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Piment [they/them, comrade/them] @hexbear.net

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.

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115 comments

  • I am a cisgendered man with a generally drab sense of style and a rather boring life, but I'm also bisexual/pansexual and, deep within me, is the soul of a raging and flamboyant queer dying to love and to be loved. I loathe the idea of being lumped in with straight, cisgendered men just because I use he/him pronouns. Oh, and if anyone wants to levy any "allegations" towards me, you had better do to publicly and with receipts; my love for my queer comrades in general -- and my trans comrades specifically -- burns with the heat of ten thousand suns.

    • I do not want to levy any allegations or challenge your care for your queer comrades. What I take issue with is the idea that only straight cis men are capable of chauvinistic behavior towards women, which is untrue. For the record I don’t believe you specifically are guilty of such behavior so this is not in any way meant as an accusation, I’m speaking in general terms. As an analogy, I live in the west, and just because I’m a queer POC doesn’t mean I’m incapable of exhibiting western chauvinism.

      • The CIA literally did ads to that effect "queer imposter syndrome POC" or whatever. We should always remember that more important than identity is action, and identity isn't a substitute for theory or praxis.

        This doesn't mean that cishet comrades shouldn't be doing selfcrit nor does it mean that those of us in the west should recognize when to defer to our comrades in the third world. There's obviously a difference (personal identity vs position as a subject of a particular historical regime). However, essentializing any identity -cishet, queer, POC, etc. - is anti-marxist and anti-materialist.

        The reasons for the predominant misogyny from cishet men isn't something inherent to being cishet men. It's their historical becoming in a culture that has normalized that misogyny, and their choice not to do the work to cleanly break from it.

        I'm too tired to tie this back into the beating the allegations meme. If someone wants to continue the materialist thread be my guest, but I just think its important to keep some perspective about these things and remember that there are limits to identity analyses we should recognize as Marxists and materialists.

        • I’m not essentializing any identity. In no way am I implying that male chauvinism is inherent to men just on the basis of being men. I think theory and material analysis is incredibly important when it comes to analyzing issues surrounding identity. In fact I think that claiming that non cishet men are incapable of male chauvinism is literally anti-materialist and more essentializing than realizing that men, as a class in the current gender system of patriarchy, hold power over women as a class (patriarchy is not a class system that is inherent to anything, nor will it last forever.) The idea that material analysis cannot apply to an analysis of disability, or queerness, or any other form of marginalization is something that I wholly reject.

      • You are absolutely correct, and I by no means intended to use my queerness as any sort of shield from criticism or critique. And, I suppose, my comment about "'allegations' towards me" was written in a moment of passion. What I think I'm trying to say is that I need to learn to be a better person, and having specific instances my own behavior, rather than the general behavior of cisgendered men, "under the microsope" would be more helpful. Of course, this is no one else's responsibility, nor am I implying it should be. Am I rambling? I'm rambling.

        • Thank you for doing self-crit. We make more generalized observations on public forums like hexbear because we don’t all know each other very well, but I hope that in a situation where you display chauvinistic tendencies, you have good comrades around to help guide you to change that; and vice versa that you do the same for your comrades should they do the same (to let things slide for the sake of friendship is a first type of liberalism and all that.)

115 comments