pronoun
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A pronoun is a word that people often use to refer to other people or objects instead of their names; on the indieweb you can express which pronouns should be used to refer to you. English examples include she/her/hers, he/him/his, they/them/theirs.
Why
Why put your pronouns in your profile? Some reasons summarized from this Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/jaythenerdkid/status/861666628160765952
- normalize the idea of declaring pronouns
- challenge the assumption that everyone is the gender they present as
- challenge the idea that everyone is cis until proven otherwise
- remove ambiguity - people will know what to call you by
IndieWeb Examples
- Ashton McAllan added pronouns to http://acegiak.net as of 2015-02-18
- Kyle Mahan added pronouns to the h-card on https://kylewm.com on 2015-03-11
- gRegor Morrill added pronouns to http://gregorlove.com/about as of 2015-03-12
- unrelentingtech added pronouns to the h-card on https://unrelenting.technology as of 2015-09-07. Also, their website shows h-card pronouns in reply/like/repost contexts, e.g. on this like
- Martijn van der Ven added pronouns (in several languages) to the h-card on http://vanderven.se/martijn/ on 2017-05-21
- 00dani added pronouns to the h-card on https://00dani.me/
- Aaron Parecki added pronouns on his profile page https://aaronparecki.com/about/
- pmc added pronouns on her homepage's h-card at https://piperswe.me/
- Jamie Tanna added pronouns on https://www.jvt.me on 2019-04-10
- Jason Garber added pronouns to the representative h-card on sixtwothree.org on 2019-08-27
- fluffy added pronouns to [1] on 2018-11-16, and to the representative h-card on 2019-12-06
- Tantek Çelik added pronouns to his home page (tantek.com) h-card on 2020-10-22 using p-pronouns for the full set as a string, and p-pronoun h-pronoun for each individual pronoun linked to a URL explaining its use.
Implementation Examples
Publishing:
- Former example: h-card as a service added pronoun fields (with auto import from h-card) on 2016-06-27
Consuming code:
- Authl will parse the h-card of a logged-in user to provide a user profile to the site operator, and uses the
p-pronouns
property as human-readable pronouns. This can be seen in operation on fluffy's user profile page. - ...
Silo Examples
- @abbieandahalf has "they/them" in their Twitter bio
- @brianloveswords has "he/him" in his Twitter bio
- @lindseybieda has "she/her" in her Twitter bio
- @jneen_ has http://pronoun.is/she in her Twitter bio
- my.pronoun.is (or just pronoun.is) is a little website that offers a way to show your pronouns on a silo profile using a link, e.g. my.pronoun.is/they/them
- MetaFilter updated their user profile field from "Gender" to "Gender and/or pronouns"
- 2017-05-15 : Making room for pronouns on the profile page (archived)
Pronoun Badges
Pronoun badges are physical pins, stickers, or buttons which attendees of events can attach to their lanyards or clothing to display their pronouns. Below are some examples of pronoun pins used at various events.
IndieWebCamp
Since many conferences are normalizing explicit self-display of personal pronouns with stickers, labels pins, we provide pronoun pins at IndieWebCamps too!
- the inner black line represents the visible edge of the front of the button
- the small white letters are visible on the side of the button
Design brainstorming:
- use non-traditional or ungendered colors (see above examples)
- consider using a color palette that accommodates various forms of colorblindness. see The viridis color palettes for an example of deriving an accessible color palette.
- decided to not prioritize this over other factors like using our brand colors, since the information conveyed by the color is also conveyed via other prominent methods (text, shape/size of shadow)
- consider using a color palette that accommodates various forms of colorblindness. see The viridis color palettes for an example of deriving an accessible color palette.
- print "indieweb.org/pronoun" in small print curved along the border (readable at in-person conversational distance) to provide a reference to find out more about where the pin came from
- around the rim of the button, include links to the code of conduct, list of events, etc
- ...
Donut.js
Donut.js has provided pronoun stickers for the meetups.
Sticker text:
- "my pronoun:"
- "he"
- "she"
- "they"
- "ask me"
pronounribbons.org
Ribbon text:
- "my pronouns are:"
- "he/him"
- "she/her"
- "they/their"
- "________"
pronoun stickers
The artwork below was created by Justine Arreche for other events to use. The artwork can be downloaded here.
Sticker text:
- "my pronoun:"
- "he"
- "she"
- "they"
- "ask me"
There is deliberately no blank write-in option due to the risk of it being misused.
TravisCI
Button text:
- "my pronoun:"
- "he"
- "she"
- "they"
- "ask me"
via @ctrlaltjustine
XOXO
XOXO has provided pronoun pins a number of years.
Button text:
- Pronouns
- he | him
- she | her
- they | them
- ask me!
Pin text:
- "I use _____ pronouns"
- he / him
- she / her
- they / their
- Please ask me my pronouns
The lack of distinguishing shapes or colors and the curly text caused these pronouns to get some negative feedback from attendees that it was difficult to read peoples' pronoun pins.
Techfed Nashville
Button text:
- He Him His
- She Her Hers
- They Them Their
- ___ ___ ___
Devconf.us
Devconf.us provided pronoun stickers as a sticker sheet.
Sticker text:
- He Him His
- She Her Hers
- They Them Their
Lesbians Who Tech
Button text:
- He/Him
- She/Her
- They/Them
- #lwtsummit wrapped around the bottom
Affect Conf
Sticker text:
- Pronoun
- he
- she
- they
- ask
DevOpsDays
DevOpsDays conferences have options for:
- he/him
- she/her
- they/them
For example, DevOpsDays London stickers can be seen on this Tweet https://twitter.com/_AlexYates_/status/1042706442086756352
Brainstorming
Markup
Several ways to mark-up pronouns are discussed on Microformats.org’s h-card Brainstorming: Pronouns
- Martijn van der Ven has written about
u-pronoun
on his own domain.
See and contribute pronoun markup research and brainstorming to:
FAQ
Why not preferred pronoun
The reason we don't use "preferred gender pronoun" is because that can imply that the pronoun isn't their true pronoun.
Follow-up: Would "personal pronoun" be acceptable? As there is an implied "personal choice" aspect in that people are being offered physical pins/stickers for pronouns from which to choose from (sometimes write-in their own).
See Also
- https://twitter.com/jaythenerdkid/status/861666628160765952
- identity
- Pronoun Island
- A letter saying they won offers a linguist's view on one person's pronouns, with a later addendum prompted by the rebuttal in If you can't say something nice… and an even fuller explanation from the original author: Courtesy and personal pronoun choice. And it just keeps going. Here's a piece explaining how the original author might have done better.
- ...
- http://www.pronounribbons.org
- http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=39757
- https://www.thedp.com/article/2018/09/physics-gender-pronouns-website-upenn-philadelphia-students
- Google removes pronouns from predictive AIGoogle removed pronoun suggestions from email AI.
- NCTE Pronoun guidelines National Council of Teachers of English revises pronoun guidelines for teachers
- Why I don’t prescribe any preferred pronoun️s
- https://twitter.com/jackquemi/status/1143831521062576129
- "Cis people who make jokes about their pronouns being “unicorn” or “that bitch” annoy the shit out of me. Y’all have no frame of reference for the weight of having your pronouns ignored or being misgendered so I don’t wanna hear your “cute” jokes about it." @jackquemi June 26, 2019
- https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/17/us/merriam-webster-nonbinary-pronoun-they-trnd/index.html
- We're Here. We're Fluid. Get Used To It. podcast episode about gender with some useful history and context from The Stakes with Kai Wright.
- "The Internet is where you can craft a version of yourself. And you figure out who you want to become."—Kristin Tomlinson [08:40]
- "Even using they/them pronouns is kind of triggering."—B. Hawk Snipes [10:40]
- 2018-10-25 An Organizer's Guide to Pronoun Buttons
- https://the-toast.net/2014/06/02/a-linguist-gendered-pronouns/
- https://twitter.com/inclusiveIBM/status/1283046049058365448
- "On #InternationalNonBinaryPeoplesDay, IBM SVP Bridget van Kralingen (she/her) offers guidance on the importance and proper use of gender pronouns
https://www.ibm.com/blogs/think/2020/07/gender-pronouns-how-small-words-make-a-big-difference/" @inclusiveIBM July 14, 2020
- "On #InternationalNonBinaryPeoplesDay, IBM SVP Bridget van Kralingen (she/her) offers guidance on the importance and proper use of gender pronouns
- Sarah Dopp collecting examples https://www.facebook.com/sarahdopp/posts/10104085788079848
- https://xeiaso.net/blog/pronouns-service