Why Nounself “Pronouns” Are Offensive, Ableist and Damaging Towards The Transgender & Nonbinary Community

Hello, I am Mod Sparda. I believe these nounself “pronouns” are inherently ableist, offensive, ridiculous and make it more harder for transgender & nonbinary individuals such as myself to get taken seriously and accepted by others.



So, what do I mean by “nounself pronouns”?

First and foremost, I am not talking about nonbinary/gender neutral pronouns such as xe, ey, sie, zie etc. I am talking about these animal themed “pronouns”, space “pronouns”, robot “pronouns”, etc that I have seen online lately.

What makes nonbinary/gender neutral pronouns different than nounself “pronouns”?

NB/GN pronouns are often based on already existing pronouns or are pronouns taken from another language - e.g sie (from the German language), hen (Swedish language), ze and its variants (based on the German pronoun sie), ey (basically they pronouns without the ‘th’). Nounself “pronouns” are instead based on creatures, objects, ideas etc. aka, they aren’t based on already existing pronouns and are not pronouns from other languages but rather they involve taking a noun and…turning it into a noun?

Why nounself “pronouns” do not fulfill the job of pronouns.

Pronouns do have a reason to exist and are a very important core aspect of a language. Pronouns have the job of:

Replacing a noun in the sentence



Telling a person the number of people being referred to



Allowing one to tell the gender of the individual a person is referring to (whether they are a man, woman, bigender, gender neutral etc)



Source for the above: http://archive.is/HOrr0

Nounself “pronouns” defeat the purpose of what they claim to be. Many nounself “pronouns” are nouns, aka dog, plant, void, space, squeak, aqua etc. They basically take on the job of the noun since they literally are nouns themselves. They don’t take on the job of a pronoun. They become a sort of personalised nickname for the person to use.

He/him pronouns replace a noun in a sentence, allow a person to tell that they are referring to an individual rather than a group and tell that the person is a man or masculine identified in some way, is sometimes considered gender neutral too.

Xe/xem pronouns replace a noun in a sentence, allow a person to tell that they are referring to an individual rather than a group and tell that the person is nonbinary.

They/them pronouns replace a noun in a sentence, allow a person to both refer to a group and an individual and tell that the person is either gender ambiguous or nonbinary, or in cases in which it is used in reference to a group - gender mixed.

Dog/dog pronouns are simply nouns in a sentence.. Dog is not a gender. Dog can be your kintype if you are a therian but even then, your kintype is not synonymous with your gender so why bother with making a pronoun for it? Your kintype can have a separate gender but that does not mean it needs a separate pronoun. This “pronoun” (and others alike it such as kit, paw, squeak) perpetuates the harmful stereotype that otherkin want to be seen as transgender/nonbinary for being otherkin or want their kintype to be seen as a gender. It also further perpetuates the harmful stereotype that most young transgender/nonbinary people are going through a phase, attention seeking, faking it and are ignorant.

Voi/void pronouns are simply nouns in a sentence, do not allow a person to tell whether they are referring to a person or a group since a void is literally complete emptiness. Void is not a gender. Void literally means nothingness. You can lack a gender but that does not make up for the fact that these pronouns don’t tell the person who or what they are referring to or do the job a pronoun is supposed to do.

I could go on with the large amount of nounself “pronouns” that are out there but I think people get the point.

You don’t use nounself “pronouns” in reference to what they were based on.

You don’t refer to dogs using dog pronouns. You don’t refer to space using space pronouns. You don’t refer to plants using plant pronouns. You most likely refer to all those things using it pronouns or sometimes (if an animal is involved) using masculine or feminine pronouns - he or she.

NB/GN pronouns are used in reference to what they were based on and created for. e.g he - in reference to a man/masculine identified individual, xe - in reference to a nonbinary individual etc.

Nounself “pronouns” cannot be translated into other languages.

I think this is obvious but, many if not all NB/GN pronouns are either used in other languages or can be translated into a gender neutral pronoun of a language. You can’t translate dog, space or plant pronouns into another language because they make no sense and do not correlate with pronouns of other languages.

They are extremely difficult or near impossible for many people to use properly.

Here read this short paragraph both in your head and out loud.



Ash enjoys music. He loves the genres dance and jpop and his favourite band is PrizmaX. He listens to his favourite band on his ipod. He prefers listening to music by himself.

Sounds pretty normal and grammatically correct, right? Now, read this next one that uses nounself “pronouns”. I’m going to use squeak, squeak, squeaks, squeaks, squeakself pronouns when referring to Ash:

Ash enjoys music. Squeak loves the genres dance and jpop and squeaks favourite band is PrizmaX. Squeak listens to squeaks favourite band on squeaks ipod. Squeak prefers listening to music by squeakself.

Firstly, it looks and sounds pretty ridiculous and is going to be laugh inducing for many. Do you know how hard that is to read and understand for most non native English speakers or those with language processing difficulties. I don’t fit into either of those categories and even that was extremely hard to write and fully understand. The majority of people are not going to and will never understand these pronouns because it challenges one of the core functions of a language.

I’m aware that many people provide more well known secondary pronouns to use such as he or they but a person shouldn’t have to do that just so others know how to refer to them correctly.

I’ve seen some nounself “pronoun” users not even have well known secondary pronouns and force others, including those who are non native english speakers or have language processing difficulties, to use their pronouns which is ableist. They are forcing those with disabilities to change their language that’s already hard for them to use to suit their wants. That is ableism at its finest.

Language is extremely hard to change, especially if it is a core aspect of it that people want to change.

Language can and will forever change. However, it’s either a slow progress or a core aspect of the language is being challenged or abandoned. It’s even difficult for they pronouns to get accepted (despite being perfectly fine and grammatically correct).

A house is a house because it provides us with shelter. It was built with the sole purpose of sheltering one from the harshness of mother nature’s weather. That’s its core functionality. By removing its roof, you’ve lost its core purpose. It can no longer provide you with shelter and therefore, defeats the purpose it was created for. You can change a house around and allow it to do more things such as provide warmth, aesthetic appeal, electricity etc. These changes have taken time and effort but it was possible because its still keeping its core aspect - shelter.

Nounself “pronouns” do not keep the core aspects of what pronouns are. As stated - they do not replace the job of a noun, do not clearly tell whether a person or group is being referred to and certainly do not tell others the gender of the one being referred to.

Nounself “pronouns” will never catch on with the majority for the reason that it does not keep a core part of a language, so why bother at all with them?

People are not required to put their feelings and their language on the line because someone wants to be called dog or plant.

I want people to feel comfortable and have their pronouns respected. However, once again these “pronouns” are ableist, offensive, make no sense and don’t promote correct language use. These “pronouns” make me and others feel both uncomfortable and disrespectful to use in reference to fellow transgender & nonbinary people. I am under no obligation to put my feelings on the line and completely abandon a core part of a language because someone wants to be referred to using dog pronouns or plant pronouns. Neither should anyone else.

I am not policing ones identity.

I am not saying that nounself users aren’t transgender/nonbinary. There are probably some that are misinformed about what it means to be transgender/nonbinary and are just cisgender people/gender non conforming people. However, what I am saying is that going by these “pronouns” is damaging the transgender/nonbinary community, the community that they and I are apart of.

I am protecting my own identity and the community I belong to.

I want to protect my own identity from slanderous claims and false statements. I want to help protect the community I am apart of from detrimental extremism and blatant misinformation. I want my community to be further understood and accepted by the majority.

Nounself “pronouns” are hindering the transgender and nonbinary community from being accepted and understood. They are making the transgender and nonbinary community look misinformed, ridiculous, extreme and hateful. They further the hatred and ignorance towards us. We are not going to get anywhere without having allies both on the inside and outside.

If these “pronouns” are a light hearted experiment as many state they are, then they should have no trouble with those who do not wish to partake in it.

Experiments are subject to criticism. They can be dangerous, pointless and produce shit or non helpful results. Experiments will not always produce the results people want or expect. People should not be angry or upset that others don’t want to or can’t refer to others using dog or plant pronouns in the same way that people should be ok with the fact that not everyone wants to or can be apart of other experiments.

On “cutesy” pronouns and genders.

Many of the nounself “pronoun” master lists I see often call these pronouns “cute”. Being transgender/nonbinary is not cute. Most of the time, it can be far from cute and fun - transphobia, lack of recognition, dysphoria, bigotry, lack of understanding etc. This isn’t some fun game you partake in, it is something that should be taken pretty seriously. Pronouns and gender identity are not and will never be “cute”. They are not an aesthetic you can pick at and stylise. They are a core part of your identity that you cannot choose to be and may require you to go through permanent physical change to decrease dysphoria and general uncomfortable-ness.

I am certainly not saying that you are not allowed to have fun as a transgener/nonbinary person and you do not have to be gloomy 24/7 about your gender but, be mature about this.

-Mod Sparda