Ok so i learned about a person coming out as non binary recently and this reminded me of my confusion about (i think they’re called rolling pronouns) she/they and he/they specifically.
I have looked around at some sites speaking to it but none of them have made it clear to me whether use of “her” or “him” instead of “theirs” in the case of someone who wishes for (s)he/they is misgendering.
I had (mis)understood before that (s)he/they meant they were fine with either their gendered pronoun AND the gender free option, but am i way off base? Is the “they” not an option?
Apologies if this is breaking rules or has been answered, i didn’t see anything on the sidebar so here goes nothin…
Some people are completely fine with all possible uses and combinations and you can just use whatever you feel like. Some are kinda fine with both, but actually do have a preference and view the second pronoun as a compromise that’s ok-ish when they’re around random cis people they don’t want to give a ted talk about the complexities of their gender to. Some will want you to use both sets of pronouns alternatingly (“she asked me to come over, but i was busy, so i asked them if we could postpone”). Some (especially genderfluid) people will have a preference that varies over time and may have markers like a pronoun pin or clothing choice to signal which pronouns they go with at a given time, like she / her when in drag and he / him when in masc-coded casual clothes.
The tl;dr is that you really can’t generalize what something like she / they means in practice and that you should just ask the person.
Edit: Also when people are out just recently, it’s possible they’re trying out which pronouns work best for them. In that case, it may be a good thing to help them get a feel for both by using both pronouns in different situations and, if you’re close enough, asking them after a while if they’re still using both sets of pronouns. A lot of people make the experience of introducing themselves with, say “they / he” and everybody just he / hims them 100% of the time, and in that case particularly, i’d ask how that person feels about this when some time has passed and there’s a good opportunity. Such choices do not always work out as intended, and people can and do change their minds about the fine print when exploring their gender.
that sounds exhausting both to insist on and understand compliant usage of
-someone who doesn’t bother with “they” irl because it’s so burdensome to tell and correct other people
That really does seem to be asking too much. There’s already so much resistance to pronouns at all without acting like a puzzlebox.
I dunno if it’s too much, but it is new and until it’s not, kinda difficult not to make a mistake. I am pleased to learn from commenters here that the consensus seems to be that one won’t offend if one makes an honest effort to call someone what they want.
Asking for someone to swap a word like “she” for a word like “they” is a completely reasonable accommodation because both of those words are the same difficulty. Asking for someone to swap a word like “she” for any of a set of options that is governed by a rule that requires memorization and real-time alternation is not only much more difficult, but is kind of an ableist demand to make of those with speech impediments, cognitive disabilities, and/or non-native English speakers.
i meant that it makes sequential sentences harder to understand when reading or listening. like the occasional singular-plural ambiguity with “they” but much more severe since you’re using multiple different pronouns to refer to the same subject when normally (and unlike they, where we had an informal singular all along), changing pronouns heavily implies changing subject. Someone who feels really strongly about being referred to with rolling pronouns like that should write a book or long poem using several of them that seems like it’s about multiple people but is actually about one. “art” heads would eat that shit up.
also, i’m not so sure that conjugation is the same mental process as word substitution, but that field isn’t my expertise.