On using pronouns as a proxy for gender identity

Forgive me if this was addressed, but I don't think it was. During a previous struggle session in a statement from the mod team something was said along the lines of "the he/hims aren't beating the allegations".

Personally I do not think this is acceptable, to me this is just using "he/hims" as a proxy for saying men. No one in IRL settings uses "he/hims" as a term to describe people who use him/him pronouns, no one is categorized into a grouping in general based on their pronouns as it is just a preferred pronoun not a characteristic like gender identity.

If there is misogyny going on, just say there is misogyny among users, their pronouns do not change the content of what they said, if someone with he/him pronouns and someone with she/her pronouns typed the exact same degrading thing about a woman, their pronouns would not factor into whether what they said was misogynistic or not.

I am bringing this up as it seems like people in the mod chat are still using "he/hims" to refer to people who have indicated they prefer he/him as their pronouns, you might think this is progressive because you are not directly making a gender identity assumption, but I believe this is in fact reactionary and you are just using pronouns as a proxy for the gender that is most commonly associated with the given pronoun i.e. men in the case of saying "he/hims".

I think this is at least counterproductive and at most harmful, if knowing someone's gender identity is relevant or useful, it should just be asked for.

The point of having pronouns is to accommodate and to treat people with respect and dignity about what they prefer to be called. Using pronouns as a proxy for gender identity undermines this as, treating someone with dignity would involve asking them directly what their gender identity is, not making judgments or assumptions based off of their preferred pronouns.

The only thing that having he/him pronouns indicates is that the person prefers to be referred to with the pronouns he and him. They are just personal pronouns, they are not equivalent to an ethnicity, a gender identity, a gender expression, etc.

If someone with he/him pronouns seems like they are misogynistic, that may have something to do with their gender identity, but it has nothing to do with their pronouns. It is not fair nor accurate to make assumptions of gender identity from pronouns and I think this should be avoided.

This is not to undermine any concerns about misogyny, but misogyny can and should be fought against regardless of what pronouns are involved in any instance of it.

Thanks for reading this, please know all I want is for pronouns and gender identity not to be conflated and to create a safe and respectful space for all users. And I think a good way to work towards this would be to stop using "he/hims", "she/hers", "they/thems", etc. as a way to refer to people who specify they would like to be referred to as those pronouns.

119 comments

Just wait until you work out that it's not actually the "he/hims" engaging in a specific behaviour, and that an equal amount of users with feminine or gender neutral pronouns engage in the same behaviour. That's when it gets really nasty, from misgendering and accusations of internalised misogyny aimed at femme users (the second of which is already happening in this thread), and up to including public messages containing death threats and violent fantasties about murdering your family made from a network of alt accounts on another instance, because whoever said such was too much of a coward to do it on their main account.
Also profiling behaviour according to pronoun tags is foolish anyway. It opens up a whole new avenue to trolls and discourages honesty. If trolls are aware that the mod team is annoyed with "he/him" users, they can just cook up some accounts with that pronoun choice and inflame the situation. On the opposite end, trolls could pick "she/her" pronouns, say some vile stuff, and hide behind that. What is said is what should be judged, not the pronoun tags of who said it. Anyone can pick any pronoun tag. Lying on the internet is easy. Anyone can claim to be anything. I don't know who anyone on here actually is, you don't know who I actually am. The whole point of the pronoun tags was to have openness, honestly and to engage with others from different backgrounds and walks of life. That disappears if people think that their comments are going to be judged differently by the mod team based on what tag they pick.
I'm just commenting this as a warning for new users. I've been here since the beginning. Don't engage with this nonsense. Actually just leave. It's not worth it.