Pronoun Backlash

[Irreligious Atheist]

A place to put our pronouns on this site would actually make sense, or at least our genders. I could have sworn Rev Rye and AreWeThereYet were females, but then they posted about having wives, so I'm still not sure what they are. Men or lesbians? It appears I'm pretty shit at telling men and women and non-binary people apart based on text and avatars alone.

[arewethereyet]

A place to put our pronouns on this site would actually make sense, or at least our genders. I could have sworn Rev Rye and AreWeThereYet were females, but then they posted about having wives, so I'm still not sure what they are. Men or lesbians? It appears I'm pretty shit at telling men and women and non-binary people apart based on text and avatars alone.

Yes, you are shit at figuring out who is what.

Pretty sure I have never posted about having a wife.

[Irreligious Atheist]

A place to put our pronouns on this site would actually make sense, or at least our genders. I could have sworn Rev Rye and AreWeThereYet were females, but then they posted about having wives, so I'm still not sure what they are. Men or lesbians? It appears I'm pretty shit at telling men and women and non-binary people apart based on text and avatars alone.

Yes, you are shit at figuring out who is what.

Pretty sure I have never posted about having a wife.

Whoops, sorry about that. I misunderstood this post by you then

It's still early in the transition process, so, yeah, it's not intuitive.

The wife has two children...my mind wanders off wondering if they refer to niece's half sister as step mother?

I misunderstood and thought by 'the wife', you meant your wife had two children from a different marriage. I'm an idiot. My mistake.

[arewethereyet]

Yes, you are shit at figuring out who is what.

Pretty sure I have never posted about having a wife.

Whoops, sorry about that. I misunderstood this post by you then

It's still early in the transition process, so, yeah, it's not intuitive.

The wife has two children...my mind wanders off wondering if they refer to niece's half sister as step mother?

I misunderstood and thought by 'the wife', you meant your wife had two children from a different marriage. I'm an idiot. My mistake.

bold mine...not exactly a newsflash

[Rev. Rye]

The closest thing I have to a wife is Alison, and she's just a dakimakura of an unjustly obscure actress from the aughts:



And that's me on the left.

And we're not married because, well, not only will the State of Illinois not recognise our love, the actual Alison is married to one of the guys who directed Crank.

[Irreligious Atheist]

You must have posted something else that made me aware of your maleness. And now that I click on your username, I see that there is a place to put your gender. I feel like an even bigger idiot now.

[vulcanlogician]

When speaking of the normalization of hitherto novel x's, there are no confused conformists who will never accept them to bring bricks down on the heads of, in the first place.  People can still enjoy whatever fantasy of danger and abnormality tickles them, as we lowly normies all already do, ofc.

I, for example, am sickeningly normal and wholesome.  That's my kink.  

Normal and wholesome is about as kinky as you can get

But, just to clarify, I was speaking about individuals that were forcefully pushed to the fringes of society. And in the end, embraced that thing that "caused" society to push them there... "their freakness" or whatever you want to call it.

To observe their situation, I'd say it was wrong that they were pushed into (sometimes) rather desperate and bleak predicaments. But, at the same time, they found something more special, greater, more life-giving than society would have ever provided them with.

I'm not talking about people who "chose" nonconformity to tickle their kinks (though that is perhaps equally valid in the grand scheme). I'm talking about people who failed to meet the gender expectations of their family and/or encompassing society and were thereby ostracized... but found something truer than society could or would provide on the desperate fringes.

"Normalizing" this kind of person might be something they'd object to. And for good reason. So I don't endorse that. What I endorse is "not pushing people to the desperate fringes." But I DON'T support "normalizing" anything or anyone. "Normalizing" gender issues is a superficial project. Sure, good comes of it. But I wouldn't double down on "normalizing" shit to fix our current problem. "Normalization" can only go so far, then it's utterly useless.

[The Grand Nudger]

"Normalizing" this kind of person might be something they'd object to. And for good reason. So I don't endorse that. What I endorse is "not pushing people to the desperate fringes." But I DON'T support "normalizing" anything or anyone. "Normalizing" gender issues is a superficial project. Sure, good comes of it. But I wouldn't double down on "normalizing" shit to fix our current problem. "Normalization" can only go so far, then it's utterly useless.

I agree that it's just a small slice of all problems.

I don't know that I could personally weight their fortunate discovery as being more worth our consideration that the pool of misery in which they insist to have found it, or insist they couldn't have found otherwise (if they do).  The target of normalization isn't that person in the first place (that's just a turn of phrase).  It's to change the consequential and negative views of others about their humanity - and even shared humanity..if we drill it all the way down.  

You're giving it a short shrift as a problem solver, though.  It can go pretty far, contact and familiarity, for example, can predict levels of ostracization and antipathy alone.  Even imagined contact does this.  Even when the target or recipient or consumer doesn't want it to.  It's a powerful behavioral modifier. It can backfire too, ofc. Part of our recent unrest is down to precisely how effective all kinds of normalization in our society have been.

[Rev. Rye]

You must have posted something else that made me aware of your maleness. And now that I click on your username, I see that there is a place to put your gender. I feel like an even bigger idiot now.

Well, I did post this earlier in the thread:

That said, many people are fine with identifying as their birth gender, and, for many of them, it's easy to guess what their preferred pronoun is. For instance, if you looked at me and my beard, it's easy to assume that I'd prefer to be addressed as he, and you'd be right.

I'm just a bit more confuzzled as to why you thought I was a woman. Does the man from Nighthawks blend in too well with the background in a way that his lady friend doesn't?

[Irreligious Atheist]

You must have posted something else that made me aware of your maleness. And now that I click on your username, I see that there is a place to put your gender. I feel like an even bigger idiot now.

Well, I did post this earlier in the thread:

That said, many people are fine with identifying as their birth gender, and, for many of them, it's easy to guess what their preferred pronoun is. For instance, if you looked at me and my beard, it's easy to assume that I'd prefer to be addressed as he, and you'd be right.

I'm just a bit more confuzzled as to why you thought I was a woman. Does the man from Nighthawks blend in too well with the background in a way that  his lady friend doesn't?

Yes, I believe it was the good looking ginger lady in your avatar. That is my type, although I prefer brunette with milky white pale skin, but red heads are great too. And maybe the purple colour of your username. The same happened to me, when people assumed I was a lady because of the avatar.