Originally a comment by iknklast on Catching them early.

I didn’t realize I needed before I started using “them,”

Rare moment of honesty. I didn’t realize I needed…until…the need was created. Until I insisted. Why didn’t she know she needed these pronouns? Because she didn’t need them. It is a need created by media hype, trans activists, and societal contagion.

What is this need? Not the need to be non-binary; we are all pretty much that, if you talk about gender stereotypes (and in spite of all their denial, that is exactly what they are talking about). The need is to be special, to be noticed, to have everyone else paying attention to her, catering to her fragility, taking care of her “need”.

Pronouns not only are not part of a full identity (I ignore any pronouns in reference to me except I or you, because with the other ones, they are not talking to me, but about me, and I am usually not there.) They are not part of a full identity, and they are not part of you. They are not yours. They belong to the user. My name isn’t that much a part of my identity; it is used by others to identify who I am. I don’t refer to myself that way unless identifying for another person. If my name (the noun) is not a part of my full identity, then the substitute for my name (the pronoun) is not, either.

I feel sorry for people who have such a fragile sense of self that they must be constantly humored. In the case of this woman, though, I feel angry because she is passing her fragility and her need for special treatment on to children too young to evaluate the bullshit claims and too young to easily reject a message coming from an adult presented as an authority. Sex education needs to be taught at a young age, with age appropriate teaching each year; if we did that right, maybe the gender ideologists would have learned what sex is, what gender is, and which one is a social construct. Not to mention, if it is done right, maybe they would realize feeling “right” with your body is more the exception than the rule in youngsters, and would realize they aren’t really that damn special. they’re just people, like all the rest of us.