One conversation made me think about something I always found quite difficult to figure out without explicitly asking an individual about it, but as someone with social anxiety, I don't always feel comfortable asking the person, in fear of me accidentally annoying the person, because who knows, maybe they've heard the question a million times and it gets tiresome after a while to answer the same thing over and over.
So on the actual topic, I wish there was an official way to differentiate the ways people use multiple pronouns. If we see he/they or she/they, our brains often go "they probably don't mind either", but it's not always the case. For a lot of people it can be either of those three:
- you can use any of these, I'm completely fine with either,
- please use them interchangeably/i enjoy if people swap them every now and then.
- a kind of way to describe priority: she/her are my pronouns, but if you use they/them, I'm fine with them either/fine if you don't know me
But all of them are usually marked with similar symbols, and it's pretty much impossible to tell the difference without getting to know the person a little bit. Here's a few examples of how those three could be differentiated:
- you can use any of these (example: he/she/they/xe/its)
- use them interchangeably: (example: he x she x they x xe x its)
- priority: (example: he>she>they>xe>its)
Those are just examples and of course the symbols are nowhere close to perfect, but I just wanted to explain what I meant. I'm honestly surprised that I haven't really heard people talk about it, but it would help so much with making sure I talk to someone in a way they find to be the most comfortable. Especially once you get to know more people, remembering everything can be difficult, and having extra indication I think would be a welcoming change, since nowadays we're talking a lot about how important is to properly gender or refer to someone, but I always thought this specific topic hasn't been brought up much, and I'd love to see a change like this in the future. It might be a little awkward or difficult to get used to, but after some time I think it'd be for the better.
What do you think about it? Maybe you have an idea to solve this? Feel free to share them in the comment section.
