> What agenda would that be?
Modern liberal politics.
> I don't see how someone wishing to be referred to by a specific pronoun should be political. In my mind it's just something I do to be respectful to people I interact with.
Well, ~99% of people don't need to specify the pronouns they wish to be called with because everybody already called them by those pronouns.
So you should ask yourself: why are all these people putting their pronouns on their twitter profiles (or whatever)? It's clearly not to prevent other people from being disrespectful, because they weren't being disrespectful.
So I think you are either being very naive or you are not being honest, because it's clear that the real point of specifying your pronouns is not to communicate to other people of what you wish to be called to prevent someone from being disrespectful (except for a minority of cases where people really do get confused).
And furthermore, I also try to be respectful to the people I interact with. But in my view, respect is much more than calling someone him, her or whatever. In fact, even if someone would make an occasional mistake, it's not (and should not) be a big deal. It would certainly not be due to a lack of respect (assuming it's a genuine mistake).
Note that nobody puts "please don't call me an asshole" in their Twitter bio, even though people are called assholes a lot more than they get their pronouns confused (again, except for a minority of people).
So I'm fine if someone puts their pronouns in their bio if other people get them confused frequently.
But even then, is that really the solution?
Should that person also paint their pronouns in their forehead when they go outside, so that other people aren't disrespectful unintentionally?
Or should they just learn to live with a minor grammatical annoyance?
> Outside of being a word used to put down people/ideas, what other purpose does it serve you? genuinely asking
It's a shorthand to describe modern liberal politics regarding identity politics, social justice, cancel culture, etc.
Mind you, this is not the same liberal politics from a few decades ago. This is on a whole other level.