And while you're here, think about going into settings and customising your displayname with pronouns. Makes the English lemmyverse a more welcoming and diverse place while also benefiting yourself in the form of extra upbears when people see you out and about!

[–] Pandantic@midwest.social 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I wonder what your thought is about not having the pronouns, not because I don't want to be welcoming and supportive, but because I don't want people to know. I use them irl (email, zoom, conferences, etc), but on the internet, no one knows you're a dog. Would this be a case for they/them even if I don't use these irl or is this disrespectful?

[–] AcidSmiley@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

One of my favorite usernames here has always been that of @GenderIsOpSec@hexbear.net, so i can relate.

In my opinion it's perfectly fine if you pick a gender neutral option for the sake of anonymity. You should just go with something you're comfortable with. I know people who've tried to adapt they / them as secondary pronouns to normalize that and quickly dropped the idea because it actually made them feel dysphoric. I went with they / them for a few months when i started questioning my gender because i needed something more open-ended before i was certain i'm a girl and could go with she / her, and i tried that out using the tag system on here because i was still in the closet back then. Ultimately, pronouns are about a very basic right - having autonomy over how people gender you. That means it's up to you and nobody else to decide which pronouns you go with, and given how gender identity works, that can mean there's options that just feel very, very off, alienating or even hurtful when they're actually used on you. It's perfectly ok to experiment a bit with pronoun options and see what fits both you and your opsec needs. Hexbear even has comrade / them pronoun tags. We also have pronoun options like none / use name, and i actually know a couple nonbinary people who prefer that over pronouns IRL, particularly because neopronouns are even less common in my 1st language than in English (although they / them or our localized variant dey / dem / deren is by now established in queer communities here in Germany).

[–] GenderIsOpSec@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago

Since I was summoned, might as well share some. My favourite pronoun choice is "Undecided" I went from -> Undecided to They/Them/Undecided to They/Them and then finally She/Her as my transitioning process advanced.

You'd think something as simple as clicking on a drop down menu wouldnt be a massive issue, but it forces you to confront yourself in ways that cis people just don't think about.