I had firsthand experience when an enby stayed at our place for a while. My old Gen X self had trouble remembering to use the correct pronouns sometimes, but it got easier with practice. Decades of using only binary pronouns for individuals takes time to unlearn.
I’ll be honest, it took me a while to start remembering “they/them”, even for myself. However, now I have the opposite problem, which is that I tend to substitute “they/them” for gendered pronouns. Normally that’s not a problem because most people accept neutral pronouns, but some people can be very picky about their pronouns and then I have to remember that “they/them” can’t be universally applied to everyone.
I had firsthand experience when an enby stayed at our place for a while. My old Gen X self had trouble remembering to use the correct pronouns sometimes, but it got easier with practice. Decades of using only binary pronouns for individuals takes time to unlearn.
I’ll be honest, it took me a while to start remembering “they/them”, even for myself. However, now I have the opposite problem, which is that I tend to substitute “they/them” for gendered pronouns. Normally that’s not a problem because most people accept neutral pronouns, but some people can be very picky about their pronouns and then I have to remember that “they/them” can’t be universally applied to everyone.