There are a few users on the site without pronouns now (other than "none/use name", I mean like there is no pronoun field at all)
Was considering writing a 
patch for this unless this is intended behavior now? I would have submitted a diff but I can't build lemmy on my system to test any changes :(
It seems like the patch would be pretty easy, there is already pronoun validation code it just needs to be applied when people try to update their username
This seems like a deviation from the path laid out for us by comrade TC69
What do you think?
There is a difference between Username and Display Name. You can't "change" your username and it has different character requirements and is used for authentication. Display Name can be changed at any time using the Default UI and can be what ever you want and is not used for authentication.
Hexbear replaces the text field for Display Name with the pronouns drop down. It then combines your username with your pronouns and saves it in your display name field.
If you have API access you can update your display name to whatever you want because the UI is what enforces the pronouns not the server (as you identified).
The display name is used externally by other instances so it needs to remain compatible for federation. That way pronouns are displayed for users on other instances.
I'm not really sure if you can add validation to the field without breaking external users display names.
It's doesn't seem so difficult to me, we just have to check if local users have valid pronouns (valid in the sense of it's in a list that can be checked by a computer lol, not ideal but yeah) in their requested display name when they try to use the
save_user_settingsapi. According to makotech222 elsewhere in the thread we actually used to have validation like this but the code got lost in an update