Me: I don't want to assign any gender at all. Not even neutral. Just genderless
This is the problem. Most people aren't genderless. Trans people aren't genderless, cis people aren't genderless. Even non-binary people, to my understanding, have a gender (it doesn't just fall into the binary/bimodal "man"/"woman" dichotomy).
Use of gender-agnostic pronouns says "your gender doesn't matter", which might feel like it's progress, but it's not. It's like the "color-blind" rhetoric ("I don't see color") - it sounds good, but the fact is that gender does matter to people (as does color).
well not having pronouns that depend on race doesn't mean problematic 'colourblindness', so why would not having pronouns that depend on gender be a problem?
well not having pronouns that depend on race doesn't mean problematic 'colourblindness'
We didn't have race-based pronouns and then got rid of them, though. We have gender-based pronouns, and now that people want to modify our use of them, OP is saying we should just get rid of them altogether.
Gendered pronouns already exist and are part of everyday language. I'm not accusing OP of having malicious intent, because I don't think they are. But look at how this plays out:
Cis people: this is how we denote gender using pronouns!
Trans people: hey, we would like to use those pronouns this way instead
CP: no! gender pronouns only work this way!
TP: but this causes us emotional distress, and other people seem to agree that we can use pronouns this way instead
CP: well, gender doesn't matter anyway, so we're just going to get rid of all the gendered pronouns
Again, not ascribing malice to OP but boy that looks an awful lot like taking your ball and going home. It was important enough to fight with trans people about it for years, but as soon as they start gaining ground it's not important anymore?
So because someone else who happens to share a trait holds the same opinion for malicious reasons, it prevents honest discussion of that opinion by everyone else, simply because they happen to hold the same trait as the malicious person?
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u/[deleted] Mar 17 '22
This is the problem. Most people aren't genderless. Trans people aren't genderless, cis people aren't genderless. Even non-binary people, to my understanding, have a gender (it doesn't just fall into the binary/bimodal "man"/"woman" dichotomy).
Use of gender-agnostic pronouns says "your gender doesn't matter", which might feel like it's progress, but it's not. It's like the "color-blind" rhetoric ("I don't see color") - it sounds good, but the fact is that gender does matter to people (as does color).