Scarleteen

Hey everyone, I hope y'all are doing well. I just had a quick question.

I was assigned male at birth and I feel comfortable with that. People use mostly he/him pronouns with me, and that's absolutely fine. Now, I'm also fine with they/them pronouns because, in my mind, they are gender neutral. My question is, and it might sound stupid, does that take away from the struggles of non-binary people?

What I mean by that is I am equally fine with either. She/her pronouns aren't me, but I'm fine with he/him and they/them, those are both me. I know that for some people, only they/them pronouns apply to them and they face a lot of hardship getting other people to use their correct pronouns, but I don't have that issue.

I don't know if this post is making sense. I rewrote this a few times and can't get it how I want. Does this make sense? If not, I can try to explain it more.

Hi SpicyLemon,

I follow what you're saying! I don't think that being comfortable with they/them as well as he/him takes away from non-binary folks. It's not like there's a limited number of they/thems to go around, and that fact that you haven't had a hard time getting people to use either for you when other folks struggle to get their pronouns acknowledged is about the people in their lives refusing to respect them. That's not on you.

As long as you're clear on the fact that your relationship to they/them may be different from other peoples (which it sounds like you are), I think you're good.

Hey Sam, thanks a lot for responding. That helped clear some things up, thank you.

None of us can rep all of us, but as one nonbinary/agender person, I would actually love it if EVERYONE did what you're doing! It would normalize they/them as inclusive and neutral for potentially anyone and everyone to use, and as a much better default than he, she or he/she.

I think what you're doing is supportive of us, not co-opting, so thanks!