Use them or else

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10 responses to “Use them or else”

1. 

   Artymorty

   Feb 23, 2026 12:19 PM

   I have to wonder if at some level, some of this madness is a symptom of the executives and those in power not caring enough about “the gender thing”, rather than them being utterly preoccupied with it.

   The heads of these institutions don’t believe in gender nonsense. Rather, they consider their actions: they do an ad-hoc cost/benefit analysis in their heads, comparing the cost of taking one side over the other. If they side with the gender critics, the actions required to put a stop to gender lunacy signal immediate cost to themselves — unrest and pushback from within the institution; headaches from activists. The appearance of being “anti-LGBTQ”, etc. It would all just be so terribly unpleasant for the brass to stop it.

   On the other hand, the costs involved in playing along with it are paid downstream: they’re paid by women, they’re paid by vulnerable people, they’re paid by those who don’t have power.

   This is the same shape of so many catastrophes playing out right now: there are collective action problems that cannot be solved because of the power imbalance in society, and because whatever checks and balances were once in place to at least try to correct against these kinds of imbalances have eroded. There were supposed to be watchdogs and regulators to put a stop to these kinds of collective-action runaway trains.

   I compare it to the real estate crisis in Canada:

   Everyone sees that the country’s caught up in an absurd system that doesn’t make any sense. We’ve built literally hundreds of thousands of “investment vehicles” — more-or-less fake apartments, units so small and uninhabitable that virtually no one will occupy them. But stopping the system — admitting that we were just slapping up towers of fake housing for immediate profit — would have required those in power (the banks and the real estate developers) to pay a cost, whereas keeping the scheme going offloaded the cost downstream to those less in-the-know, mom-and-pop investors and such. It didn’t take long before most people at the top figured out it was bullshit, but by then a kind of pyramid scheme had emerged, so the system kept going anyways, because as long as other people still hadn’t caught on ot the scam, the safer, more lucrative bet was to go along with it — for now. Well, “for now” was then. Now now, the whole thing’s gotten so out of hand that the entire country’s economy is on the brink. The game’s over and the pyramid’s collapsing.

   I think that structure maps almost perfectly onto gender nonsense: they’re building up fake “genders” — even fake genitals — that nobody’s really buying. But stopping it at this point would incur too much cost at the top. Each individual executive sees it as a problem better dumped on those below. It may be bullshit, and it may be doing catastrophic harm to those below you, but if you’re an executive, your short-term cost/benefit says it pays to play along, for now. The cost to women’s rights, to gay and autistic people’s bodies, to freedom of speech… those costs are beginning to add up, and the pyramid of gender is beginning to wobble.

   I fear that only after everything’s collapsed will they admit they were cowards.
2. 

   Mike B

   Feb 23, 2026 1:17 PM

   >>”It adds that if pronouns ‘aren’t important to you, it’s even more important to use them’.”<<

   What if I scream instead?
3. 

   NightCrow

   Feb 23, 2026 2:36 PM

   I’m glad to see that the nurse mentioned has recently been reinstated in her job and the charges against her dropped.
4. 

   Acolyte of Sagan

   Feb 23, 2026 3:02 PM

   ‘If pronouns aren’t important to you, it’s even more important to use them’ sounds very much like ‘fake it ’til you make it’. Don’t believe in God? Go to church more; you’ll find Him eventually. Pronouns not important? Use them until you can’t do without them.

   It’s a bloody brainwashing cult.
5. 

   iknklast

   Feb 23, 2026 3:16 PM

   AoS, that is definitely what it sounds like. Go to church and you’ll find god; of course you will, because the very rituals of church are designed to bring about spiritual experiences. Not for people like me, because the more they ritual, the more I retreat. But for most people, even the act of singing together promotes a bonding that can lead to such experiences. If the church has fasting as part of it, even more so.

   The same with trans. Say it long enough, loud enough, often enough, and it will become second nature. Then, even if you don’t believe it wholeheartedly, you’ll at least do it automatically and everyone will be happy – that is, everyone who isn’t losing out on rights, or who doesn’t care about truth.
6. Guest post: After everything’s collapsed – Butterflies and Wheels

   Feb 23, 2026 5:08 PM

   […] a comment by Artymorty on Use them or […]
7. 

   Mike

   Feb 23, 2026 6:06 PM

   Wait…how do “I/Me” pronouns work? You refer to someone else as “I” or “me” when referring to them?
8. 

   iknklast

   Feb 23, 2026 6:55 PM

   Well, Mike, I and Me are really the only pronouns that are ‘ours’ in that way. We can use them about ourselves; the other pronouns belong to other people to use about us!

   In fact, I would say my pronouns are I/Me/Mine (just like George Harrison).
9. 

   What a Maroon

   Feb 24, 2026 7:31 AM

   Pronouns are like waiters: done right, they’re efficient but unobtrusive, showing up when needed, helping things flow smoothly, rarely drawing attention to themselves. English has a pretty good pronoun system, but with an obvious gap in the second person–the loss of “thou” in most English dialects has led to awkward, attention-grabbing workarounds like “y’all”, “youse”, “yinz”, “you guys”. Those are the waiters that loudly announce their names when they first approach the table, interrupt the flow of conversation, spill the pizza on your lap, and disappear when you most need them (which is to say, typical American waiters)*.

   The whole pronoun movement is simultaneously attempting to make the English pronoun system more complex and more ambiguous. More complex with all the bespoke pronouns, more ambiguous with the promiscuous use of singular “they”. Proponents of the latter make two dubious arguments in its defense. The first is that we have no trouble dealing with singular “you”, but see the bad waiters. The second is that we’ve been using singular “they” for, like, ever, which is true, but only in limited contexts, where the sex of the referent is unknown or unimportant (“Someone called but they didn’t leave a message”); not in reference to a specific, known person.

   For the record, I use pronouns. I just used one (and there goes another). I use all the pronouns that my dialect of English puts in my toolbox, and occasionally some from other dialects. But my toolbox is pretty much full, and I’m not going to use a hammer when I need a screwdriver, no matter how much you insist I do.

   *And, of course, if you’re a decent person, you tip them anyway while cursing the tipping culture.
10. Guest post: More complex and more ambiguous – Butterflies and Wheels

    Feb 24, 2026 12:33 PM

    […] a comment by What a Maroon on Use them or […]