Forgive me if this was addressed, but I don't think it was. During a previous struggle session in a statement from the mod team something was said along the lines of "the he/hims aren't beating the allegations".

Personally I do not think this is acceptable, to me this is just using "he/hims" as a proxy for saying men. No one in IRL settings uses "he/hims" as a term to describe people who use him/him pronouns, no one is categorized into a grouping in general based on their pronouns as it is just a preferred pronoun not a characteristic like gender identity.

If there is misogyny going on, just say there is misogyny among users, their pronouns do not change the content of what they said, if someone with he/him pronouns and someone with she/her pronouns typed the exact same degrading thing about a woman, their pronouns would not factor into whether what they said was misogynistic or not.

I am bringing this up as it seems like people in the mod chat are still using "he/hims" to refer to people who have indicated they prefer he/him as their pronouns, you might think this is progressive because you are not directly making a gender identity assumption, but I believe this is in fact reactionary and you are just using pronouns as a proxy for the gender that is most commonly associated with the given pronoun i.e. men in the case of saying "he/hims".

I think this is at least counterproductive and at most harmful, if knowing someone's gender identity is relevant or useful, it should just be asked for.

The point of having pronouns is to accommodate and to treat people with respect and dignity about what they prefer to be called. Using pronouns as a proxy for gender identity undermines this as, treating someone with dignity would involve asking them directly what their gender identity is, not making judgments or assumptions based off of their preferred pronouns.

The only thing that having he/him pronouns indicates is that the person prefers to be referred to with the pronouns he and him. They are just personal pronouns, they are not equivalent to an ethnicity, a gender identity, a gender expression, etc.

If someone with he/him pronouns seems like they are misogynistic, that may have something to do with their gender identity, but it has nothing to do with their pronouns. It is not fair nor accurate to make assumptions of gender identity from pronouns and I think this should be avoided.

This is not to undermine any concerns about misogyny, but misogyny can and should be fought against regardless of what pronouns are involved in any instance of it.

Thanks for reading this, please know all I want is for pronouns and gender identity not to be conflated and to create a safe and respectful space for all users. And I think a good way to work towards this would be to stop using "he/hims", "she/hers", "they/thems", etc. as a way to refer to people who specify they would like to be referred to as those pronouns.

  • SchillMenaker [he/him]
    ·
    6 days ago

    I really want to agree with you because your reasoning is nearly flawless but that's the kind of thinking that gets me in trouble here. "Spiced up by throwing in some enbies/trans/gender diverse people" is dismissive of that population, however small, and that's the kind of thing that this place has been trying to stamp out.

    I'm genuinely not sure what the solution is either because I'm here for taking it on the chin as a cis guy but I wouldn't want others to ever be lumped in to that.

    • kristina [she/her]
      ·
      5 days ago

      "Spiced up by throwing in some enbies/trans/gender diverse people" is dismissive of that population

      I'm not being dismissive of them, I'm saying that the people arguing the 'not all men' shtick are basically just using them as rhetorical shields. The vast majority of interactions on this site are from cisgender people using he/him pronouns so when people are discussing this phenomena generally that is definitely what they're referring to

      • whatnots [he/him, it/its]
        ·
        edit-2
        5 days ago

        i literally feel like one of those rhetorical shields right now like you say, and it's quite uncomfortable. i'm a queer agender person that uses he/him and i don't feel othered at all by people using "he/hims" when they vent or call out issues of misogyny and other things like that. i honestly don't understand it and don't like that it's slipping into 'not all' reactionary rhetoric at all.

        like are we not meant to say down with cis anymore because cis people will feel othered??? i feel like you shouldn't feel othered by those kinds of statements if you aren't actively doing the harmful things the person was venting frustration about. i think people are just taking those kinds of statements very personally when they shouldn't be. and i think people should really examine why it's hitting them so personally rather than lashing out at marginalized users who are venting their frustration.

        idk if that makes sense i'm really bad at articulating my thoughts...

      • frauddogg
        ·
        edit-2
        3 days ago

        deleted by creator