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?
Now you need to define “gender neutral” in a way that isn’t transphobic.
Gender neutral language simply doesn’t have gender specific pronouns. It treats everyone the same, regardless of their gender identity. I don’t see how that could be considered transphobic.
If anything it is cisphobic, as the default “they/them” (as in the example above) is used primarily by trans people, while the typically cis pronouns “he/him” and “she/her” are not used.
That definition of gender neutral is the exact one used to defend “theying” everyone despite their very visible pronouns.
They/them is not gender neutral.
Read Trans Liberation please.
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They/them is absolutely gender neutral, as it can be used for any person, regardless of their gender. See? I did it in this sentence.
Take my example from before: “A person is walking down the street. I approach them, asking for their pronouns. They smile and tell me that’s none of my business.” This works, regardless of the person’s gender identity.
Now use different pronouns: “A person is walking down the street. I approach him, asking for his pronouns. He smiles and tells me that’s none of my business.” This one only works if the person uses the pronouns he/him. (Btw, shouldn’t pronouns be sets of 3 like “they/them/their”, “he/him/his” or “she/her/her”?)
Gender neutral language isn’t about not recognizing peoples’ genders, its about omitting irrelevant information. Having gender specific pronouns draws attention to the genders of the people referred to, even if the point of the sentence is not about gender. At some point during the development of the English language, the consensus emerged that it is important to always know/mention the gender identity of everyone involved.
This is an arbitrary selection of a subset of a person’s identity however. For example, we don’t have pronouns indicating whether people are parents or not, or indicating their marital status.
Actually, we did have the latter with “Miss” and “Mrs”, until we decided that this distinction isn’t very inclusive, introducing the neutral “Ms”, equivalent to the “Mr”.
Point is, you could make up all sorts of pronouns including every aspect of a person’s identity. I’m saying that is neat and all, but if I just want to construct a sentence about a person going to the store, I might not know or want to include any part of their identity, be it their gender, marital status or age.
Sus. Again, read Trans Liberation. No investigation, no right to speak.
This isn’t about gender, my point would still stand if transgender people didn’t exist and he/him and she/her were all the pronouns we had. It is about identity, which parts of it we focus on, and how much information we subliminally reveal or require each time we talk about someone.
Gender is just a small part of identity, yet it is arbitrarily the one thing dominating and determining pronouns in the english language (and many others of course).
But I don’t feel like arguing any further, maybe you don’t understand, or maybe you just don’t even read what I’m saying.
But here’s an idea: How about you come up with some arguments instead of lazily referring to some perceived authority?
And again, trans erasure. I also don’t feel like arguing, which is why I’m all but begging you to read a fucking book from an expert instead of continuing to dig into your position.