Part of Me calls animals “it” because it’s kinda messed up to force human constructs of gender on them. I always try to put in effort to call babies “it” until they’re old enough to state their pronoun preference. But with animals, I don’t think the “it” pronouns are as important, because they don’t understand. So there’s a much bigger part of Me that’s willing to gender animals than babies.
Because the talking animals I know tend to prefer “it”. The ones who were unfortunately born in human bodies, I mean.
And because singular “they” implies personhood, and I don’t want to project personhood onto animals. Instead, I want us to decouple our ethics from personhood and treat non-persons with some level of equality with persons. You shouldn’t need to be a person in order to have rights. Calling animals people just reifies the supremacy of persons, and causes more issues down the line when it comes to the questions of non-persons who aren’t animals, and their rights. Like aliens and AIs.
Just because its bigoted in one context doesn’t mean its bigoted in every context. Here’s an alternative contextual framing for you: “this is delusional” is also what sane people say to people experiencing delusions (such as, eg, the delusion that you are an animal, or that you are Jesus, or whatever)
The current context is that a layperson with no credentials or experience in psychopathology is handing out medical advice and being a bit of a jerk about it.
Part of Me calls animals “it” because it’s kinda messed up to force human constructs of gender on them. I always try to put in effort to call babies “it” until they’re old enough to state their pronoun preference. But with animals, I don’t think the “it” pronouns are as important, because they don’t understand. So there’s a much bigger part of Me that’s willing to gender animals than babies.
Why not use “they”? Its gender neutral without being objectifying
Because the talking animals I know tend to prefer “it”. The ones who were unfortunately born in human bodies, I mean.
And because singular “they” implies personhood, and I don’t want to project personhood onto animals. Instead, I want us to decouple our ethics from personhood and treat non-persons with some level of equality with persons. You shouldn’t need to be a person in order to have rights. Calling animals people just reifies the supremacy of persons, and causes more issues down the line when it comes to the questions of non-persons who aren’t animals, and their rights. Like aliens and AIs.
If they can talk, they have a human mind. And apparently they have a human body. Idk man kinda just sounds like you’re talking to humans to me
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otherkin
This is delusional
That’s what bigots say about trans people.
Just because its bigoted in one context doesn’t mean its bigoted in every context. Here’s an alternative contextual framing for you: “this is delusional” is also what sane people say to people experiencing delusions (such as, eg, the delusion that you are an animal, or that you are Jesus, or whatever)
The current context is that a layperson with no credentials or experience in psychopathology is handing out medical advice and being a bit of a jerk about it.