Pronouns Are a Courtesy, Not a Debate

Using someone’s pronouns is not an ideological position. It is the same basic courtesy as learning how to say a colleague’s name correctly, or remembering that someone goes by Kate and not Katherine. We do this for each other all the time without calling it a philosophy. It only gets reframed as a debate when the person in question is trans.

You will get it wrong sometimes. Everyone does, including me, including trans people about other trans people. The fix is small: correct yourself, move on, do better next time. What you do not get to do is decide that because it is hard for you to remember, it must not be real.

The whole thing costs you a syllable. It costs the other person their dignity when you refuse. That is not a close call.