if parks and rec was still being made they’d do a bit where ron swanson has to wear a pronouns name tag and it’d just be “???/???” And it’d cut to a talking head of him going
“I’ve been a fool all this time. It’s bad enough the government knows my name, but now they want to know my gender? So I’m not letting them know my preferred pronouns. As far as I’m concerned, no one in this building should refer to me at all.”
Ron walks into the main area of the office like “Everyone, announcement! I notice that you have been referring to me with he/him pronouns for YEARS. As I do not think the government has any business knowing my personal information, this behavior may incline them to make conclusions that they have no business even thinking about. Therefore, I request that you switch it up from now on. Keep em guessing. That is all.”
He tries to turn around and walk back into his office, but Leslie starts crying and saying Supportive Things about how proud she is to see him exploring his gender and immediately switches to they/them; she instructs Ben and Ann to do the same. Donna and Chris go for she/her, for different reasons.
Tom assures Ron that he will use only the slickest, coolest, dopest designer pronouns; he sweeps in the next day and announces that he's put together a powerpoint of the most stylish and fashionable neopronouns to come out of Milan this season. The powerpoint includes the scarf, cologne and sunglasses that pair best with each option. Jerry is the only one to attend this presentation, which leaves him even more Big Confused about the whole thing than he already was. In Jerry's efforts to clumsily be an ally, he keeps accidentally "misgendering" Ron four different times in four different ways in every interaction and apologizing elaborately for every single mistake, thereby inadvertently doing the best job out of any of them at fulfilling the brief.
Andy does not know what a pronoun is, but in the spirit of himbo helpfulness, he's made a list of Words that he knows Ron likes, such as "sandwich", "woodworking", and "bacon". (Ron snatches it, tears it up, throws it in the trash, and sets the trash basket on fire, and firmly instructs Andy to never again mention anything that Ron likes while inside a government building.)
April, of course, keeps using he/him until Ron calls her into his office to re-explain the strategy of Operation: Muddy The Waters, whereupon she blinks owlishly at him and says, "I mean, isn't that just what they'd expect you to do if you were trying to hide something from the government? If you exclude one pronoun, then they know that's the one you care about. You have to double-bluff them." Ron squints at her for a long moment and says flatly, "Hm. Go back to your desk." The camera stays on Ron watching her through his window as his voiceover says, "April is a valuable employee. I look forward to one day when she leaves this hellhole and uses her strategic genius and insider knowledge to tear down the government."
