I'm choosing pronouns for my book, and feminists are impossible to please, so screw it.

I'm writing a guide to compassionate listening when someone is struggling. I believe all genders are equal, and I'm an ally to LGBTQ+ individuals.

That said, in my book, I need different pronouns for the listener and the one who's sharing feelings, so the reader doesn't mix them up. It's purely logistical, not ideological.

And no matter which way I do it, feminists are impossible to please. No matter what I choose, they always cringe.

And if I put a clarifying note in, explaining that I'm an ally to LGBTQ+ individuals and the pronouns I use throughout the book are purely logistical and not ideological, then they say it's performative, and a real ally would do it naturally.

Yet if I don't put a note in, they say I'm insensitive.

Pick one!

If I use a male listener and a female sharer, they say, "Why are men always the saviors and women always the damsels?"

And if I use a female listener and a male sharer, they say, "Why are women always the unpaid therapists and men always entitled to emotional labor?"

And notice how feminists' reason to dislike it CHANGES based on who gets which pronoun. EITHER WAY, men are painted as inherently gross, and that's unfair in and of itself.

And if I use they/them for all the characters, then the feminists (probably intentionally) misread the book and say I wasn't thinking, like I didn't just bend over backwards to make it that way for them!

I might as well do it however I want to if any effort to please them is laughed at. We need to stop begging them for crumbs.

My resolution is to show genuine compassion for those in the LGBTQ+ community who are marginalized, WITHOUT groveling to privileged rich college chicks who've never known pain once in their lives, and who want to soak up the credit that the marginalized ones deserve.