This is clearly satire, but I actually agree with the article. I refer to men as he and women as she. And if they're trans, I'll refer to them as the opposite of their biological gender out of respect. But as for "preferred pronouns", I'm not going to go out of my way to ask every stranger I meet how they would like to be addressed, and then try to remember to use plural pronouns in my speech. That requires a constant conscious effort to modify they way I'm speaking in order to use language unnaturally for the sake of some random. "Compassion" isn't a good enough reason. If it's a choice between actively deciding upon self-consciousness in my own speech, and my speech making you feel self-conscious, the choice is easy.
I believe in "live and let live". I don't care how you identify, who you sleep with, how you dress, it doesn't bother me, and I'm happy to live alongside you. But things like this impose more than an expectation of tolerance. This is an expectation that I, and everybody else, become an ally to a cause that has zero relevence within my own existence, but manages to needlessly complicate it in order to appease the feelings of the gender-confused. If your biggest problem in life is your feelings, you've got it pretty damn good. I'm not about to commit myself to preserving them for you. How you feel isn't my issue, it's yours.
Make whatever choices you'd like, do whatever you'd like with your life, I support that. But if you come in expecting me to make any change in mine in order to be accommodating and you're shit out of luck. That's a "you problem".
Re: “An Idiot Rationalizes: Why I Will Not be Using Your Preferred Pronouns”
This is clearly satire, but I actually agree with the article. I refer to men as he and women as she. And if they're trans, I'll refer to them as the opposite of their biological gender out of respect. But as for "preferred pronouns", I'm not going to go out of my way to ask every stranger I meet how they would like to be addressed, and then try to remember to use plural pronouns in my speech. That requires a constant conscious effort to modify they way I'm speaking in order to use language unnaturally for the sake of some random. "Compassion" isn't a good enough reason. If it's a choice between actively deciding upon self-consciousness in my own speech, and my speech making you feel self-conscious, the choice is easy.
I believe in "live and let live". I don't care how you identify, who you sleep with, how you dress, it doesn't bother me, and I'm happy to live alongside you. But things like this impose more than an expectation of tolerance. This is an expectation that I, and everybody else, become an ally to a cause that has zero relevence within my own existence, but manages to needlessly complicate it in order to appease the feelings of the gender-confused. If your biggest problem in life is your feelings, you've got it pretty damn good. I'm not about to commit myself to preserving them for you. How you feel isn't my issue, it's yours.
Make whatever choices you'd like, do whatever you'd like with your life, I support that. But if you come in expecting me to make any change in mine in order to be accommodating and you're shit out of luck. That's a "you problem".