I have a question about the pronouns in profiles. I hope it won’t be perceived as transphobic, that’s not my intention. I’m not a native English speaker, so perhaps that’s where my misunderstanding (and possibly awkward turn of phrases) comes from.
Why specify the object pronoun when the subject pronoun is given?
For example, why display [she/her], and not just [she]?
Shouldn’t the slash be reserved for people who recognize themselves in more than one gender, like [she/they]?
To the best of my knowledge, the convention is based on history. In previous decades, neo-pronouns like
xewere proposed to serve as gender-neutral alternatives toheandshe, and since they were new coinages, they didn’t have commonly known objective and possessive forms, so all three forms where listed.The pattern was so established that it carried over to
he,sheandtheyeven though their declined forms are commonly known.And now this is also just how we communicate that the speaker is stating their own pronouns. If I put “Pseu he” as my username, there’s a high chance of confusion. If I put “Pseu he/him” as my username, it’s obvious what I’m trying to say.
Why not something like “Pseu [he]”?
That works better in text, but doesn’t come across as well in spoken word
At least in the areas where I see pronouns, they often do it in their status or the like and may not use brackets. “He/him” seems to be more widely understood than brackets or parentheses.
People don’t seem too confused by my Alex (they), to be fair. It’s more about the punctuation than about the single pronoun.
That’s also how I understand it
I think some of it is sort of to make people with more than one pronoun, or neopronouns, stand out less or feel less like an “othered” group.
If people with “”“”“normal”“”“” pronoun usage just list their pronoun as “she” and anyone who uses multiple has to list “she/they” or someone who uses neopronouns needs to list “ve/vir/virs”, this can make those parties feel more “other”, perhaps. If everyone is listing multiple pronouns, even if they’re sort of repeating themselves, then it levels the playing field and makes things more inclusive. Just a thought.
The other thing that comes to mind is that some people might be cool with “she” but not with “her”. By specifying “she/her” you’re explicitly telling people you’re cool with it all.
At the end of the day the extra 4 or 5 characters isn’t particularly high effort or high cost, and it seems to be what people run with for whatever reason they do - so I guess that’s just how it be!
idk about the actual reason, but it’s easier for me to recognise that someone is specifying pronouns when it’s ‘she/her’ instead of just ‘she’
To me, it’s an extension of spoken language. It’d sound a bit off and maybe actually have different connotation to say “I use he” instead of “I use he/him”.
So yeah, I think it’s to reduce confusion because outside of presenting your pronouns, two pronouns are unlikely?
It’s redundant, that’s just how people do it.
I’ve always wondered the same thing. I think it’s just convention at this point.
All this time I thought it would make learning the language easier for a non-native speaker, because it’s reinforcing which pronouns go together—her with she, him with he, they with them, etc. Funny I never saw it as being redundant until you pointed it out.
I seem to remember years ago some people listing their pronouns by she/her/hers. I think she/her, she/they, he/him, etc. is just a shortening of listing all three while also being inclusive. As you mentioned some individuals are more fluid and may go by she and they but prefer she so it is listed as she/they.
It’s weird to me too. It seems like a lot of people need two pronouns to register that someone is starting their pronouns, and it doesn’t especially matter if it’s two pronouns from the same set or two pronouns that represent different sets.
Sometimes, especially in the case of neopronouns, two set of pronouns share nominative form, but are distinguished from each other in their accusative form
For example: ze/hir vs ze/zir.
So, in those case, is to especify Which specific “ze” pronoun the person is talking about.
This also applies to “she” and “he” as pronoun sets like she/shim, she/sher or he/her are also a thing.
