Pronouns ..... It's like this.
The inside of a person's head is the most sacred, inviolable private place. There is nothing so terrible that it should not even be imagined -- just as long as it stays firmly within the realm of imagination. But once you step outside that private space -- whether it be by saying something out loud, writing it down, making a picture or performing some kind of physical act, anything that could be perceived in any way at all by another person -- then you are entering the Danger Zone, the realm of Other People's Business. And this is where you have to be careful.
Take my arse, for example. I have been led, by a select few very close friends, to believe it is a particularly fine example of the genre. However, whether or not you agree is not (unless I consider you a sufficiently good friend; and, absent confirmation, you may assume otherwise) a matter with which I wish to concern myself. I have sufficient problems in my life without having to consider that some random stranger whom I had never previously had to think was even alive or dead, now believes that I have a Nice Arse and might be seeking to get a closer look or worse. For all I know, some sick pervert might want to kill me, stuff my arse and mount it on a little wooden stand so they can touch it every time they walk past it. I had been living in blissful ignorance of this the whole time, until they brought it to my attention; and now I am unable to think of anything else, in fear for my life. What you think of me is none of my business, and I would be most grateful if you kept it to yourself.
And so to pronouns. There seems little point in me being flippant and saying my most preferred pronoun is you because I would rather be talked to than talked about. If I know that someone prefers he, then I am simply being discourteous in calling him she or it -- any reasons I might offer for doing so are purely selfish. The words we use to talk about a person are that person's business; we make it so, the instant we express an idea in a way that can be imparted into the mind of another and so leave the confines of our own private mind space. And anyone who refers to me as he or it is not doing so out of ignorance -- I have an unmistakably human girl's name -- but out of deliberate disrespect for me, that they are too cowardly to express directly to my face.
