# Respecting Trans People's Pronouns Pink News published a two-panel cartoon in August 2020 showing a friend being gently corrected after misgendering their nonbinary friend James, and the earnest infographic became an exploitable image macro within weeks. By October 2020, Tumblr users were rewriting the green-haired character's dialogue to make James the butt of offensive confessions, turning a pronoun lesson into a punchline template. ## Origin On August 10, 2020, the Twitter account of LGBTQ+ news outlet Pink News posted the cartoon with the caption 'Respecting trans people's pronouns, even when they're not around, makes a huge difference'[2]. Over roughly two years the tweet gathered more than 360 likes, a modest tally that gave little indication of what the image would become once remixers got hold of it[3]. The infographic was reposted to iFunny soon after the original appeared[1]. The exploitable turn came in early October 2020, when Tumblr user sir-franz-of-the-grape, whose blog has since been deleted, rewrote the green-haired character's line to make James a racist while leaving the 'They said' correction in place[3]. That version was mirrored on Kiwi Farms on October 11, 2020, which is the earliest archived copy of the remix[4]. - **Platform:** Twitter (Pink News) / Tumblr (viral remix) - **Creator:** Pink News (original cartoon) - **Date:** 2020 ## Overview Respecting Trans People's Pronouns, also known as THEY Said, is a two-panel cartoon drawn by LGBTQ+ outlet Pink News showing a white, green-haired character chatting with a Black feminine character about their trans friend James, who uses they/them pronouns[1]. In the original, the green-haired character slips up and refers to James as 'he,' and the other character calmly replies 'They said' to correct the pronoun[1]. Remixers kept the correction punchline intact and rewrote the first speech bubble so that the green-haired character confesses something increasingly absurd, offensive or incriminating about James, making the pronoun fix the only thing the second character cares about[3]. The humor sits in the mismatch between a dark or outrageous setup and the mild, surgical correction that follows, which some viewers read as satire of performative allyship and others as sincere celebration of pronoun discipline[3]. Edits circulated across iFunny, Tumblr, Twitter, Reddit and Discord servers, with the James character standing in for real figures like Chris-Chan[5] and actor Ezra Miller[7]. ## How It Spread After the sir-franz-of-the-grape edit in October 2020, the James-is-a-racist version circulated across social platforms and set the pattern every later remix followed: outrageous confession up top, pronoun correction below[4]. Attention spiked in July 2021 when Twitter user SophNar0747 posted a Discord-sourced iteration tied to the Chris-Chan mother incest allegations, and that tweet gathered roughly 6,700 likes within a year[5]. On August 14, 2021, a Political Compass Memes edit hit r/PoliticalCompassMemes and earned about 5,900 upvotes over ten months, which carried the template to a different politically charged audience[6]. The format kept picking up new subjects into the following year[3]. On June 9, 2022, Twitter user LeadeAbrys posted a version aimed at The Flash actor Ezra Miller in the wake of the Tokata Iron Eyes 'minor' allegations, and the post gathered roughly 2,900 likes in five days[7]. That iteration drew pushback from users who argued that the format gave cover to misgendering public figures the poster disliked[3]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Respecting Trans People's Pronouns? It is a two-panel Pink News cartoon, also called THEY Said, in which one friend corrects another after they misgender their nonbinary friend James[1]. It turned into an exploitable image macro where the setup line is rewritten but the 'They said' correction stays intact[3]. ### Where did Respecting Trans People's Pronouns come from? Pink News posted the original cartoon to its Twitter account on August 10, 2020, with a caption about respecting pronouns even when the person is not around[2]. The remix format came out of a Tumblr post by user sir-franz-of-the-grape in early October 2020[3]. ### What does Respecting Trans People's Pronouns mean? In the original it is a sincere plea to correct pronoun slips in private conversation[2]. In the exploitable form the joke is that the second character ignores an outrageous confession about James and only cares about fixing the pronoun[4]. ### How do you use Respecting Trans People's Pronouns? Edits typically rewrite the green-haired character's speech bubble with a wild or incriminating statement about James, often naming a real person like Chris-Chan[5] or Ezra Miller[7], and leave the Black character's 'They said' reply unchanged[3]. ### Is Respecting Trans People's Pronouns still popular? Its peak activity ran from late 2020 through mid-2022, with notable posts on Twitter and r/PoliticalCompassMemes during that window[6]. The Ezra Miller version in June 2022 was the last major remix documented in the source record[7]. ## References 1. [https://twitter.com/PinkNews/status/1292768402285555713]() 2. [https://ifunny.co/picture/i-was-hanging-out-with-james-the-other-day-and-clHezZ4t7]() 3. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/respecting-trans-peoples-pronouns-they-said]() 4. [https://kiwifarms.net/threads/pictures-on-the-internet-that-have-made-you-laugh-hysterically.40015/post-7519930]() 5. [https://twitter.com/SophNar0747/status/1421491562685599747]() 6. [https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalCompassMemes/comments/p49dy1/based_green_hair/]() 7. [https://twitter.com/LeadeAbrys/status/1534868186763517952]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/respecting-trans-peoples-pronouns-they-said Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library