Post #4121537

I hate to do posts that seem like sort of humblebrags designed to cynically drive engagement. This isn't that. But.... this bears saying. I was in a situation yesterday - an all day training course - with a lot of people who are trying to make the world better. People at the cutting edge of social justice. As left wing as it gets. There was shouting, fists in the air and people referring to one another as comrade. All walks of life were in representation. But. In one of the exercises - a scenario with role play - there was a clear example of a non-gendered person, and people just could not understand that instead of referring to a female-coded name, they should be referring to them as they/them instead of she/her. I found myself the only person in a group of maybe 30 people who had to openly and vocally say - no, it's they/them. It is not her/she(bar). No one really understood and I had to say 'sorry everyone, but this person isn't gendered' and they all looked at me like I was mental and carried on referring to the person in the female gender. I did it like 4 times. Do people in the wider universe (ie. Not Fedi or my brain) not understand this? I feel like in 2026 this isn't some kind of ineffable concept. Am I weird? I don't feel like I am (well I definitely am, but not in this) and it's not *that* difficult to understand? I was going to start calling the he's she's and the she's he's in the group to drive the point home, but thought that might be a step too far. Hopefully I made my point and they'll (THEY'LL) think about it later. But, dudes. If you can fight the good fight for the people, you can at least understand some people are non-binary?