Almost a decade ago, I wrote about pronouns and got hate mail from Jordan Peterson fans for years. I decided to wade back into that morass to point out that while everybody is arguing about pronouns now, most people have no idea what they’re talking about. In this video, I explain how the current public conversation gets facts wrong about what pronouns even are, what gender is, how hard new pronouns are, and how easy new pronouns are. I also discuss the underlying cultural assumptions that drive the discourse: extreme individualism on both sides of the debate.

I also make some tentative recommendations, boiling down to not demanding people share their identity, respecting people’s identities when they do share them (if you respect the person), and somewhat contentiously, I recommend audience design over ideological rigidity, meaning balancing the desire to respect people’s identities with using language your hearer will understand.

The details are in the video below. Enjoy!