I understand that, and that's what I figured SHRN was doing, but it still twigged me. I think we'd be better off with people just kicking prescriptivists in the teeth and using singular they. It's got a long history, after all.
I don't know why "they" doesn't bother me but "zie" does; perhaps the association "zie" has with the genderqueer community and those who reject the binary, so person a referring to person b (whose gender identity person a does not know, or doesn't feel like looking for in the profile) as "zie" is assigning them a genderqueer identity? While person a is trying to avoid shoving their own gender assumptions on person b.
And, yes, dammit, use people's preferred pronouns. If someone called me "he," I'd be annoyed. (Though I periodically get mail for Mr. Feuervogel, which goes immediately into the recycling bin.) If someone referred to me as zie, it may or may not bother me, but being cis, I have the privilege of every instance of misgendering not being another knife in my side. (That, and I'm unlikely to be misgendered in person.)
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chiming
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Date: 2010-06-22 07:20 pm (UTC)From:I don't know why "they" doesn't bother me but "zie" does; perhaps the association "zie" has with the genderqueer community and those who reject the binary, so person a referring to person b (whose gender identity person a does not know, or doesn't feel like looking for in the profile) as "zie" is assigning them a genderqueer identity? While person a is trying to avoid shoving their own gender assumptions on person b.
And, yes, dammit, use people's preferred pronouns. If someone called me "he," I'd be annoyed. (Though I periodically get mail for Mr. Feuervogel, which goes immediately into the recycling bin.) If someone referred to me as zie, it may or may not bother me, but being cis, I have the privilege of every instance of misgendering not being another knife in my side. (That, and I'm unlikely to be misgendered in person.)