“Dude?”
“Yeah?”
“C’mere an’ lookit this!”
“‘Kay, dude. Here I come. zzzzzzZOOM!”
“Not funny, dude.”
“Yo, dude. Dig up close an’ personal while it lasts. ‘Cause it ain’t gonna. What ya got?”
“This form thingy I gotta fill out. Got all tha usual stuff: name, address, phone, email, direct link ta bank account so’s tha hackers don’t gotta work so hard, yada. But where tha hell did this ‘pronouns’ column come from?”
“Latest PC thingy, dude. Ya should be all ovah it.”
“Well, I ain’t, an’ stop gloatin’ ‘r I’ll drop yer Catalina ta tha Mountain Lions. Whadda I stick in there?”
“Easy peasy. Write ‘yes’.”
“… whut?”
“Trust me, dude, ya wanna be known ta peeps as, like, yer pro nouns. Pro verbs too. They’s good fer ya, dude. Kinda tough ta communicate wit’out either a dem.”
“Ya intendin’ that crack ta be proverbial? I don’ like yer chances.”
“Hokay, be borin’. See if’n I care. Yer motha talks ’bout ya wit’ her friends, she says ‘He’s my son’, yeah?”
“When she’s bein’ polite, yeah.”
“Teach ya not ta piss her off so much. An’ ya say, ‘She’s my motha’, yeah?”
“Sigh.”
“So yer entry would be ‘he/him’, hers ‘she/her’.”
“Well duh!”
“Not so much, dude. What if’n yer name’s Leslie? ‘r maybe Michael? ‘r mebbe some name yer parents, or mebbe even yerself, cooked up outa nuthin’ ‘r nowhere, and a dude ‘r chick readin’ it ain’t got a clue whether yer a ‘he’ ‘r a ‘her’ or a ‘none a tha above’? Now, wit’ forms like this, ya ain’t gotta guess!”
“But mebbe I’d rather guess, tha mebbe coupla times a week I gotta. ‘r mebbe just flat out ask! Why do I gotta have all this PC stuff makin’ my life harder an’ more complicated than it is a’ready?”
“Mebbe causa this action?”
“Yer shittin’ me! King died fer nuthin?!?”
“An’ that graph don’ even get inta tha Trump presidency, when racism wuz US policy. As if it wasn’t in full cry during Obama’s presidency. No wonda Black folks wuz loudly wonderin’ what Obama wuz doin’ fer them. As if tha white racists in Congress, elected by tha white racists in voting booths, let him have much say in tha matter.”
“Yer scarin’ me, dude.”
“Yeah, yer a little effin’ late, dude. You of all people oughta be gettin’ wit’ tha PC program, like right now. ‘r mebbe ya’d ratha be caught on tha wrong side a a riot and get yer pad burned down.”
“Won’t be no riots if’n ever’body’s locked down ‘gain ’cause a tha virus, dude.”
“Just police actions enforcin’ tha lockdowns? Now yer scarin’ me, dude.”
My pronouns are she/her/hers. I think we all should use the pronouns that the person in question uses for themselves. Is that so hard? If you were born into the body that agrees with how you feel about yourself, you’re lucky. Be kind.