Pronouns

[Guest Gabochi]

Ok I know I feel comfortable with either pronoun. What are your opinions? Are you ok with both or neither?

[Guest Donna Jean]

.

I live full time as a woman.....it had better be "Her, Hers and She"....lol

Donna Jean

[Guest Alder]

XD I'm so used to female pronouns I respond to them, but I adore being called male pronouns.

[Guest Gabochi]

XD I'm so used to female pronouns I respond to them, but I adore being called male pronouns.

Same here. Except vice versa lol

[Guest Micha]

Just call me wonderful and we be good.

[Guest Gabochi]

Just call me wonderful and we be good.

Ok mr. wonderful (if that's the pronoun you choose lol)

[KieranD]

I prefer sie/hir. My second choice would be they and other gender neutral pronouns then he.

[Guest Risu]

I will share with you a favorite quote of mine from Dana International.

"I don't like titles or lables (or pronouns). I am what I am, I feel what I feel. You can call me a coward if you want to, just let me live my life." - Dana International.

That about sums it up. However since humans require a means to identify someone/something I suppose female pronouns will be preferred to male.

[Guest Juniper Blue]

In my day to day life I am usually referred to with female pronouns by loved-ones, friends and acquaintances. Yet, I get a "Sir" out in the public fairly often and this makes me smile to myself. I would prefer a world where "Hello" and "Thank You" is not followed by a "Sir" or Ma'am" it feels odd to me to have that added on ... but I suppose that it is a cultural formality that may change with time. On-line, I prefer male pronouns. It is nice to be seen and addressed as male but it is not something that I need. On forums like this it feels good to let this side of me be actively and intentionally recognized. For me ... I feel like it would be a hassle to switch pronouns and my name at 42 ... I hate hassles ... but if it really bothered me, I would make this transition. Luckily, my birth name is not too outrageously terrible. I can live with it.

- J

[Guest Alder]

Though I'm only 26 I can agree with you on the hassle part Juniper. Just yesterday an acquaintance I've known since I was 16 asked which I would prefer while introducing me to his wife. It made me happy enough just that he asked out of respect for me, so I told him either would be fine since he'd known me for 10 years as with female pronouns and I have a thing about wanting to be difficult on others if they've known me for a long time but haven't been in touch in awhile. Recently made friends though, I prefer male pronouns from. I will also aggressively correct others when they refer to another person by the wrong pronoun (no matter which pronoun they prefer).

[Guest Micha]

After paying attention to my own day to day living, I've come to see that I don't hear a lot of pronouns in average conversation. Is this just me?

Lately I've been treating words like "boy" and "girl" as dirty words, and trying not to use any vocabulary to divide people by sex. Have to catch myself every once in a while, but not often. Sex does not need to be as much a basis for segration as it is.

[Guest Alder]

I hear gender pronouns way to often in my day to day... -sigh- for everyone, though in particularly in my English class since I'm the only "girl" half the time since the two girls are absent often, during just about every class something about "why do girls do _____" will come up and the guys will look to me for answers leaving me to give them an utterly confused "how the love should I know?" look.

[Guest Micha]

the guys will look to me for answers leaving me to give them an utterly confused "how the love should I know?" look.

God I know that feeling.

"Why are guys such jerks?"

"HowthehellwouldIknow?!" o.O

[Guest Alder]

the guys will look to me for answers leaving me to give them an utterly confused "how the love should I know?" look.

God I know that feeling.

"Why are guys such jerks?"

"HowthehellwouldIknow?!" o.O

the guys will look to me for answers leaving me to give them an utterly confused "how the love should I know?" look.

God I know that feeling.

"Why are guys such jerks?"

"HowthehellwouldIknow?!" o.O

and then there's asking about the girlfriend/boyfriend advice!! Because for some reason, my males have yet to realize... I do not react to things like my female friends... and yet still ask "what should I do?" ... "um... ask _______, she knows what she wants. Not me." -sigh-

[Guest broken doll]

I get so confused. I answer to she/her, etc but they never feel quite right. To be fair, he/him is just as uncomfortable. it?! maybe? I'unno, people don't seem to understand anything else in the English language if it's not male or female then it's a it generally, so I suppose I'd prefer it over he/she.

[Guest Micha]

Hmm. . .

"It."

No, I couldn't go with that.

Feels to dehumanizing, like it makes me an object.

All throughout my wife's pregnancy we chose not to find out what the sex of our baby was. So my baby was called "it" a lot. At first it was annoying, but after a while it became infuriating. I wanted to smack people and shout at them "that's my baby you're calling an 'it!'" Like, I know how to refer to my baby as "my baby." I don't need pronouns, cuz I know it's a baby and the baby is mine: my baby.

But that's jus me. Not some standard anyone else should hold, just mine. No judgement, no trashtalk, just my honest opinion.

[Guest runner2guy]

I think in several languages that go in for sexual differentiation of words, the juvenile of the species is neuter - I've always thought this is true, but I'm open to correction. One possibility which you often come across in English is to use "they", but I always think this is unwieldy. Myself, I'm happy to accept, and to use, the pronoun for the physical sex as the prime form. For better or for worse, I'm male down there, and so officially I'm "he", but I'm very happy when I'm called or referred to as "she". After all, I'm not regularly on show down there .

[Guest hoffnungsvollharuna]

I'm used to female pronouns, but I think I prefer male pronouns. Honestly, though, from day to day...I prefer different pronouns depending on the day. If I were called the same pronouns my entire life...I'd feel very unhappy .

[Guest Abner]

I'm not sure which pronouns I feel comfortable with. I feel out of place with both male and female pronouns, and although I have a fondness for the new Spivak pronouns (basically 'they/their/them' etc., with the initial 'th' dropped), I haven't used them yet.

[Guest Micha]

the new Spivak pronouns (basically 'they/their/them' etc., with the initial 'th' dropped),

I've been using these in my head, kind of an excersise I guess, and it's something to get used to. The akwardness is just from it being new and unfamilliar, but it also has a very cool sound to it. I feel it can be pulled off smoothly, honestly.

[Guest Abner]

I've been using these in my head, kind of an excersise I guess, and it's something to get used to. The akwardness is just from it being new and unfamilliar, but it also has a very cool sound to it. I feel it can be pulled off smoothly, honestly.

I think so too. I also think it's a good pronoun to try to spread into the public as a gender-neutral third-person singular, since it's very easy to remember the trick to it: drop the 'th' in all the third-person plural pronouns.

[Guest Lady_Robin]

Depends. If I am dressed in drab male clothes I would find it odd, but amusing to be referred to with female pronouns. If I am in female clothes trying to pass I would find it disheartening to be referred to with male pronouns, and would take it as a compliment and courtesy to be referred to with female ones. I haven't tried wearing male clothing and still trying to appear feminine though... hmm... *thoughts clatter around in my brain*

Overall I would prefer female, I suppose.

[Guest Micha]

Hey yo, I just had a crazy idea. What if all the gender specific pronouns on this site were edited through the filter to gender nuetral pronouns? At least for a short time, just to see how people react to it, how they adapt, even to see how people interact with eachother without thinking about the other person's sex or gender. Just remove everything gender specific and see how people function.

Not gonna hold my breath for it, but doesn't it at least sound intriguing?

[Guest Alder]

That would be a pretty interesting social experiment. Though I'm wondering how it would go by with some of the community that have a strong need to here the proper pronouns for validation; especially when they have nowhere else to here them.

I know, I spent the day with my extended family and I never realized just how often they say my full birth-name, and "woman" "female" along side the simple "she" "her" and "hers" .... As I've only told two family members I wouldn't expect my family to use male pronouns, but the use of my name along with "woman" and "female" seemed excessive. I do suspect one was doing so in order to get me to verbalize any form of protest... or I could be reading into his actions to me.

[Guest runner2guy]

There's problems with words other than pronouns sometimes. When I'm serving behind the bar, am I a barmaid or a barman? The word barmaid is used for females between 16 (minimum age to serve behind bar, but two years younger than being allowed to drink) and 80, so I qualify, but I could also be a barman - it all depends on who is looking at me, and how I happen to be dressed and on my mood on any particular day. I have to be one or the other - there is no neuter word that can be used. Barperson would be absurd. Cellarman might do, and I'm that sometimes too, but I could also be cellargirl, and I suppose I could be called that too.