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7:33am July 5, 2014
Anonymous asked: Do you have a preference about alternate pronouns, if someone can't manage sie/hir? I'm doing okay with them for now but I've never managed to keep hold of them long-term before, and if they start making my brain unhappy I'd rather not guess about what to use instead. (I personally can manage the usual she/he pronouns, singular they, and it reliably - I'd probably go with singular they in this case?)

Yes:

Sie/hir/hirs/hirself is my favorite.

Then either ze/zer/zem or xe/xyr/xem or any alternate spelling you’ve ever heard for any of that.  All pronounced the same as the first set.

After that, singular they, then she or he.  Anything but it.

And if there’s any that you just can’t keep track of, including my order of preference, then use any pronoun that comes to mind and isn’t “it”.

One reason it took me so long to tell people my preferred pronouns, is that I know a lot of people have trouble with nonbinary pronouns, including me.  It’s common even for nondisabled people, but people with language disabilities have an especially hard time with any pronoun we didn’t grow up with.  (I grew up with sie/hir online.  Which may be one reason it’s the one I prefer the most.  I have a lot of trouble with Spivak pronouns, for instance.)

So I honestly tell people, as long as the pronoun isn’t something offensive like “it”, then anything goes and I’ll deal with it.  Heaven knows I’ve been dealing with being called every pronoun including "it" (kids start gender-based bullying young), most of my life anyway.  Because my preferences, however strong, aren’t the only other thing under consideration.  If you can’t do it, or if it’s too hard for you to do it and it’s keeping you from being able to do other things, then I’m not going to be offended in the slightest.  My best friend in the world can’t call me anything other than “she”, because while her brain is otherwise like mine, she didn’t grow up on a MUD with nonbinary pronouns built in.  She has the same amount of trouble with sie/hir that I do with Spivak.

Notes:
  1. withasmoothroundstone posted this