thedeltaquadrant | (no subject)

i feel like there are two kinds of they/them pronouns: the sort of anonymous they you use when you don't know someone's pronouns or for sn entirely hypothetical person, and the they/them that is especially used for many nonbinary people. this is why they/them feels distinctly gendered to me as a maverique and why i object to the idea that they/them pronouns are always or inherently non-gendered, especially with the now common association of they/them pronouns with nonbinary people. in a way, when it comes to nonbinary people with genders, they/them now kind of have a gendered association apart from the binary. if they didn't, they wouldn't get all the hate that they do.

they/them pronouns are literally schrödinger's gender because in one way they're often used very anonymously, and thus in a non-gendered way, but in another way they're often associated with nonbinary genderedness specifically, as well as genderlessness in a specific person.

gender-neutral pronouns like they/them that don't inherently have a gendered connotation gain one by so commonly being used by nonbinary people (who may or may not have genders). nonbinary people took the most common gender-neutral pronoun and made it our own, so singular they is used in two distinct ways.

discord: the.delta.quadrant