What's something you used to do/see/say but don't anymore because you don't feel it's right?
Me personally? I've become much less tolerant of sexist humor. Back in the day, cracking a joke at women's expense was pretty common when I was a teen. As I've matured and become aware to the horrific extent of toxicity and bigotry pervading all tiers of our individualistic society, I've come to see how exclusionarly and objectifying that sort of 'humor' really is, and I regret it deeply.
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This is what bugs me about chosen pronouns, it's like a right someone has to tell other people how to use language, that can get complicated and needs memorization. People should have leeway on the words they use, even if they shouldn't be making unwanted assertions about other peoples gender. Would be better to just have a set of genderless pronouns that are always polite/safe to use.
I resonate deeply with this. I can't be bothered to memorise all these pronouns. I'd of course do it for people I am close to, though.
I maintain that "they/them" is that always-safe genderless pronoun type.
I do use singular they a lot for lack of alternatives, but it can get pretty awkward when both an individual and a group of people are part of the context of your statement. Do you accept the ambiguity and that people may misinterpret you? Spend a lot of time structuring your words to fight against that ambiguity? Overuse the word 'person' instead of using pronouns? I think it would be a strict improvement to the language if we just made 'xe' or something a real word.
Agreed.