“Is there a polite way to ask who is fronting?” -Dylan
Hey Dylan!
As a system, it’s so nice to have this sort of thing acknowledged. To start off with, I should say that we haven’t heard of a system ever being upset at someone asking who is in front at the moment, unless they are in mixed company or public. You’ll want to ask how to ask each system because as you and anyone else who reads this will eventually get tired of hearing: Every system is different.
Online, we have chosen to hold separate accounts for us when possible, so typically communication is easier for us online than in person. In places where we can be open about plurality but only hold one account for the system, we will typically either tag with House|Name like we do here, or we use specific emoji for each of our system members when we’re typing faster. To explain the concept of “House|Name”, the house represents a name that all of us have agreed to as our whole group’s name. My system’s house name is Spectra, and my personal name is Bee, therefore I tag my posts on here as Spectra|Bee, or I would use a bee emoji.
In person, we have other indicators separate from how our face looks, our word choices, and the timbre of our voice, such as how we wear our hair, how we wear our glasses, which jewelry is worn, etc. We are currently looking into having a piece of jewelry that we can change the color of with the press of a button, or that can be switched around easily. Otherwise, since my system all agreed on our colors, friends of ours in person can also ask “Color?” and even in mixed company we have a code that we can reply back with. Each system will have their own methods in place. If you are friends with a system and you ask them if they have a way they prefer to be asked, especially in mixed company, I can probably assure you they will appreciate being asked directly.
Any systems out there have a different method than what we use and wanna share? Please feel free to comment. 🐝
Ask About Plurality 