Unzipping Taboos: Candid Conversations about Sex - Unzipping Pronouns: More Than a Trend, It’s Respect

Episode Date: September 10, 2025

Pronouns are more than grammar—they’re about respect, identity, and creating safer spaces for everyone. In this episode of Unzipping Taboos, we unzip the power of pronouns in conversations about sex, gender, and relationships. From understanding what they are (and aren’t), to why they matter so deeply, we break down the cultural tension and political pushback surrounding something that should be simple: calling people what they want to be called.We discuss the generational learning curves, how language evolves, and the dangers of forced disclosure policies. With our signature humor, honesty, and empathy, we  explore the harm of misgendering, the lifesaving impact of affirming language, and how we can all do better—even if we’re still learning. Because using the right pronoun isn’t about being perfect, it’s about being present.If you have a story, thoughts and/or a topic or question for Dr. Sue and Charlie please share your ideas here:  ⁠Show suggestionsIf you want to ask Dr Sue a sex question for the weekly Q&A you can submit it here: Ask a question

Hey, everyone. Welcome to Unzipping Taboos, candid conversations about sex with Dr. Sue and Charlie. We're here to have the kinds of real unfiltered conversations about sex, sexuality, and relationships that most people are too afraid or too embarrassed to start. No shame, no judgment, just honest talk. So zip down and let's get candid. And hey, did you know, you can watch us now too. Hi everyone. That's right. Unzipping Taboos is now officially released on video. So if you've ever wondered what it looks like when Dr. Sue raises an eyebrow or I cringe, laugh, mid myth busting, or how many times we use air quotes, now's your chance. You'll find us wherever you stream your podcasts and you can watch us on Spotify or YouTube.

um today's episode we're gonna talk a bit about pronouns but before we do hey dr sue hey charlie how are you i'm doing well awesome good would you like to tell our listeners a little bit about yourself before we get started do i have to in a slow methodical non-embarrassed non-trying to glaze over your accomplishments kind of way but highlight why you're a badass oh gosh no pressure so it all started in a galaxy far far away no um so i have a phd in human sexuality education you can actually get a phd in that though if you're thinking about it you should reach out to me before you do that um i also have a bachelor's and master's in health education so um they come this from a very health educator perspective um i'm a master certified health education specialist

i'm certified in public health certifiable no i'm not gonna certifiable that's a different kind of podcast that's a different thing um so in the academic world my primary job is in the academic world where um i teach uh undergraduate and graduate classes and i've co-written a textbook on human sexuality um but that isn't enough for me right now because i'm only reaching like really small populations um so i am doing this and i am hey dr seuss on social media and we'll have a link to it in the description if you have a sex question you don't know where else to ask or you've tried asking google and you don't trust the results you can submit an anonymous question to me and then every sunday at 9 p.m eastern i post the response all over the social medias

um was that enough this time I'm always for those of you who are like what is going on with this like why is it so hard I'm constantly getting critiqued by loudly by my friends in real life by our fans friends the fans like the fans I mean the friends who are fans have very loudly told me that I need to do more of this and my feeling is like I just rather like yeah this is me well who looked me up online I just kind of want to get to the conversation so that's that's what all the the backstory is this is the new yorker and her everyone just let's just get to the point let's just move it along yeah moving along nothing to see here um but now i'm done was that enough well it's enough i'll allow it thank you so the person allowing me is charlie for those of you

who know her and who don't um charlie is our curious co-host who's always ready to explore or all the like nuances of these taboo topics that we as a society tend to not want to talk about openly now you tell us more that's true okay if you get to use that as your intro yes i i don't tend to shy away from conversations um that women have been taught that they shouldn't be having, that they should be embarrassed by. I enjoy challenging taboos and expectations, especially as a woman in American society and in the world, really, and giving a space for people to have these kinds of conversations, to ask questions and have them land on ears that won't, you know, won't grimace or recoil. Although I will give myself space, sometimes I may.

But I'll dig deeper and I'll engage in a conversation rather than dismissing you or anyone. Dr. Sue and I have been friends for a very long time and we found that we have these kind of conversations naturally right from the get. So because her students challenged her to get her content, the incredible content and her incredible style out to the public here is where you where and why you find us just just a small note if you are one of those students who were part of those conversations before class about like well where's your podcast can you let me know you're listening just just so i know i'm just kind of curious yeah so yeah yeah all right dr c pronouns oh no and their

impact importance on sex and sexuality among other things yes where would you like to begin unravel unzipping i don't even this dynamic this one's this one's really hard for me because we all use pronouns every day we all use pronouns and if you've ever referred to someone as he or she that's a pronoun and i think most people familiar with that but if you've ever refer to yourself as I that's a pronoun if I say you that's a pronoun if I say we that's a pronoun and I don't think people realize that I was watching something on social media where someone's like I don't believe in pronouns I'm like how do you not believe in a facet of the English language and you just used I right and and so the person was like okay well you know that's fine that's

you're right there's another pronoun um so every time the person used something like I or you there was like a buzzer and I was like that that's a really quick way of getting across how often we use pronouns but I don't think it was getting across the point um so I I wanted to start with like it's not just about gender we we use pronouns we like I'm not sure I can do a sentence without using pronouns um so i think it's really important to recognize that that this conversation about pronouns isn't really a conversation about pronouns it's a conversation about respecting people and their gender um so that's kind of where i want to wind up but i'm not really maybe i just jumped there ahead of time but i like i don't think people think about what is

included when we talk about pronouns i don't think they realize it's not just about gendering someone yeah i i think that is that has been the evolution of understanding in our modern society of pronouns because it is become something that is political and a way to divide us even further um but if we just take a step back and go back to our education what have you we use pronouns every day And when someone is saying, I don't believe in pronouns or this woke pronoun shit or whatever, they're not really talking about the grammatical function of pronouns. They're talking about a way to control somebody, likely a marginalized somebody or community who don't use the personal pronoun that aligns with how that external person sees them presenting. yes because they have the person themselves who's saying they don't believe in pronouns is absolutely okay with us referring to them as a pronoun that matches the identity that we're

assuming they are or that they identify as they don't have a problem when a guy says i don't believe in pronouns he'd be really pissed off if you called him they so yeah then i just had a vision of a congressional session where a a member was misgendered by the chair and the member did it right back without skipping a beat and kept moving on into their argument and then a a co a co-member a co-committee member stopped and said no no to the chair so basically standing up for the um the misgendered representative it's it's something that i've watched several times oh yeah no I don't think I've seen that clip um yeah it's it's it's not that people don't want that part of the English language to exist because communicating without it would be very difficult yeah I think I

actually used a pronoun in that sentence um and English is a hard language like English is if you've never if you learned English as a second language you know just how how confusing it is like you've got subject pronouns and object pronouns and first person plural and first person singular like it's it's confusing enough as it is and so one of the things that always fascinates me when someone says i don't believe in pronouns um i don't it just shows me how ignorant they are what a pronoun actually is um but it has become this like you said it's become this way of trying to separate people trying to marginalize people who are usually marginalized it's a way of controlling people it's a way of controlling a narrative all those pronouns those evil pronouns

like you have people who are angry about that you have people who are picking up and moving their family out of states and going to other countries and getting in their military because you don't want your children being being rose you know raised in in like these woke situations where they're talking about pronouns yeah yeah yeah so delightful so yeah so I think it's important that we start with explaining what a pronoun is and I we I didn't even do that on purpose I was like a little wander through pronouns when I talk about communication with my with anybody not just my students but also when I do public events and I talk about communication one of the big things I talk about is I language but it's not enough for me to say oh you do that and you say something like

I feel like this I as I as a pronoun and I have never had anyone challenge using I language it's hard and they don't like doing it but they no one no one who's ever like not okay with pronouns anywhere else it's only like i don't think it's important to do this because they understand it they just don't understand that they're talking now about a pronoun so so that's how we uh i just feel like we need to do that little mini english lesson lesson my my fourth grade english teacher would be very proud of me right now yeah and i think just to reiterate this we're not here to give the history of the evolution of pronouns really the context that we're talking about today is the the the pronoun not aligning with how you may see a person so if you see a person presenting

as female and they say oh I'm they them or I'm he him that that's the that's the internal thing that you have to to adopt because you all we all know pronouns and we all live by pronouns really this is just about about using they as a singular pronoun for a person and people saying well I didn't grow up with that they was always plural them was always plural so so we're talking about the politicalization um of the word pronoun and then in addition gendered pronouns and what that means today yeah where we find ourselves today with that yeah and there's a sorry broke eye contact for those of you who aren't watching because i was taking bad notes i feel the most i've taken suddenly i was like i have so many things i want to make sure we get into

so when we're talking about pronouns and we're talking about how people use them we use the term affirming pronoun we don't use chosen because it makes it sound like it's just a choice people make and well it is a choice people make to want to be respected but we use affirming pronouns we don't use preferred because the idea behind preferred is that well you could use something else this is just what they prefer and for most people what they do is they put at the end of their email signature charlie you have it on your zoom right now uh somewhere where people can see it and the idea is that when we see that we will have we we should be respecting it so that's that's like the basis the basics of how we're using it these days uh the challenge becomes like when you were talking

about when someone is using something we have previously thought of as a as a singular as a as a plural and using they them as a singular or using she they or she them because for some people like how can you do both it's either one or the other and it's because people are locked into this idea of binary and i know we've talked about this we did an episode on gender no i don't think we have oh see what happens when you have half 50 50 episodes you can't even remember you can't even remember if we didn't we should we should yeah in the parking lot let me make a video yeah yeah yeah so the world is not binary and i feel like maybe i've we've just an episode because i feel like i say that once like every three days

whether i'm teaching or not um the world is not binary but most of us have been brought up to believe that and so now we're asking you just with the use of pronouns just in the way you interact with me just with the way you speak to me what i'm asking you to do is challenge a a very hard taught i don't want to say hard top that's not the word i want a very deeply ingrained idea that there's only two genders and there's not the society gets to tell us how many genders there are and it's not always based on biology there is way more than two genders there's more than two sexes but just that idea of using they as a singular or using she they as my pronouns or he they or whatever it may be is now just with that little piece

people are like having to confront this idea that the world is not binary and that isn't and i want to own that especially someone who's on the older side that is an uncomfortable thought for a lot of people who are like well at least that's set right like all these technological advances and the world is changing but at least we know there are two sexes and it's like nope just kidding there aren't so it's it is jarring for folks who think that it really is that simple and especially for folks who are raised in very traditional let me change traditional religious very religious environments because i've had people be like well the bible says adam and eve and i'm like well the bible says a lot of things that contradict itself so i don't really put a lot of stock in sunday

football anyone yeah so but but when you've been raised from the get-go that this is a hard and basic fact you know when it's dark it's night when it's late it's day there's boys there's girls that's it just this idea that there's something else is challenging and so I'm not excusing it in the least but I think we need to realize for folks who've never had to think about that before when you come up and you say identify as he they or zzer with a z z e or z i r in that one sentence you have started challenging a very deeply ingrained thought. And that's hard. That's just hard for people. And I think we need to, I'm not excusing it, but that's hard for folks who thought that that was really simple. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's the point

that I want to add to this is that mistakes are okay. Mistakes are absolutely okay. And that's for everybody that's in this conversation either refusing or or wondering why people can't just get on board um i think many people who um use affirming pronouns that don't necessarily align with to others with how they present um many of them would also say mistakes are okay what hurts is the refusal to try that's what hurts that's what does the damage because across i would argue across the centuries pronouns matter because they signal respect they um they affirm the person's identity just in what we say affirming pronouns um it which all contribute to someone's psychological well-being and so the mistakes

are okay but if you make a mistake and go oh i just can't keep up that's still kind of dismissing the whole movement to this and it's just acceptance and the the other thing that i'm kind of that drives me a little bit crazy is the they them is grammatically incorrect, which I alluded to just a moment ago, when I'm referring to a single singular person, because I grew up learning that they them meant a group of people. And that's not true. They them has been used as a singular pronoun for centuries. Don't believe me? Go check some Shakespeare. So, um, but really going back to this point of like affirming those who haven't lived with this evolution, they lived in a binary, they decades growing up in a binary social construct.

Um, and then those who are a little bit more fluid with this and are growing up, in this non-binary social construct and the space to to communicate your affirming pronouns so the mistakes are okay it's the refusal to try it's the dismissive of you know uh kids these days or whatever that's these days and their genders yeah and this woke agenda um that's where the issue lies I think but for those who have who are in the younger generations where this has become more acceptable and this is the norm that you're growing up in remember as much as you want the older generations to make space for this change do make space for their mistakes for um and not that you're responsible for their discomfort that's something that they have to deal with

and they have to figure out but just just make space for for that change for them especially if they're signaling that they're trying if they're just being assholes just fucking walk away and leave them alone they're not worth it i have so many notes i've taken i don't even know which way to go now go ahead so what this is reminding me a lot of so I grew up in New York City in the 80s and 90s I'm trying to remember what year I graduated high school and I mean diversity is a thing in New York like yeah I went I went to high school with no racial majority like we didn't look like that was the joy of growing up in Brooklyn like we all looked a little bit

different but I still remember very very strongly in elementary school a student had some Asian name I don't and I apologize I don't know if it was Korean or Chinese and I remember the teacher going that's just too hard I'm gonna call you John or whatever it was like I'm going to anglicize your name because I can't be bothered and and as you were talking about that that whole it's too hard I'm like oh this is bringing back so many memories of that happening and I I mean I don't do that like when I when I learn students names I always say like I need to know your official name for when I do your grades, but what do you want to be called within reason? I don't call anyone Big Daddy. I had a student ask me to do that once. That's

not the question. That's also a different episode. Right. If your name is Chris Jones and you've always gone by CJ, I'm cool with that. If you just hate the name your mom and dad gave you or your parents or guardians gave you and you've always gone by some name that's not related, that's fine. like I I always make a point of doing that because that's really important to me and to this day I still I still work with with colleagues that when I'm talking about a student they go right back to the name that was on like the roster and like that's that's not actually the name that they use well that's the name I know so it's still happening um but yeah I was just I was having that moment we were talking about that I remember this like this little kid and he just looks so

defeated I don't know if like every teacher was renaming him something different because they couldn't pronounce his name um but yeah you could like come home with 10 new names in a day um I do sorry I got to scratch that out I do also want to I want to just check my eyes scratch much more aggressive so what what does happen if someone if if if you get it wrong because you may just get it wrong because they're presenting in a way that you associate with either male or female I know that I've struggled in the past with this with some of my friends as they've transitioned because I knew them for like a decade having used one pronoun and now they were using another and for me it was it wasn't out of disrespect and I screwed it up a lot and now I

now I'm great with it but I was trying to undo a decade of what I knew about this person and every time I screwed up I'm like I'm so sorry I'm gonna get it I'm trying and they were cool with it it's when you're like when you do what Charlie was saying but what you were saying before like oh this is too hard or when you do the whole oh i can't this is so difficult for me like i've always you know when you make it about you the person that you just misgendered should not have to take care of you so if you screw it up just be like i screwed it up and i'm sorry i'm trying i really am um and then maybe say like just so i make sure i get it right like what can you just repeat your pronouns back to me um it's it's about how you handle the mistake you're gonna make the

mistake it happens happens it happens especially if you have that pre-existing relationship I've worked in clinics where someone had changed the name they went with to be more reflective of the gender and in the in the file we had like crossed out the official we like highlighted it and circled it and we still had staff that were like screwing it up but we were trying everything we could do so it's gonna happen if you do it own it and don't make it about you yeah oh i grew up in a time nobody cares move on yeah but it's not where we're not in that time right and that's the thing like you may have grown up with a lot of things that we don't really think is appropriate anymore um so yeah if you just own it and try to fix it and if you have to just say you know i'm

so sorry can you repeat your pronouns so i can make sure i get it right in my head the same way we do when we're learning names? When I mispronounce a name, I'm always like, oh, can you say that again? I don't think I have the pronunciation correct. So just, yeah. So just, it's okay if you screw it up, especially if you have that preexisting relationship, but you got to get it right eventually. Yeah. And I think even signaling and acknowledging and not centering the mistake on you, acknowledge your mistake, do not center the mistake and the change around how it's impacting you and it's just so hard. That all signals respect and an effort. And that is all we're asking for. And go ahead. I don't have the numbers in front of me. And for anyone who's

listened to the show, you know, I make up a lot of my percentages and I don't even know where I am on this one. I want to say it's more than half, but just because numbers change so often. What we know about kids who identify as trans or non-binary is that they are less likely to think about suicide if they are raised in a in a space if they are living in a space not raised if they are living in a space where their pronouns are respected just using the the affirming pronouns can literally save someone's life yeah and if you don't get why that's important i'm not sure why you're listening to this podcast. Yeah. To be honest with you. I mean, there is that. I think the other thing that I would like to highlight is, and I remember this in one of my psychology

classes years ago, and I think I may have alluded to this story in a previous episode, but we were talking about identities, gender identities, etc. And there was a gentleman in my class, a guy, I'll say a man. I don't know if I'd go gentlemen. Um, but there wasn't the story right there. There was a man in my class who lamented that, um, well, this just wasn't around years ago, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. This, this is, it wasn't that these people didn't exist these people yes and so i i couldn't even wait to raise my hand i had to i had to interrupt and say no they've existed it's just they can exist in public more often now depending on their society and so that's one thing i want to point out is if you're someone who's trying to deconstruct

this for yourself so that you can be a more inclusive member of society empathetic welcoming all those things um non-binary people are not new this is not a 21st century thing this is not a 20th century thing because of some conspiracy about medications or vaccines or whatever this is not new no there are many cultures who not only recognize spirits non non-binary people but they celebrate them as the epitome of heaven or earthly spiritual bodies i'm thinking um three spirit another thing and other um two spirit yeah sorry um two spirit and and all of that so they are celebrated and they are revered because they have they are seen as like i said an earthly body that has a special connection to all the energies and so if your

argument is that this is new this is because of modernization and technologies it's not it's not and it exists in many different species as well so this is this really isn't a new thing we are just the difference is we are not shipping them out of sight to asylums it's it will currently we'll see we'll see we might be going a little backwards yeah but this is not new no it is not and asking and asking you to use affirming pronouns is not an attack on your free speech yeah get the fuck out of here with that it's so dumb well and especially in in our society where the pronouns that they're using in everyday you know interactions may be the only place that they can do that because there are still states that do not recognize a third sex or a third gender on

official documents i some of the universities i work at there is no you are flagged in the system as male or female i've worked at universities where you can't even the person can't even change their name if it's not their legal name to one that's preferred and so for a lot of these folks that are going through a day where like every day it's this constant reminder that they they and maybe celebration for them that they don't fit inside the box but it's it's all like when you which bathroom you go into if it's not unisex bathrooms um how you identify and identifying your paperwork doing clinic and uh excuse me patient intake not clinic intake when they do patient you know when you're doing your patient forms if if you don't identify as male or female and you you're

being forced to check a box and even now with the electronic forms where it won't let you move on until you check a box I mean I've worked with folks who don't who didn't check a box paper and then we had a conversation about it and you know we write the notes however we write the notes but when you're on an electronic system and it won't let you move forward like you are literally being boxed in so many times during the day that just having the respect of being understood and address the way that is that resonates with you and who you are that is such a simple respectful thing to do and to you it's like ah these you know this woke blah blah blah this is this person saying i want to be seen as who i am in a way that i can't and a lot of parts during

my day and i don't think most of uh most people who do identify in a binary i don't think we realize how many times in a day you're being gendered yeah yeah so 100 well and the journey to get there for those that that do identify as non-binary or as a gender queer outside of our binary construct there we go because there are so yeah there's so many beautiful branches to being outside of that construct um the journey for them to get to a place where they are comfortable verbalizing their affirming pronouns, especially people in older generations where they didn't grow up with this and they have lived closeted for many, many years. Is that on your list? Look at us. We should have a podcast. Oh, wait. But that's, I think

that's a lot of it too is that that embracing hearing them and understanding how long and potentially painful and alienating it was for them to live in their affirmative truth and stand up for their truth that affirms who they are inside outside psychologically it that's something that i think binary folks need to to begin to consider when you're when you're kind of centering this oh it's so hard i just can't keep up think about their journey and what it took to get there i mean we don't they could have been kicked out they could have been homeless because they were standing up for who they are they could have been abused i was just about to say victims of abuse and violence yeah yeah so so with all of that consider that it's not that difficult comparatively

for you to try just try but now i want to go a little bit adjacent if that's okay absolutely because it's a little note for the younger folks it's a little note for the younger folks who especially so um I'm back on the East Coast. My God. Not that there was anything on the West Coast. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Some of the places I've been before this were not on any coast that we usually talk about.

I see a lot. And I work with some kids. Kids. So, folks, if you don't know me, like, basically anyone that I'm ever standing in front of who's not visibly older than me. Like, when I talk to my 16, 70-year-olds, I don't call them kids. but if i'm standing up at like an event or if i'm in my classroom you're just a kid it's not pejorative it's just the term i use it presents a challenge for a podcast on sex and sexuality sometimes though it does but but the youth let me do that the youth that you work with

yes and the youth that i'm talking about are late teens early 20s possibly some are in the middle 20s but they're youth for me um and what i have seen in working with some of the youth groups and I'm trying to figure out how to say this about pissing people off but it kind of pissed me off when it happened for those of you who've been raised in a generation and in a location where you feel like you can be your authentic self and you can do that all day every day you got to cut some slack to the older folks who don't if someone is in a space and they are trying to find their identity because they've never been able to do that you don't get to label them and i have seen i've seen some of my queer kids do this to some of the older folks in groups where it's

like oh well you need to identify this way i'm like you are now missing the entire point of all the respect that you've asked for for yourself and how someone identifies in a support group it may not be the same way they identify in the outside world and i and it doesn't happen nearly as often as i see people being misgendered the way we've been talking but i have seen times where people like you need to stand up for yourself and you identify as they in the space well i'm going to do that in public i'm like you don't get to do that you don't get to be their warrior for them because you don't know the environment they're walking out of you don't know how much baggage they're carrying around with them that you can't see like you need to also understand that just

because someone wants to use a different pronoun than the one that they were assigned they may not feel comfortable doing so because there's a whole lot of stuff that went into it for them like violence like a fear of what happens and so and and i think the p so i've seen it and if it hadn't happened more than once or twice or three times i probably would have been like this was a one-off but it was different groups and i've seen it happen you don't get to be anyone's warrior and you don't get to out people um because if it had been done to you you would have been pissed you don't get to do it to other people the fact that they are in a space where they are trying to figure out language for themselves and challenge decades worth of ideas and beliefs is harder than

you might ever understand being raised in a space and time now where you felt like you can do that since your early teens the other thing is that language is different from generation to generation yes so for some of the older folks that i work with and i won't put age groups because i don't want to make anyone feel old they like the term transsexual because it was the first term that they heard where they went i think that's me now my the younger folks i work with they hate that they hate that term and so someone was using it as their own identity and people were getting mad at them for introducing it in the space i'm like but that's that was the first time they had an identity that they could latch on to and say this is me and I understand it and and then there was

sorry to bring all this big baggage in um there's another group I was in where someone was using the term demiboy it was it was and I've heard this used throughout I know people who identify that way yeah and someone's like well we don't use that term anymore and I'm like can we just sit with this for a second we are in a space that is supposed to be safe we are allowing people to have these journeys and you are telling them an identity doesn't work because it's outdated but that's not that's not how it works so um like kudos to the to the youth who are coming up and pushing boundaries and demanding to be seen in ways that some of the older folks haven't but you you've got to help let people take their journey you've got to let people take the journey

on their own time and in their own space so they just i know it's a little opposite of kind of where we started this but to me it still comes down to that respect issue yeah i think seemingly it could be perceived as the opposite but this is something I think it's it's still within this listening to each other affirming each other understanding making space for mistakes and working together on the education because there is a whole history I mean I kind of I feel like I'm part of this bridge generation between like the boomers and the millennials and after um and and there's just got to be this place where you have to the younger generations need to understand a little bit more about the history and the journey and what it took to get

here and it's not ideal but the part that the the fact that this this conversation and the um the context is now part of our zeitgeist is major for many of us to to be alive to witness and you may not like the term transsexual but as Dr. Sue said for those in the 1900s but there was you know i mean the rocky horror picture show right has the best song affirming living your truth in your identity unapologetically and the key word in that song is transsexual yep um or transvestite sorry with sweet transvestite from transsexual transylvania yes i was trying to play the whole thing through my head i'm like no way no transsexuals in there somewhere yeah it is so just it's it's making space it's being mindful and making space

yeah and and asking about the history for the you know there was um it was for me a little bit eye openings many not many years ago but several years ago when the series pose came out and the reason why those show creators felt compelled to create that show is because they realized that there is we now have um a couple of generations of genderqueer queer lgbt um folks who don't know the history and the panic and everything of the 80s here just the massive fear yeah and so there's as much as we want older generations to just come on just get with it you need to understand why it's going to be hard and so go learn the history yeah and gain a better understanding we need to understand at all levels i feel like i want to keep going with this idea but i want

to go into orientation and that's not what this is about but i you decide so i have three other non-related things where i can keep going with this idea that we're talking about the history yeah i i don't know that there's much more to add to the history um the history piece of this conversation well i think just ultimately and this goes both ways if i could like mistakes do not equal malice um if someone is refusing then that's you know that's not nice that that does equal malice um but just just make space guys yeah we're all struggling together for many many other reasons it using someone's affirming affirming pronouns and learning why that's important doesn't necessarily i'm gonna this is the general statement but that doesn't cost you

any money. Nope. And you can help, you can help someone, someone's psychological wellbeing. And isn't that an incredible thing to be able to do? I think so. Yeah. All right. How do you want to take us off topic? Okay. Three unrelated topics. Yes. Pronouns in emails are not a policy that signifies that you are affirming spaces so so we just these are all we're just going to do pronoun related things because i worked at a company that got feedback on the climate survey that said that we weren't the the organization was not really friendly to diversity and i'm not going to go into what the organization was because i don't want that headache um and so what they decided to do was say that everyone so there's two parts to this actually one that everyone had to put

their pronouns in their signature and that was the entirety of their affirming that was their strategy that was their entire look we're so inclusive everyone do it yes so there's two pieces to this one just having people put their pronouns in their signature is not a policy that's really going to make anyone comfortable if you are serious about doing something about the climate of your space that is not affirming and welcoming and safe you need to do more and that's literally what they did it was like okay so now we're gonna be more welcoming and affirming so everybody put their pronouns in their uh and their signatures and uh here's an article you might want to read about why that's important okay have a nice day that was literally their entire thing

and I thought and I was working on stuff and I'm like this is not addressing what this is not the answer this is not the answer um so so for those of you who are anywhere involved in making decisions having people put pronouns in their emails is not a policy it's going to fix a damn thing right and then that leads me to my second point which is that you should never ever require people to get their pronouns ever and i've done conferences in the sex space that required pronouns and i was like we should know better we should know better because if you're requiring me to give a pronoun and i am not as i'm not i like i'm not set because i'm i'm i'm still reconsidering who i am or i'm questioning my identity or i don't really know

how i feel today especially for folks who are fluid like you're asking me to commit to something i may not want to commit to i also don't know if it's a safe space for me to do that so so if it's not a safe space for me to do that i either have to lie which is yet another time during the day where I have to lie and pass as something that I may not believe or I have to out myself and you should never have to out yourself I don't have to out myself on your timeline right and so people are always like well I don't know what to do then like how do I refer to them them being a single right there yeah if someone is is not giving you pronouns and you use a pronoun that you think is correct and they don't say anything then you simply keep going with it because they are either

willing to take you know there's a difference between if someone doesn't really go by a pronoun that's comfortable for you maybe they go by they them but they present as female and you say she that person may be like okay like i'm okay with you saying it but i don't want to have to stand up and be like i'm i'm okay accepting she today if people aren't comfortable with the pronoun that you're using they'll tell you if they feel comfortable and if they don't that's their decision but you should never ever on a form especially in the sex world be better um you should never be using you should never be requiring people to put pronouns or doing it i was part of an icebreaker once on safe spaces and i hate safe spaces because i don't

really think they exist and i was like okay like go around you know everybody's fun funnest thing that they hate like give a fun fact about yourself and then make sure you give your pronouns and i was watching it happen and someone gave their name and the department that they worked in and gave a fun fact and I was like okay thanks and looked at the person on their to be the left if I remember from where I was sitting and I was like no no you have to give your pronouns and the person was back to me and says no no I don't and it was wonderful and I'm glad I watched it happen but then there was like this discomfort that existed because now the person running the meeting was just like uncomfortable and like they felt like their power was being

disrespected i'm like you just ask them now themselves or go back in the closet for you yeah if you run a corporation or your own department you run any kind of policy simply saying we're going to use pronouns in our signatures is not an actual policy it's a joke two don't ever performative yeah it's thanks that's the word i wanted um don't ever require people to give their pronouns you can leave a space for it if they want to fill it in they'll fill it in but then if they put something and you don't like it tough shit so don't require things unless you're ready for a whole lot of different answers you might not want those those were two of my three things i have one other thing but i should stop talking i think a way

to contextualize this for binary folks who who struggle to accept the direction society has gone surrounding this is did you get married and if you got married are you a woman who got married who took your husband's last their husband's last name because there is no problem changing from miss to missus okay and there is no problem accepting someone else's last name and expecting people to adapt to that. And how would you feel if you're newly married and someone used your maiden name? I didn't want to say maiden name for a variety of reasons, but your pre-marital name, I'll say. Your name assigned to birth. Yes. Yes. And one of the great arguments also that um recently that just made me chuckle was um when king what's his name now king charles

i forget what he i feel like he changed his first name prince charles of england no i thought he still went by i don't really follow the royal well but even then prince king right like there are instances everywhere where pronouns change personal pronouns titles change and we have no problem adapting to that so if you can adapt to calling someone mrs whatever their husband's last name they whatever name they decided to take what married name whatever married name they decided to take hyphenated whatever, or going from Sue to Dr. Sue, not having doctor prior to your grad program or your PhD program. So there are instances everywhere where we accept this and we are able to adapt.

So to say that you cannot adapt to this means you don't want to. Is laziness and refusal. yeah it's just rude yeah it really is so all right i have one all right go to your third okay my third and my final um there are folks who don't use pronouns there are folks who identify as a gender or let me say that again because i know i said it quickly a gender so the word gender but with an a in front of it is it a dash gender or just one word yeah but i realized i said it's super fast so there are folks who identify as um there are folks who identify as a gender and may not have pronouns that they're using there are folks who may not have their

pronouns set for themselves especially folks who are gender fluid where it may change and so they haven't really found the pronouns that are affirming for them and i had someone actually very recently say well what do i do then and i said you ask them what they want to be called you may just call them by their name a lot um charlie if you weren't using pronouns i would say so charlie said instead of she said um so you may wind up using their name a lot you may want to contextualize how you you know them so oh that my student or my friend or the person getting the car like we you don't have because it does sometimes get awkward just keep calling people by their name over and over but we've had all these conversations about what happens when your

pronouns may not be consistent with how you're presenting but then we we very rarely get to rarely get to the part of the conversation where we talk about folks who do not use pronouns at all and that is also a respect issue and that also does not work if you require pronouns and signatures or you require them on forms because it it rules some folks out and especially if you're doing it a form you have a checkbox there's no way you're going to have a checkbox for every single option that's out there because I don't even know all the options that are out there but there are folks who are age under and so what you can just say is how do you want me to refer to you and should I just call you by your name and I have a couple of folks in my life who do this and they are I say their

names a lot because that's what's comfortable for them and so I just want to acknowledge that those folks because and we're doing it now like at the very end of the podcast right for those folks are having their space as well and that we're seeing them. So I just wanted to make sure we included that in here. And for those of you that listen that may have some say in creating forms where you're trying to get demographic information, I mean, honestly, and that you require a box to be checked, maybe examine why you really need that demographic information. Because like, do you really likely not especially especially at like conferences like what the fuck do you need that for yeah no um but again having also worked in health care spaces like i've worked with people

to help them redo their forms and they and they'll be like okay sex and like are you asking sex are you asking gender and then that becomes a 20-minute conversation and if we haven't talked about that we should probably do this as an episode the difference between the two um and then sometimes in health care you do want to ask both you do want to know what their sex assigned at birth was so that you know what body parts you may be looking at and also what insurance may have them flagged as and also what insurance will cover in terms of preventive care sure and then if their gender does not is not the same as their sex assigned at birth that gives you the opportunity to be like how are you are you in a safe space that's a fantastic way of allowing someone to have that

conversation with you instead of just saying hey is everything okay you can just say hey like i i just want to make sure i have these straight like you were you know blah blah blah assigned at birth and you identify this way do you what was that straight um sorry um so yeah i think no no i think sometimes that there are reasons to ask but again I would ask why so right now I think I can say this I'm trying to figure out when this is coming out because we do these a few weeks ahead of time right now I am running a I'm part of a research team and we are studying pleasure and how people experience pleasure and if you are living in the U.S. and you are 18 to 29 go find my Instagram and you will find it on there I'm sure and if not you can always reach out and say where do I get that

study um and we do ask both your sex assigned at birth and your gender because we so rarely study how females or those who identify as female experience pleasure but we had long conversations about that so um we're all researchers in the sex space of course of course we had those conversations but but like charlie like you were saying like think about why you're asking those questions you really need it yeah if you're doing conference form do you really need to know my gender do you would you rather just know if i have any dietary restrictions like what's more important to you wait yeah that that question doesn't necessarily uh impact your risk liability if you're a conference organizer but my dietary restrictions and my allergies very much impact

you so right yeah so consider those things yeah and and check out the study if you're u.s based 18 to 29 and especially if you're not college because so many of our studies on sex are on college students and i really we're trying to get folks who aren't represented in those studies we want to hear your stories sorry little plug for my no that's great that's that's the joy of having our podcast that we can plug whatever the fuck we want so there you go i think i'm right yeah hold you want to double check i take no sleep i'm good okay so for me i think a few key takeaways to if you're someone who does struggle with accepting this shift in society just a couple of things to ask yourself when you

start to maybe just internally like you're you are trying to unpack but they're you're undoing decades of conditioning um just how does it feel when someone doesn't use your correct name do you like it probably not go ahead i know i said i was done but i lied um and for those of you who are like i i have been trying and i get it and i get respect and i'm trying and i'm trying good on you for trying because it's hard yes get there please yes but good on you yeah yeah that we need people doing the work so you can teach others how to do it and say like yeah i screwed that up a lot but here's what yeah well and examine are you making a mistake or are you just refusing if you're refusing then you need to ask yourself how does it feel when someone

doesn't address me in a way that i like to be addressed the way that affirms my identity in how i move about the world you're not gonna like it and if you say you don't mind you're fucking lying yeah if you've ever corrected someone's pronunciation of your name you're lying yeah yeah um and i don't i know we we say no judgment and i don't think this is judgment this is something to consider but it could be received as judgment is discomfort really a valid reason to deny someone's affirming identity and the impact that it would have on them do you want to be responsible for someone because you don't know how many times they got they got misgendered their pronouns miss uh any any of it and you may be the straw that breaks

the camel's back so is that really is your personal discomfort because you're struggling with using they as a singular which has happened for centuries do you want it do you want do you want that for yourself as your legacy probably not especially if you're listening to us i like to think many of our listeners have some kind of desire to expand their empathy and their compassion and and space for navigating humanity in a in a co-existing kind of way coexistence way um just don't try not to if you have to justify your disrespect you're doing it wrong yeah just don't be an asshole yeah that's a good rule that's a good rule of thumb i think that's how

we should end our show from now on just don't be a fucking asshole i mean there are times where you should be an asshole because the only way you're gonna get something done but in this situation just don't be an asshole don't well and especially oh go ahead no i'm just i will especially if it's surrounding this if it's surrounding understanding someone has affirmative pronouns understand that they are a marginalized likely marginalized person and you're the one that has the privilege and the power in that dynamic yep and so use your power for good yeah use your power to be a safe person for that person and stop being an asshole yeah well if you do that then you're not an asshole. So, you know, domino effect. All right, everyone, I want to thank you for joining us on

this candid conversation around pronouns and the taboo of pronoun, the modern taboo of preferred pro or not pro. Oh, I did it. Okay. The modern taboo of affirming pronouns. If you like what you heard and saw. Don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, share a comment in the episode to give us your thoughts, your stories, if you're comfortable, your questions. And if you like this, share it with someone who you think might be ready to unzip this taboo and any other taboo that we've talked about so far and the ones that are to come. Now that we're on video, feel free to wave back shout affirming things to us at the screen we won't hear you but we love the vibe and if you've got a question or a topic you want us to dive into we want to know about it so head

to the link in the episode description to share what's on your mind so uh we also want to give a very special shout out to ali o'brien for incredible theme music thank you so much ali and until next time keep the conversation going keep unzipping those taboos and everyone take care