this stems from another conversation on this site.

a commenter used the pronoun "they" because they didn't know the gender. Commenter could have looked at an inactives users profile to see the pronouns were she/her, but they didn't.

So the question is: is it wrong to use pronoun "they" when you simply don't know or needed to know the gender? I was told that "liberals" use it aggressively/offensively to trans people, but most liberals i know aren't smart enough to know about pronouns and how to use them properly.

I've been using "they" to admit gender ignorance all the fuckin time so im just trying to see if im wrong or not. Because ive never heard of this before. and i thought this site had told me everything by now lol

edit: thank you all for the comments. ill certainly try to remember to check pronouns of inactive accounts before i talk about them, but we need to be able to debate from a reasonable position and jumping to "HOW DARE YOU SAY THEY YOU LIB" isn't going to do shit. Lenin created schools to educate workers, Hexbear is our school. and i fucking love this school.

  • Egon [they/them]
    ·
    10 months ago

    Defending using the wrong pronouns when people aren’t around anymore or are controversial.

    Yes we agree, that is controversial, where have I said anything else? I said that I just don't think it should be expected you go look up a user that's not present in a discussion to doublecheck that you use that users correct pronouns. When you're informed of your mistake you should fix it. If you're not aware of a persons pronouns, then user "they" is the norm, it's not wrong.

    yes, how dare that person(who commented above) not click the profile link and check out what a long inactive and once problematic admin preferred, instead of defaulting to "i don't know." What an egregious crime.

    What are you quoting from me here? I don't get it? I agree that when you're informed of the correct pronouns you should use them, and fix your wrongly used ones

    I'm sorry, I thought you were quoting me.
    I assume this was you giving me the link to the situation they were speaking of? It just doesn't really seem to have anything to do with this question, weird vagueposting by OP

    • citrussy_capybara [ze/hir]
      ·
      10 months ago

      Yeah, that wasn’t about you, that is the missing context from OP. It’s vagueposting to excuse defending using the wrong pronouns for specific trans people. Of course they/them for unknown people is fine and best.

      • Egon [they/them]
        ·
        10 months ago

        Yeah I got a bit confused by the formatting, I'm sorry.
        You are right that that is weird vagueposting, thanks for providing the context that OP didn't.
        Glad to hear they/them is acceptable when one doesn't know. English isn't my first language, so I'm not all up to snuff to your norms.