I'm having problems picking pronouns for offline use (I'll stick with "she" online for the time being). I have a home made pronoun necklace which I could use, and change them as appropriate, but I feel that this would be too cumbersome and awkward for people in the long-run and difficult in large groups. I'm leaning towards using "they" as a sort of catch-all, but then when my gender becomes more polarised "they" can feel too non-specific. In addition I'm not always unhappy with "he" even when my gender does change. How did other fluid people here work out which pronouns to use, and if you change them when necessary how well do your friends cope? Do I just have to pick one and stick with it even if it doesn't fit 100%?
I tried a few and nothing's feels right but I decided to just go with he/they because I don't like she (I'm afab and it feels invalidating when used for me) and neopronouns can be very confusing so I went with what's left.
i personally go with he/they but i never mind when they don't match with how i'm feeling on a certain day, as long as those pronouns are used (since i don't believe that pronouns have to go along with your gender). if there were a day where i do care about what specific pronouns someone uses, i just tell them in person/text them. they also know that the way how i dress tends to correlate with what pronouns i prefer. i'd say go for pronouns that you feel most comfortable with no matter what you feel. you don't have to go with just one if you don't want to. use whichever ones feel most versatile on most days and tell people when they do happen to change. i hope this helps, since i still tend to struggle with this sometimes as well
I have a friend who is very fluid and they use they/them in all their interactions, online and off line.
I'm sticking with she/her. Even when my guy is out, I'm always aware of my female side and female body, so since 2/3 of me is she, I am always she. ---------- Post added 18th Jan 2017 at 11:32 AM ---------- Like Salad, I don't really believe pronouns have to go with gender. I struggle when someone's gender noun preference doesn't match my perception of them, even if they're fully gender reassigned. I won't misgender someone intentionally, but in my mind it's extremely upsetting to my psyche to call them by a pronoun that doesn't match my perception. Most of the time I get around it by talking around the issue and not using gender pronouns at all. I think a small part of this is my science/genealogy background in which the biological sex/chromosome/DNA is far more important than personal identity. Adoption and name changes are nightmares for those who track their family history and for anthropological genetic data. Gender reassignments just make it worse.
If it was possible, and in an ideal universe, I would use both she and he at the same. Which sounds confusing as heck if you say it out loud. But for some reason, every time I see the two together (typed, etc.) it makes me feel so happy and calm...
