any part or their life. It's out of desperation to be validated in some way. It's a bummer, but I get it. I'm lucky and privileged enough to be out full time, so I don't use my name online. But I'm absolutely not gonna judge how another person gets through the day.

is there a definitive list of pronouns?

No. In the same way there’s no defintive list of genders, it would be virtually impossible to catelog every pronoun, or every single name. So it’s important to be careful because you could always come across a new pronoun that hasn’t been written down somewhere yet. But! That doesn’t mean people haven’t tried :) https://pronouns.page/ is a helpful resource that covers multiple languages.

I usually default to “they” unless absolutely told

This is a good strategy :)

once it gets so individualized, things go a bit nuts

This is really sadly only an issue online, where trolls and generally just unkind people do pose a real threat. Always respect people’s requested pronouns, but if you do suspect something shady, @[email protected] wrote out a handy guide here https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/comment/12169135

how does one handle it while also trying to keep being proud of your identity? Wouldn’t putting neo pronouns in a profile open you up for targeting?

Yes, it often does. :( Being on Blahaj.Zone is a good start to finding respite from the constant harassment, but even here there are problems as the need for this post from Ada shows.

You sound like you've got the right idea and a good handle on things. Neopronouns are generally a very case-by-case thing and not at all common, people who use them generally will (politely and without fuss) let you know, and many neopronoun-users (not all but many) also accept they/them. It's not a thing that comes up a lot, and personally I think people tend to give the concept too much mental bandwidth. The important thing is to be respectful of each individual, if you're not actively being a dickhead you probably don't have too much to worry about on that front.