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Comment by ColonelPhantom | Hacker News Reader

Calling a person by the wrong pronoun is insulting, simple as that. The social convention is: "I say 'he' if and only if the person in question is male". Thus, calling for instance a transgender woman 'he' or a cisgender man 'she', is saying you don't see them as a man/woman, thus denying a part of their identity, just like when you call them by the wrong name.

I'm sure you would agree that a man with long hair or whatever should be called 'he', so I also don't see why that doesn't extend to transgender men for example.

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I have no problem flipping 'he' and 'she'. I find some of the asks around 'they' to be too much; it works easily in some cases but not all. The demands around 'zir' and all the other pronounisms people have come up with seem excessive to me.

It is really not hard, and it demonstrates a baseline level respect for other humans. I know plenty of people who go by alternate pronouns or have changed their pronouns over the time I've known them, and even in cases where I've slipped up _repeatedly_ and used the wrong pronoun, I apologize and make a mental note to change my behavior.

Humans have been able to handle this sort of thing long before 'woke' was ever a thing: name changes due to marriage, or social pressure or immigration, or title changes like Miss/Ms. becoming Mrs.

It may be helpful to remember that the "ask" of you is a minuscule amount of effort compared to the person making the ask, who has probably agonized and struggled with their identity, their relationships, and what sort of repercussions they may face when they ask others to change how they refer to them.

It would be more respectful for these people not to attempt to impose their absurd pronoun demands on others.

What are some cases where 'they/them/their' does not work, but 'he/him/his' does?

As for neopronouns like 'zir', I don't think I ever actually encountered anyone who uses them, either online or irl, with the exception of one Twitter user who preferred 'it'. So I mostly see them as a non-issue, although if someone does prefer a neopronoun I don't see the point of making a fuss either.

> The social convention is: "I say 'he' if and only if the person in question is male".

Yes. Therefore by that convention:

> calling for instance a transgender woman 'he'

is entirely reasonable, because "transgender women" are, by definition, of the male sex.

If you don't agree with that, maybe this article will provide some food for thought: https://fairplayforwomen.com/pronouns

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