If you have no preferred pronouns, just say (none) or something
This will help make people feel more comfortable in this comm and has a side effect of showing you support trans people when making comments in other communities. It will also make reactionaries seethe and make it easier for mods to purge them, and make trans people feel safer all over the fediverse.
So in other words, people who are still eggs, closeted trans people who have an identifiable account and similar groups now have to misgender themselves, which is a much more horrific thing than getting misgendered by someone else.
Requiring people to state their pronouns is unironically a transphobic policy! Creating an environment in which not stating pronouns can be taken as not supporting trans people is likewise transphobic. The practical consequences of these decisions are extremely bad and I strongly request that you undo it!
If they have a practical concern with this they can say something like (use name) (unsure) (any) after their username. Just to verify, are you trans yourself? This is common practice in basically every trans space.
No, it’s not.
I would suggest they create a new account for exploring these feelings in trans spaces, then. Its more secure to do that anyways. He/him is the assumed choice in most internet spaces which misgenders a wide swathe of trans people, of course I would prefer it to be they/them, as its better if you don’t know the person’s pronouns. The reality though is we need to implement these things in steps so people can properly understand why its important to use they/them when you don’t know someone’s gender. I still get regularly misgendered with she/her in my name, these people that purposefully misgender must be removed from this space to make it safer, and by having more people with pronouns in username, it will make that job easier.
Yes, and that is WHY I’m so vocal about it, because I have experience with environments where the choice really was to misgender myself or to risk looking like a biggot. It sucked and that
It forces trans people who are early in their transition and eggs to pick between two really bad options. That makes it functionally (not intentionally) transphobic.
A big point of something like Lemmy is that you don’t need separate accounts in all the communities that you are in and trans communities should put the bar low for people who are looking to explore things. It may not always be the safest thing to do, but reality is messy and people who are just kinda uncomfortable with what they have may still be far away from understanding.
Nobody says you can’t have your pronouns in your username if you want them too, but forcing other people to do the same is really reaching into other people’s personal zone to an extend that I do consider inappropriate.