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Comment by diebeforei485 | Hacker News Reader

> Because accuracy isn't the goal. Proponents of "Latinx" aren't speaking to us or for us. They're speaking through us—to each other. Its use is purely about signaling—not to Latin people, but to other signalers. And beneath the signal, there is hardly anything of substance at all.

This is a bit like (non-native) people stating their location in their Twitter bio as "Salish lands" or "Ohlone lands" in place of Seattle or San Francisco. And yes, I think this extends to cishet people using putting gender pronouns in their name field on Zoom, etc.

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I can't speak to using "Latinx" or land acknowledgements, but myself and other non-cishet people I know appreciate the normalization of adding pronouns to names/bios by all kinds of people because it helps us feel a lot less othered. I hate being the only one in a Zoom call with my pronouns in my name.

That being said, I know cishet people more often than not do it to signal, but intentions aside, I think it's helpful and I only hope it becomes more common. I'd say about a quarter of my organization does it on Zoom, with almost all of us doing it on Mattermost. It's nice.

whats the percentage of non-cishet in your organization?

~5% is my best guess.

There's a hidden benefit as well: ambiguous names. Like Taylor for instance.

I understand the utility of communicating what pronouns to use, but what I don't understand is why people list multiple forms instead of just one. If you say "they", the "them" and "their" are implied already etc.

I guess because it rolls off the tongue better?

If they really want to signal their virtue, they should call themselves AmericXns first before mangling other nationalities.

> And yes, I think this extends to cishet people using putting gender pronouns in their name field on Zoom, etc.

Do you have a functional cisdar/gaydar? Mine seems to be broken.

Less flippantly: you don't necessarily know, a priori, what someone's pronouns are just from their name and/or profile on some web service. That's why listing pronouns is, at the absolute minimum, socially useful.

I think it boils down to if its important to you, list them. If its not, leave them off. I’ll never list mine because I cannot think of a time in my life when some one has gotten my pronouns wrong, and even if they did, it would not offend me in the slightest. If anything I would just assume the person misspoke, or if it continued, that they are an idiot or intentionally being an ass.

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