I saw that a feature was recently added to allow users to specify their pronouns on their profile. This is great! However, I do find it somewhat strange that the only options are "He/Him", "She/Her", and "They/Them". I think it would be better and more inclusive to have at least 2 additional options: "Any/All" and an "Other" or "Specify" field with a short textbox allowing users to specify their own pronouns, whatever those may be. Alternatively, the checkbox options could be removed entirely, and replaced with just a text field. This is, for example, how GDQ handles pronouns.

Yup, don't understand why it isn't a freetype text box.

While I understand why people would want a custom textbox, it could lead to abuse. So either make it so the mods have to approve it (Would just make them have even more work sadly) or disallow custom text.

I kind of agree with Taru that there is too much abuse potential. In the case of GDQ it's less of a problem since there are much less submissions than there are users here.
For now a workaround for "Any/All" could be to toggle all 3 checkboxes which is then displayed as (He/Him, She/Her, They/Them).
A long-term solution could be to collect pronouns, have a vote on them to determine the order and then putting them into a dropdown list to choose from (maybe also an option to add a second set of pronouns? no idea how many people could be interested in that).

They could very likely run a blacklisted terms function in an 'Other' box for pronouns and ban particularly trollish terms, or flat out offensive terms, from being entered.

Whether that's something they would want to moderate is another story I guess, though.

Why doesn't speedrun.com allow me to identify the way I want to be? An Apache helicopter.

I see no reason people shouldn't be able to use whatever pronouns they sincerely prefer. Moderating what options people are given is the opposite of the solution, in my eyes. Mods shouldn't have the authority to tell a user what pronouns they can and cannot prefer for themselves. Instead of assuming a user will use the textbox to troll, and trying to protect them from themselves, we should directly address the few instances when a malicious uses the field to troll, and ban or otherwise punish those users. A simple profanity filter would be a sufficient preemptive measure otherwise.

In other words, give people the benefit of the doubt to freely set their own pronouns. If someone mishandles that freedom, take it away from that user specifically.

The issue of "abuse potential" is equally present with usernames (among other things), but we don't make people choose their username from a pre-approved list. We allow people to identify how they choose and ban, punish, or censor those who use that freedom to harm others. Why should pronouns be any different?

I think you guys are exaggerating, they already have you be able to select and deselect from he, she, and they however you want. Now it's a problem because you can't type them out yourselves?

That's like somebody buying you a burger and you complaining because there is no cheese in it.

I love that I can select my pronouns now ^^
I get that some people want other pronouns, however one thing to remember is that having this feature is still better then not having it.

As Auride already touched upon, there's potential of abuse in pretty much every single input field that isn't a search bar. Yet AFAIK, stuff like forum posts doesn't need to be approved by mods either. If there's already some kind of filter on forum posts and usernames, then I don't see why it couldn't be extended to any other input field, perhaps with some minor changes. You can also just use someone's name, if you aren't comfortable with using whatever pronouns they put in.

Yeah, I honestly think @AurideAuride brought up some very good points. I'm really looking forward to a textbox-like option, and I hope something like this gets added to the future.

I don't see a lot of other pronouns in the wild, but I remember that FF9 runner Luzbelheim wanting luz/luz pronouns (unsure how serious this is), so I guess there is some. But just like our Apache Helicopter @DaravaeDaravae mentioned, an open textbox is easily abusable.

An idea would be a dropdown menu, with the standards, and possibly others getting verified by sending an email somewhere?

Apache hater.

Jokes aside, are there seriously any other pronouns other than he, she, and they? Because I'm still not convinced that this should be a thing. "All/Any" is pointless since you can select all three that are already there.

@HakoHako Another relatively common one is ze/hir or ze/zir.

Of course there are others. And people should be able to identify how they want.
Don't worry so much about people abusing a textbox. There are a thousand places on this site you could abuse a textbox. That's why you have moderation, profanity filters and other things to combat abuse.
And I mean, if it gets out of hand, then the site learned that it's users are not yet ready for such freedom. Which I really don't expect.

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ze/hir or ze/zir

What are those??

It's a gender neutral pronoun.

Isn't that just they/them?

@HakoHako , they're distinct. I suggest you do some reading on the topic, but in short, the point of choosing pronouns is to use what feels comfortable, and they/them doesn't feel comfortable for some individuals. (They/them is popular in comparison to other neopronouns, so it's understandable to not be familiar.)