LessWrong Game Theory Explains Trans Women's Resistance to Pronoun Degendering

In a LessWrong post, BryceStansfield examines a pattern they've observed: trans women vocally oppose pronoun degendering (e.g., replacing he/she with they/them or neopronouns) far more than trans men or nonbinary individuals. They propose a game-theoretic explanation rooted in the concept of 'degendering'—the soft rejection of a person's gender identity by avoiding gendered markers in contexts where they'd be applied to cis people. Citing a study (Taylor & Jones, 2021), they note that clarifying a trans woman's pronouns reduces rates of degendering, while the same intervention has no effect for trans men or nonbinary people.

The mechanism: current gendered interventions (e.g., asserting 'she/her') provide a tangible benefit to trans women by actively affirming their identity. Degendering would eventually eliminate the need for such interventions, but during the likely decades-long transition, trans women would lose that affirming signal without a replacement. Trans men and nonbinary people, who don't benefit from current interventions (since they are already less frequently misgendered or degendered in the same way), perceive only the long-term upside. This asymmetry explains the disparity in opposition. The post also notes that some trans women express dislike for the end-state (a fully degendered pronoun system), but this might be a strategic preference rather than a genuine ideal.