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this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2026
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The gender orientation of the firefox logo is something I haven't thought about ever.
What's the point of this?
The point is corporations have realizing lgbtq people are fucking just as retarded and easy to manipulate as everyone else
You say they/them and sell shit to a new demographic. It's the same shit as all the rainbow fucking crap in June.
There's no actual representation happening here. It's all just shallow bullshit to sell you shit and manipulate you.
The point is that you've fallen for some idiots on X making up culture war bullshit.
Kit's supposed pronouns aren't mentioned by Mozilla anywhere in any Mozilla announcements.
One news site attributes this quote to Mozilla
That's the one and only place that even remotely mentions it as far as I can tell. And it's not even a statement that it's NB or they/them... More like it's a fictional mascot call it what you want.
Jesus, it's Clippy all over again.
look i agree the x post is culture war shit, but mozilla does mention the gender of their mascot in their branding resources… but imo this is less of an explicit recognition about the mascot being non-binary and more a function of the mascot being able to be interpreted by humans however they like, and “it” being the term they seem to use simply to increase ambiguity and feelings of personal connection to the mascot for the most people
I think it's more a statement that it's not gendered
Mozilla uses "they're" to refer to Kit, but other than that there's no explicit statement at all.
I used "they" etc. when I don't know the gender of the person I'm talking about. I feel like that's the safest assumption.
~~which is from a notoriously “pro-conservative” twitter account, so safe is highly debatable given that the “conservative” label is often applied to provably false arguments~~
replied to the wrong comment
U good b
I just read the screenshot lol
which is from a notoriously “pro-conservative” twitter account, so safe is highly debatable given that the “conservative” label is often applied to provably false arguments
True, it was just "a fox" for me so far. I didn't really care about the gender of a drawing. I guess it is a good awareness move though
It's a s***** awareness move. It's just a marketing ploy.
Feels like a publicity stunt more than a genuine attempt to include non-binary people.
It isn't, though. They never said that the mascot was non-binary.
they do though via stating its pronouns - even including it, repeatedly referring to it even in their intro blog post as “they”
but that’s because it’s a feature to increase the feeling friendliness of the browser by establishing personal connection via the application of any (or non-) gender by the user no matter their preference rather than intended as a portrayal of a sentient character having made a decision for themselves
Awww bummer. I was excited for the NB fox.
The fox is schrodinger's gender so... they/them until proven guilty?
that’s exactly it: in context, kit is a feature intended to be interpreted by the user; not a representation of a sentient character having made a conscious choice to be non-binary simply because of mozilla’s chosen pronouns and lack of gender expression
Exactly this. It feels like some kind of nonsense spam or troll.
If I was to take the bait, I might say it was to cover for their CEO making some anti gay marriage political contribution. But that was like 15 years ago, I don’t even know if he’s still CEO or if anyone even remembers.
To me, this feels more like a PR move than an awareness move. Kind of like: "We don't wanna do anything substantial so uuuuh let's just make our logo non-binary".
but it’s not a PR move… their blog post lays out the reasoning: kit is intended to exist in the browser to make users feel good about using the browser. it’s a friendly “congratulations for interacting” and “we’re doing something for your benefit” (as an anthropomorphic representation of that behaviour) character, and a feature of it as an engineered feature is that the user can apply any gender they like. kit hasn’t made a choice to be non-binary; mozilla has made a choice to make kit specifically ambiguous both in aesthetic when drawn and pronouns when written about
It's a terrible PR move if you don't say anything about it. They didn't say "Hey, look! Our mascot is non-binary!" All they did was use they/them pronouns.
It's a distraction from the real important issue, which is...
...what does the fox say? /j
Wha-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pow?!
Ring-di-ding-di-ding-di-ding?
Well, if I was creating a mascot, and I didn't want to think about their gender orientation... they/them pronouns are what I would use. Mozilla actually didn't announce the mascot's gender. People just saw they/them pronouns and made the inference from there.
What’s more is the non binary fox somehow seems more binary.
Most people default to "this entity is male" without more context. I do it too, it's a bit of an issue I try to be aware of but regularly fail. Male is default, female is marked; that's why the stereotypical "girl" character in video games is just the "boy" character but with eye lashes and lips and maybe high heels. (And non-binary doesn't exist, obv /s)
So I can see this as making the non-genderedness explicit.
Edit: I don't have the spoons to elaborate on "male is default". Can someone else maybe jump in? Thx.
Its a fucking cartoon logo, I've never once thought about its gender identity or called it any gender for that matter. I click on it, and that's the extent of my interaction or consideration.
Yes, cool. It's awareness.
I have a hard time wrapping my head about this sentence. I don't think about the gender of any entity without more context because it's usually completely irrelevant.
So, I didn't grow up in an english speaking country, but if I hear "the baker" I don't automatically assume it's a man. I think it's a person that bakes bread and pastry. The same with "the mechanic", "the engineer", etc. It's all - by default - a person.
Now, if we were to talk german, there is actually a difference. As "the baker", for example, we have "Bäcker" as Male and "Bäckerin" as female. The reason why male is "the default" in german is because it's shorter. That's it. If you say "Der Bäcker", it's as you'd say "the baker" in english, you don't automatically make an assumption about the gender. If you say "Die Bäckerin", you are referring to a female baker specifically.
Honestly this feels more like a mockery of people that identify as non-binary than raising any kind of awareness. Kinda has some "apache combat helicopter" vibes.
I grew up in a very male-as-default English-speaking culture. Any animal, robot, or plant would be referred to as it or he, unless that creature/thing has additional female markers such as wearing pink, makeup, etc.
For examples look at the designs of Mickey and Minnie Mouse or Babs and Buster Bunny. If you draw a little blob with eyes, people will say "He's/It's cute." If you put a pink bow on it, they will say "She's cute."
You can even look at the word "woman" itself. "Man" originally just meant any person, but "woman" was invented to speak specifically about a "wife-man." Going to your German examples, why did they make special words for female bakers, etc. and none for male bakers? It's because male is the default and female is a deviation from that norm. You don't need a special word to describe the default assumption.
There's this old riddle:
It plays on one's assumptions about gender.
They're not talking about language with the male-as-default, but rather for example this:
The depiction with less discerning features is what we assume to be male. If you want to express female, you have to add a dress or long hair or curves etc..
There's actual scientific research on this bias existing, although I don't know in what way this extends to animal depictions.
If not binary then how made of 1s and 0s?
Have you ever seen 1s and 0s out in the real world, outside your smarty-pants books? Thought so. Maths don't real, checkmate atheist.
That highly depends on the language.
Example in Czech: Generic Fox (Liška) is a girl Generic Wolf (Vlk) is a boy
Because our words themself have genders. Fox: Liška (girl) Lišák (boy) but default if you don't knoe the sex of the animal is in this case the girl version.
This differs per language. And in german (if I'm not mistaken) fox is Der Fuchs, so boy.
I'm using boy/girl instead of male/female, because ... I don't know, that is how I think about it.
That's true, but the grammatical gender has nothing to do with the actual gender. Nobody thinks that all foxes are male, just as nobody thinks that spoons (Der Löffel) are male or the street (Die Straße) are female. They can also change depending on the amount. For example, if we take "Haus", which means house, we say "Das Haus" if we talk about a single house, which would be neutral, but refer to multiple houses as "Die Häuser", which would be female. Nobody thinks houses become female once there's more than one tho.
to be honest, 99% of people don't even think about gender at all without being prompted to. especially when it comes to mascots like the firefox logo. its a browser.
this seems like a PR move by mozilla and nothing more.
There's no point. It's just some dumb manager fixated over gender identity spreading their ideology
it’s not even that… kit doesn’t have a gender identity: kit expresses ambiguity in gender so that the user can decide for themselves no matter who the user is. kit is a feature; not a character having made a decision about their gender… and their non-gendered pronouns are simply part of that feature
Edit: this post is literally not true Mozilla didn’t say any of this it’s just a hoax.
Somebody at the Mozilla foundation justifying their pointless job.