this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2026
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I would argue that using they/them is gendering someone correctly. They are gender-agnostic pronouns and can refer to any gender, combination of genders, or lack thereof. They are only potentially insulting in that they are less specific-- which is the entire point of a pronoun. I think if it's clear from other interactions that you accept someone's gender identity, it's pretty dumb to be criticized for not being as specific as someone would want you to be when using a term that's supposed to be general.
It's insulting when it's going out of your way to do it. If you only ever used they/them for everyone, it'd just be the norm. But if you call everyone who wants he, she, or they by exactly what they prefer, and neopronouns also as they, you're treating them differently.
Fwiw I both agree that fundamentally neopronouns aren't helping with overall gender perception but also that if someone prefers them I'll do my best to accomodate because it doesn't hurt me to do so.
I've never actually met someone irl who uses neopronouns, so I haven't been able to test how I would actually respond. I tend to use they/them pretty often, including as a replacement for he/she, so I would probably use that unless there was a very strong preference not to. If I did refuse to use a neopronoun for some reason, I'm still not sure that that would qualify as treating them more differently than I would be if I used the neopronouns-- either I would be breaking their preferences or my understanding/usage of the language, there would be no way to behave entirely the same as the situation itself is different. It would certainly be kinder of me to use the neopronouns and for that reason I probably would, but I would not actually believe that to be more correct than using "they", so I'm not really sure.
Do neopronouns typically convey a specific gender identity? It would make more sense to use them if they did, but afaik there is no consistent mapping of neopronoun to gender identity, which makes the argument for using neopronouns instead of "they" kind of moot-- if they do not signify gender then you would not be affirming someone's gender by using them, only their language preferences.
Personally I don't believe language preference is something that must be accommodated in the same way that identity is-- for example I have met cis people who acknowledge that they are cis mechanically but for ideological reasons refuse to be called cis. This makes no sense to me; if the definition of a term is valid then the term itself is. Same goes for pronouns, if they/them is valid (which it always is, since it's gender and plurality agnostic) then I don't think it makes sense to deny its use or mandate the use of another term. It's nice to accommodate someone's pronoun preferences, but I would not consider it bigoted to use non-preferred terms which validate someone's identity.
You would argue it, be right on a technicality the same way a bigot can refer to a binary trans person as them to communicate their refusal to accept their identity.
You can talk all you want about why you do something but if I consistently hear my preferred pronouns not being used by you I'm left to make an assumption about your character.
Right, but afaik neopronouns don't have a specific gender they refer to, so using neopronouns instead of they/them isn't any different regarding accommodating your gender identity, it's only different in terms of accommodating your preferences for the language used to describe that gender. It is a signal of potential gender identity denial, but it's such a low-power signal that any other signal should easily overpower it. It should be clear from someone's other behaviors what they believe.
You don't get to decide how someone interprets your message. I do not use neopronouns but I'm going to tell you right now it's the height of hypocrisy dictate which pronouns should be ignored.
I swear to god people will write paragraphs about why its okay for them to not use someone's preferred pronouns instead of just changing a word in their lexicon for that person.
God forbid we accommodate the people we interact with.
You're applying this way too personally. I am not talking about whether I personally would use someone's neopronouns. I'm talking about whether it makes sense to expect them to be used. Plenty of things in society don't make sense to do but unfortunately must be followed to signal various things, such as gender acceptance.
Anyways many of these issues have several "simple" solutions. I try to determine what is the right thing to do, not what is the easiest. It's usually easy to accommodate someone-- using neopronouns or accepting gender-agnostic ones isn't very hard, and both of these solutions happen daily for various people precisely because they are relatively easy-- the question is which one makes the most sense to push for societally. Since I don't believe gender is relevant to most interactions, I would push for universal applicability of gender-agnostic terms.
TL;DR: There are multiple solutions that could "just" be implemented, why do you think the one you have chosen is the best?
Addendum: Of course, you could easily say that the purpose of a pronoun is also to denote gender, and that refusing to do so by being more vague is an insult; but I don't think it's a good direction to take the language to make gender more embedded in our language. Specifying gender should be optional for when it is necessary, not an obligation to be made whenever you refer to someone. They are more than just their gender identity, and needing to refer to it whenever you refer to them (other than by name) is counterproductive to maintaining that separation, and is also semantically simpler.