If they ask for it :shrug: also their tld is literally .gay so I think they’re pretty aware of what they’re asking for with their pronoun preference.

If it asks for it.

The page literally says the pronouns are "it/she" so you can call her "she" and no one should be offended, correct?

Doesn't sound right to me. A normal clause of that form would look like "she/her" and indicate that the pronoun is "she" as the subject of a clause and "her" otherwise.

This would indicate that maia wants to be referred to as "it" as the subject of a clause and "she" otherwise.

Both preferred multiple alternatives for nominative case (“it/she”) and preferred single alternatives for nominative and accusative case (“she/her”) are commonly used. When at least one of the pronouns involved are traditional pronouns rather than neopronouns this is pretty clear as to which is being used (though unless they are both standard pronouns, its ambiguous as to the accusative case to use with the neopronoun, but of course it indicates that the standard pronoun and its corresponding accusative form are acceptable, so that’s not really a problem), though if they are both neopronouns it might be ambiguous in theory (in practice, if they are both neopronouns, its always the second nominative/accusative form, not the multiple alterantives form.) Occasionally, you’ll find neopronouns presented in a triplet where the third is possessive case (which really should always be the case with neopronouns, since otherwise you’re left to conjure up your own possessive if one is needed.)

No, you misunderstand. You need to apply some common sense, not rigorous logic.

“they/he” and “it/she” indicate alternatives, whereas “she/her” indicates different cases.

That.....frankly doesn't make sense, or it breaks the English language in ways that I'm not familiar with(admittedly it's not my first language).

Do you mean that instead of saying "it's her apple" you'd say "it's she apple"?

> That.....frankly doesn't make sense, or it breaks the English language in ways that I'm not familiar with

Correct; it is massively ungrammatical.

> Do you mean that instead of saying "it's her apple" you'd say "it's she apple"?

No possessive form is indicated. But instead of saying "I gave it a dress", you would say "I gave she a dress".

Well, thank you for explaining. I have complete respect for anyone's choices in this area but I'll leave the opinion on this particular choice to myself.

Edit: looking at other comments, it seems like it might not be the correct explanation after all?

As someone else noted, GP is just misunderstanding a frankly confusing subject. There are essentially two common ways for people to specify their pronouns.

Some people desire a single set of pronouns, and indicate this using the nominative/accusative pair (she/her, they/them, ze/zer).

Other people accept either of two different sets of pronouns, and indicate this preference using the two nominative forms separated by a slash (she/they, they/he, and apparently, it/she).

We should introduce that community to the Pipe character so they can disambiguate between the two forms.

Isn't "they" wholly inclusive? It is a genderless pronoun.

It's not good that you are uncomfortable when it asks you to talk about it with its preferred pronouns. It's 2023, it's about time you try to do what it ask you to do. When it tells you its preferred pronouns, try as hard as you can to follow it.

How dare you call it not good. It did a really neat hack here.

There's a difference, though, between

> This person is female and I'm not comfortable referring to her as 'it' because females are 'she'

and

> This person is a human being, and 'it' is used to refer to objects. It's demeaning to call a human being 'it' and makes me uncomfortable

The later is, at least imo, much more defensible.

In the absolutely fantastic novel Too Like Lightning there was a character that is famous for the life-like dolls made of it. Eventually it comes to term with the fact that its preferred identifier is "it" because it feels more comfortable being referred to as a doll, or inhuman, i.e. literally objectified, than it does with being considered traditionally human.

I also feel uncomfortable using "it" as a pronoun, luckily this person seems comfortable with "she/her" as well so we can just use those instead.

If someone tells me they are happy and comfortable being referred to as "it", and that situation makes me uncomfortable, isn't that a "ME" problem?

Why is the discomfort of it not being called it (morally >) than the discomfort of someone who finds it demeaning to use it on people.

"It" has a pretty clear meaning in English, and it is not as a pronoun for people.

You seem eager to reduce this to "just" a pronoun issue, but it's not the same as calling someone "he" or "she", whatever they might prefer.

No one gets to single-handedly (re)define the English language for everyone else. "It" in this usage does not fall in to normal English usage, other than to mock people. That they want to use it nonetheless or whatever reason, that's fine with me. I will always listen to that and do my best to oblige with that within reason. However, radically different meanings for words in common grammatical structures, for me, falls outside of "within reason". Other people may choose different, and that is fine too.

I'm pretty sure you've been trolled.

It seemed serious, but at this point, who knows any more?

> Knock Knock

> Who's There?

> It's me, Bill Gates!

> "It" has a pretty clear meaning in English, and it is not as a pronoun for people. Therefore you're not Bill Gates or a person.

Maybe it’s something well know in the us/ gay sphere, but what does it refer to? I get to call the person he/she backwards so she/he feels acknowledged, I get calling one’s/they instead of he because it may be a woman and they will feel discriminated. But it referring to a person?

My pronouns are you/your.

Whatever you have to say, say it to my face, and not in third person behind my back.

We are a first person singular we user, to celebrate our freedom from the aristocratic yoke.

No one is obliged to endure morally sane discomfort for the sake of someone else’s comfort.

This isn’t “I don’t want to call her him because he’s a she.” The person you’re replying to has a very valid discomfort with reducing a person to an object’s pronoun. Completely understandable and defensible and beyond the apparent needs of the author.

As an older trans person who's been subjected to targeted hate speech in public, I used to be pretty uncomfortable with younger trans people using it/its pronouns. It's understandable, let's give people some grace.

I can understand that feeling.

When English got rid of ‘thou’ and “thine” those were replaced by referring to everyone with the more polite “you“, that surly helped adoption.

> the homepage really does say "hello i am maia arson crimew (it/she)".

> I'd feel uncomfortable referring to anyone as "it" though

In Five Children and It (published in 1902), the "It" of the title is a magical creature. However, one of the characters is a human baby who is always referred to with the pronoun "it". I glossed right over that reading the book as a child, but I found it pretty disturbing rereading as an adult.

However, once rereading the book had called the phenomenon to my attention, I noticed that it's not uncommon for me to want to refer to a generic child as "it". I wouldn't refer to a specific child that way.

So referring to a person as "it" is sometimes the normal thing to do. (And, of course, intensely inappropriate at other times.) On the other hand, the intro appears to specify that maia arson crimew wants people to use "she", an exclusively subject pronoun, as the object pronoun for she. That is deeply unnatural and virtually nobody will be able to comply; it's much worse than using "it" for a person.

"Child" is gender neutral and was historically neuter when English had genders.

I guess calling a child "it" is impersonal. Calling it "it" to its face is just strange since "it" is 3rd person.

> "Child" is gender neutral and was historically neuter when English had genders.

By 1902, that time was several hundred years in the past.

> Calling [a child] "it" to its face is just strange since "it" is 3rd person.

Sure, but I haven't mentioned any such usage.

> However, one of the characters is a human baby who is always referred to with the pronoun "it". I glossed right over that reading the book as a child, but I found it pretty disturbing rereading as an adult.

While it's uncommon today (and I think uncommon even by the time that book was written), use of 'it' for babies was definitely A Thing at one point.

‘Yotsu’ in Japan was used to refer to low caste/outcaste people

Claudette Colvin was called it by the police when she was arrested

But I do have a trans friend who prefers it pronouns so that’s a sample size of one in the opposite direction

I think a similar case would be if someone black asked you to call them an n word. They may be comfortable with that, but I am afraid others probably won't.

* * *

Because we already arbitrarily assign different pronouns to different people, usually based solely on their appearance, and there is no harm in letting people pick which type of gendered (or less gendered, in the binary sense) association they'd rather have.

There's an easier fix for that, instead of having to memorize everyone's "unique" preference (xy/xor/xeps), change the language to avoid the issue. "They" for everyone is the only logical evolution.

My native language doesn't have a he/she differentiation..

You don't have to memorize shit. When you refer to someone and they tell you "I prefer pronoun X" just use that pronoun for the rest of the interaction. If you interact with them regularly or they are important to you somehow, you will remember, the same as you remember a pet name or nickname or screenname. If you forget and interact with them again they will remind you. They will likely not be angry if you forget occasionally, and using their chosen pronouns will please them and endear them to you. They only get hurt if you obviously do it on purpose.

It's literally identical to the concept of learning someone's name, yet humans largely don't have a problem with that.

I don't know about you but I mostly refer to people with they/him/her/his/hers when they are not present.

What? When you're interacting with a person, you don't need to know their pronouns. They are the first person in front of you, so the pronouns are "you" and "yours".

The third person pronouns kick in when talking about them, to someone else, almost certainly in their absence.

That may happen in writing.

* * *

I know someone who says... it's pronouns are "it"... and using that really does make me uncomfortable, I agree. I _think_ (it hasn't necessarily told me this directly) that the choice may be intentionally to make people uncomfortable... like, why shouldn't you be uncomfortable thinking about gender? Lots of people are uncomfortable with gender, why shouldn't you be too? I think of it as a sort of art project... I'm not sure if it would be comfortable with that characterization or not. It also understands that some people can't handle this and will accept "they" without being offended, but really prefers "it", so if you're its friend and want to make them comfortable.... (I still don't love writing it even here with anonymous referent!)

I thought it was the right that accused the left of being precious snowflakes who aren't able to handle being uncomfortable ever? Why should you being uncomfortable be a blocker to referring to someone as they prefer, right? Being uncomfortable is part of life.