On Pronouns and Characters

I originally brought this up in ATT, but the thread was too long so I'm moving it to Wiki Talk.

The original question is "What pronouns do we use when a character's gender identity changes mid-series?" and that was never quite answered.

When a character has an Ambiguous Gender Identity, I know using "they" is best. When a character is trans, you should use their preferred pronouns even when talking about them pre-coming out... But what about in other instances?

For example, I know of one work where a character is introduced as a trans boy, near the end they decide to not transition, but it's never technically made clear if the character is trans and confused or cis. Which pronouns should be used to avoid spoilers? Use "he/him" and it's misgendering, use "she/her" and it's both a spoiler and it seems like misgendering, use "they/them" and it's still misgendering... What's the safest bet?

Also, another work has a character who is openly trans being confirmed to be a previous plot relevant character who was presumed cis female. Should he be referred to with "she/her" when referring to his previous identity in order to avoid spoilers?

Why not just stick with whatever relevant pronouns that they're using at the coresponding moment of the story and spoiler them if necessary?

It would flow better than just repeatedly referring to them by their name.

"Trans" is not a gender.

If a character is female, you can use female pronouns. If a character is male, you can use male pronouns. If a character makes a point of being an it rather than male/female, use "it" as pronoun (common for robots and monsters).

In any case where the gender is unclear, such as refering to people with multiple genders, the use of gender neutral pronouns is acceptable. Gender neutral pronouns cannot misgender anyone.

Spoiler tagging pronouns is generally a bad idea. He and She are obviously different lengths, serving as a Self-Fulfilling Spoiler.

As an answer to the original question, use whatever pronoun the character was using at the time.

As I said on ATT, the no-spoilers policy on Recap/ pages blocks off "latest pronoun in all cases" as an option.

Combine this with "no spoiler-tagging pronouns" and we have a tough situation. I don't think we can reasonably create a pronoun policy that works for all conceivable cases, and going policy-heavy on pronouns counteracts the idea of this being an informal wiki.

That doesn't really solve the two examples I gave, especially the last one. Spoilering pronouns doesn't work either. Also, isn't it considered incorrect to switch pronouns mid-example?

edited 16th Jun '18 6:11:05 PM by Pichu-kun

Do the creators of these works have a stance on the matter? It seems like the sort of thing that at least some of them would have deemed important enough to have opinions about.

Since we're talking about characters and not people, I'd use whatever pronoun the story is using for the moment of the example. Our main job is to represent what the story has to say about a particular trope. It's not our job to judge what is appropriate to use.

Agreed. This is a non-issue.

That isn't always an option. For example, from my understanding Japanese isn't big on gendered pronouns, and thus this presents issues with characters from Japanese media.

And my understanding of Japanese works is that if they appear here, they're almost always translated in some form or fashion. Are we then talking about works that completely lack a translation?

I concur that we should prefer the pronouns used by the work itself with respect to the character(s) whenever they appear. For untranslated works, this feels like quite the edge case. I suppose I'd go with whatever pronoun is applicable to the character's presentation in the story at that point, but I'm not committed to that point of view; it's just the one that makes sense to me.

Is it okay for trope examples to vary on pronouns or should all examples use the same pronouns? For some characters, different entries use different pronouns.

We should endeavor to avoid confusing audiences whenever possible. I might switch to gender-neutral pronouns ("they/them") in such cases.

edited 22nd Jun '18 5:34:03 AM by Fighteer

Latecomer, but Self-Fulfilling Spoiler already has the answer and, while it uses a biological Gender Reveal as an example, it should also be applicable for self-identified gender as well: (EDIT: Emphasis added)

Interestingly, this issue lightens the spoilerific potential of using they/them for characters that are not Only Known by Their Nickname: you may suspect that how a character is presented is not how they are, but, in this day and age, you no longer know what part(s) of a character's depiction is incongruent.

Edited by DonaldthePotholer on Jul 1st 2018 at 8:47:31 AM