Okay, so here's the thing. I identify as bigender (being male and third), but I often just say I'm a transmale. However, while I do like the terms guy/ dude, boy, and man, the last few days I've been wondering about the they / them / their pronouns for myself. The confusing part is I want male pronouns. But at the same time I want the neutral pronouns. I have issues with both of them Male Pronouns: I've been referred to as he / him a few times. Not often though. I still get misgendered. The thing is while this does make me feel better than when I'm called by she / her pronouns, I get confused when someone uses the male pronouns because I'm not sure if they're talking about me or some other guy. The second concern is when I have been called he or him, I don't feel like I connect with them as much. For example, when I'm called by my preferred name, I get ecstatic and giddy, but with the pronouns I feel kinda indifferent. However, they're still soooooo much better than female pronouns. Neutral: I feel these pronouns would be more difficult to enforce and explain compared to the male pronouns. It could get very confusing since I hear they used generally more often than other pronouns. I feel like other people would just start calling me it, avoid pronouns altogether, or just resort back to the female pronouns because they won't get it and thus won't respect it. I should also note that part of my dilemma may come from me aiming more towards people using the right name rather than pronouns because I don't feel like they see me as a guy, so the name change would be easier. They / them pronouns would address my third gender identity as well as my male, but people would likely avoid the neutrals, which would make me more dysphoric. I literally keep my ears open and I'm tuned in to every pronoun I hear, and when someone calls me she or her, which is commonplace, I feel miserable and hopeless. Switching to male pronouns would be easier and I've sorta enforced them now and them, but the neutral pronouns also seem tasteful. I like both, but I can't use both sets of pronouns, and while my family sort of gets the maleness, they really don't understand what's going on with me since they seem to have an incapacity to understand fully, and if I try to use neutral pronouns, I can guarantee I'm going to get a whole bunch of jokes. My thing is though is that I don't want to just switch around the pronouns, so I'm really confused on this. Any advice or tips would be greatly appreciated.
It's okay to use two sets of pronouns, if they make you comfortable. I prefer he/him, but I also don't mind being referred to as they/them (which I'd love if it means people won't slip up with she/her).
HAH I'm male NB too! And yeah I feel kinda the same. It's just that I really like both pronouns, i strongly love them both Equally.
I would recommend using they/them pronouns and having he/him be your auxiliary pronouns (i.e. "I prefer they/them pronouns, but I know they can be hard so he/him pronouns are okay too"). It's definitely true that people are a lot more likely to ignore your pronouns if you use they/them (I know from experience). If you make it clear that you prefer they/them pronouns but that people can use he/him for you if they have to, you'll get a lot of people using he/him anyway but at least some people will use they/them for you and far fewer will continue to use she/her than if you don't provide he/him as an alternative.
