Well, I actually joined tumblr before EC so I learned a lot of stuff about trans people from tumblr, some I have to admit may be misinformation and some actually accurate. I feel like it's very important to respect people's pronouns and whatnot so I understand the people who won't want any specific male or female pronouns used towards them. I feel like if I ever screw up your personal prounous you should spray me with cold water or something and hear me apologize 90+ times. Anyway, I have a fear of someone asking me to use non binary (I think that's the word I'm so unsure) or nongender(?) pronouns and me messing up like I'm a very good native english speaker and I'm also Armenian and I can also speak bilingually if I want to but when I have to replace one word for another then things get complicated for me like if someone told me I can't say the word "can" or "it" and had to replace them with " yogurt" and "ruby" it would take me twice as long to process this and form a sentence without messing up. I see a lot of people on tumblr who use different pronouns like xe/xi or the fae one's get really pissed at people or more specifically anons who misgender them and I feel sad because I think to myself "Great now what if I have a friend like that and keep messing up the words?" Anyone else feel like this?
There's a lot of ...interesting...attention needing...people on Tumblr. So be careful when trying to learn things about transpeople on there. In fact I'd stay far away from the Trans section on tumblr, and learn about it from the people on EC. Personally I can't take some of the pronouns they have seriously, like "bun" pronouns. I recently just saw a post where a person was all " Oh Fae pronouns kinda of sound like a fairy, and I want to be a fairy. But the bun pronouns are so cute~ It makes me sound like a bunny...please call me by those. ^^" When people do this it makes me feel like they're mocking real transpeople who have a real condition that causes us pain, day in and day out. It's almost like their shoe shopping, like Oh these are cute! I'm going to get these today, or in pronoun terms "oh these are cute! I'm going to go by these today." So for non-binary people I use the gender neutral pronoun "they". I don't know how to pronounce or remember most of the "new" pronouns out there, so that's what I stick with.
Maybe this will help Singular they examples: "When I tell someone a joke they laugh." "When I greet a friend I hug them." "When someone does not get a haircut, their hair grows long." "If my mobile phone runs out of power, a friend lets me borrow theirs." "Each child feeds themself."
If it helps (This is not for everyone) but I don't exactly care. Some people call me female/she/her and some people call me male/he/his. I know how it can be a little frustrating to switch, but I don't expect people to do it when I want them to do it, you know? Things like this take time. I feel that people like my immediate family and relatives are having a hard time identifying me as male because I've always been female to them and that it's not said to insult me or purposely make a point that they're just not going to accept it. Even when I do get GRS, if people call me female, so be it! I know what I am. I've gotten both all my life and it doesn't bother me anymore. I think though, like personalities, everyone has a different preference and you should definitely be cautious but if you're unsure, just ask! I'm sure they'll be more than willing to tell you
The best thing to do? Ask. Also, tumblr is the worst place to learn about transfolk. There's only a handful of legit blogs out there.
