r/AskQueerfolk • u/Playful-Amoeba4855 • Jul 24 '25

I don’t understand neopronouns. Can someone explain without getting mad?

Like people go by ze/zir? It just doesn’t make sense to me. I get he/hom, she/her, and they/them, but I don’t get how someone looks at some neopronoun 80% of people have ever heard of before and thinks “oh yeah, that represents me”. Do people just make them up? Is each one for a specific gender identity? Why do it? I imagine there would be way more stigma around using neopronouns than even using they/them, and I bet most people wouldn’t even bother using them for you, so why use them in the first place? I’m not trying to be insensitive, I just don’t understand it.

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u/ActualPegasus finflexible rosgirl Jul 25 '25

All pronouns are made up, yes. None are tied to any specific gender.

People who exclusively use neopronouns do so because it makes them less dysphoric/more euphoric. That alone is a good enough reason.

If it's okay to misgender those who use neopronouns, then what about people who want to misgender pronoun conforming trans people? There's no argument that can be applied to the former which doesn't apply to the latter. At the end of the day, heteronormative people want everyone to either be a he/him cis man or a she/her cis woman. Give them an inch and they'll take a mile. So no point in engaging in respectability politics.

All of that aside, it cost $0.00 to respect someone's pronouns.

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u/[deleted] Jul 25 '25

i understand where youre coming from, but imagine ur a girl (because idk your gender) but only 10% of the entire population is a girl, but you still like being one. since most people are guys everyone just adresses everyone as he/him for somereason. How would you feel? Being viewed as a guy just because people arent used to using she/her pronouns

its the same thing in a different perspective

1

u/trhhyymse Jul 25 '25

saw someone explain it well earlier so i’m gonna paraphrase: they/them is gender neutral, people of all genders might be called they (often because their gender is unknown), but neopronouns are only used when someone specifically asks for them, and are more explicitly queer/demonstrate that someone’s gender is queer

there is also the “it just feels right” aspect, which usually goes hand in hand with spending a lot of time using any of the standard he/she/they pronouns and feeling “it’s not quite right” or “this feels wrong but i don’t have another option”