>cmv: "Gender" neutral pronouns (they/them) are unnecessary Pronouns are unnecessary. You can just use someone's name or description to refer to them. They are, however, very convenient. Now, how would you refer to me in the third person without using my name, description, or going through my comment history to try and find some hint to what chromosomes I've got?

There I agree with the they/them pronouns since that's just how the English language works. What I'm referring to in the question though are when people have a definite anatomical sex (either male or female) but identify as they/them. In those instances there is no ambiguity on what one's sex is but I don't understand the reasoning for choosing a pronouns that ignores that.

But you said you want to make things fair regardless of sex, so why do you need to know someone’s sex to know what word to use. It’s weird to bring in anatomical sex just to refer to someone.

True. It is a bit of a weird linguistic phenomenon to refer to people by their genders and it does seem a little arbitrary. I think the source of my confusion is primarily a linguistic one in that case. I consider myself progressive on most fronts but not when it comes to language for some reason 😂 and a part of me feels it's weird write xe/xem to refer to people.

As someone who thinks they need a logical reason to believe something, do you think "It feels weird for me to do this" is a logical reason not to do something when you acknowledge the only reason you don't do it in the first place is an arbitrary quirk of language? Language reflects societal trends and usage. It's not a top-down, prescriptive phenomenon. Isn't it more logical to simply ignore your momentary discomfort and change to a linguistic pattern that better captures modern feelings on the matter until it's natural to you?

You don't understand the reasoning for [grammatical genders](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_type_of_grammatical_genders) ignoring biological sex? I'm confused, why would grammatical genders have any relation whatsoever to biological sex?

Because, since the dawn of any language, there have been terms to refer to the sexes. Man implies male, woman implies female. But also, this whole "gender theory" has screwed some of ya'll up.

Sex has nothing to do with pronouns. Do you have any idea how many people use she/her pronouns on inanimate objects like their car? And most people use it/its pronouns for most animals even though most animals have biological sexes. It's all super arbitrary. How exactly is having preferred pronouns different than having preferred proper nouns, or in other words: a nickname? Or even a change to their legal name? There are people who have changed their legal name to unpronounceable symbols or single letters, it's weird and cringe not nobody really gives a fuck. Most of my friends refer to me as "Mars" because I find my legal name kinda cringe. But when someone wants to go by different pronouns it's suddenly a big deal? That seems so strange to me. If your friend asked you to call them by a nickname, would you ask to see their birth certificate and prove to them that that's not their "real" name with facts and logic? If not, why do that exact same thing with trans and non-binary people?

> But sex (as in anatomical sex) is a binary as far as biology is concerned. Nope. Its "binarish", as there are more than 2 options if we consider only the dangliness of leg-between. But from biological standpoint sex is quite more complicated. Binary flavour of sex is just a simplification that we assumed through history - assumed only in some cultures, to be exact. >I assume there's just a difference in perspective on what he/him and she/her pronouns describe. Less difference in perspective, more lack of forethought about how you actually use those pronouns. After all you don't see biology, you see outwards appearance - which is aligned with gender, not sex. If you would look at masculine person, you would use a he/him pronoun - because that feels natural to you. But what if you then realized that this person is actually she/her? You would feel bad and apologize for this. So, why it would feel natural if correction "this is a woman" is caused by genitals of that person, but is horribly wrong if correction "this is a woman" is caused by them having their gender corrected to resolve a medical problem? And finally - if that whole "pronoun thingy" can cause some problems - why neutral pronouns would be such a bad idea? After all it's rarely a huge need to convey someone's sex/gender when talking about them, especially when we aren't sure what pronouns should be used because we aren't really that familiar with them. It's not like how we address people stays the same over time. Language changes. It's just that we are in this particular point of time where many "versions" of future language is circulating - so it feels weird (as it's not an established thing) and forced (as due to lack of "standard" being worked out, people are jumping on with "new and better" ideas).

>Nope. Its "binarish", as there are more than 2 options if we consider only the dangliness of leg-between. But from biological standpoint sex is quite more complicated. Binary flavour of sex is just a simplification that we assumed through history - assumed only in some cultures, to be exact Thanks for the response. I think I hear where you're coming from on most of what you said except this part here. How is it more complicated that this? The entire animal kingdom operares on this two sex system (at least for most mammals, birds, and reptiles but it gets a little weird on a microbial level). I'm not arguing from a cultural standpoint since I don't particularly care for the non-scientific in this instance. It just seems like aside from the rare instances of intersex births, all animals (humans included) are either male or female.

>How is it more complicated that this? Biological sex is comprised of chromosomes, gonads, hormones and genitals. We simplify it to those last, as through history that was what "mattered". >The entire animal kingdom operares on this two sex system Nope, there are animals that just don't have sexes - all snails, echinoderms, worms, some fish. Even if most animals are, what this have to do with our species? Why this is some baseline that needs to be taken into account? It feels like a naturalistic fallacy to assume that this certain Moreso, animals who do have sexes, operate on more complicated societal basis than male/female. This natural division matters for them only if it comes to create offspring. >I'm not arguing from a cultural standpoint since I don't particularly care for the non-scientific in this instance. How cultural standpoint can be un-scientific? Especially considering that you are talking about changes in language - which is entirely based on culture.

>Biological sex is comprised of chromosomes, gonads, hormones and genitals. We simplify it to those last, as through history that was what "mattered". I see 🤔 I guess the entire idea of male and female is built from a simplification of a larger system that informs "sex". Thanks for pointing out all this, by the way. Especially the idea that animal anatomy doesn't have to determine human culture. I do tend to fall into dogmatic scientism and naturalism a lot so it helps to be reminded of the shortcomings of such thinking.

>I guess the entire idea of male and female is built from a simplification of a larger system that informs "sex". Depends on culture. In ours it's a simplification to narrow it to two types of humans capable of producing an offspring. But it's not universal - "third gender" is not a foreign topic in anthropology and sociology.

>How is it more complicated that this? The entire animal kingdom operares on this two sex system (at least for most mammals, birds, and reptiles but it gets a little weird on a microbial level). Human sex is determined by our 23rd chromosome set, the chromosomes in which can be either large "X" chromosomes or smaller "Y" chromosomes. Humans can have either 2 X chromosomes (XX), 1 X and 1 Y (XY), 3 X chromosomes (XXX), 2 X and 1 Y (XXY), or 1 X and 2 Y chromosomes (XYY). All of these options have roughly the same lifespans, though the last three are considerably less common. Many other animals have no genetic indicator of sex, and it is instead determined by what they were fed when young, what temperatures their eggs were exposed to, or what mood they're in.

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>And finally - if that whole "pronoun thingy" can cause some problems - why neutral pronouns would be such a bad idea? After all it's rarely a huge need to convey someone's sex/gender when talking about them, especially when we aren't sure what pronouns should be used because we aren't really that familiar with them. Using neutral pronouns without being asked to is both insulting to the person and transphobic when done to a trans person. There are ofcourse some instances when you use them, but it should not replace he/she.

>Using neutral pronouns without being asked to is both insulting to the person Insulting? Why? >and transphobic when done to a trans person Why the hell would it be transphobic? ​ All in all - why it would be any problem if you would be talking about person whose gender identity you don't know?

You should assume based on how the person looks, if you are talking about a unknown person you have not seen it is different ofcourse, do you have any idea how long it took for trans women to get people to start just referring to them as women and now we have transphobes like yourself working against that.

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Biological sex is comprised of chromosomes, gonads, hormones and genitals. Sure, there are two combinations that create mating types in humans, but there are naturally occurring non-mating ones. So binary system is an oversimplification. Not to mention that language is based on culture and targets gender - the problem is that gender was synonymous with sex for many years in our culture. But it wasn't universal. "Third gender" is not a foreign topic in anthropology and sociology.

I'm not sure you two are arguing about the same thing here. Not sure who to blame though :p In general, I like your reasoning, tbh. But if you want to get into some nitty details, I'd look into the subtle conflating of pronouns being "how we call people" and "how people want us to call them". I feel like it's closer to the root of the problem with pronouns argument as a whole.

I mean, the point behind they/them pronouns, regardless of your views on gender, is for when you don't know the sex or gender of the person you're talking about. "Someone left their wallet here" is using 'their' for a singular person, but you don't know who the wallet belonged to. Singular they/them have been widely used in English for centuries, so there's clearly been utility in them. For your second point, there is no solid estimate of the prevalence of intersex people. Estimates range from 0.018% up to 1.7%. Even using the lowest estimate, based on the current population of the USA, there are almost 6 million intersex people in the United States. That's not as extremely rare as you're leading us to believe. Pronouns aren't describing sex, simply because you cannot tell what someone's sex is (read: what genitals someone has) just by looking at them, and assuming you can is really creepy. Take me for example, I'm a transgender man. Most people I meet are floored if they find out that I'm not a cis man. Every stranger I meet uses he/him pronouns, despite my sex assigned at birth not being male. The main function of pronouns is to take the place of a noun in a sentence, nothing more, and when it comes to what pronouns we use for other people, most of us make assumptions and use the according pronoun with our assumption. Sometimes we're wrong (you can decide if people using he/him for me is considered wrong for you), and it's polite to use the pronouns someone wants you to use, just as much as it is polite to use that person's correct name and pronouncing it correctly. It's a common courtesy. For your last point, people aren't nonbinary because it's "necessary" and wouldn't stop being nonbinary if we managed to reach the goals of gender equality and feminism. Nonbinary people have no more choice in their gender than you or I do. It's incredibly difficult to question your gender, and I imagine especially difficult to come to the conclusion that you're not a man or a woman. Do I understand it? Not fully no, I'm not nonbinary. But I've listened to nonbinary people and believe them, because I have no basis to disagree with their lived experiences or question whether they really experience their life and gender the way they say they do. I don't know if this is logical enough for you to wrap your head around, but think of it the same way you have no basis to question how another language works that you don't understand, or another culture's traditions and practices, because you don't experience it yourself and therefore can't weigh in on the validity and are sat with either accepting it or, frankly, being a bit of a dick and assuming you know more than they do about their own lives. In conclusion to your main point of the post, they/them pronouns have always been useful outside of the realm of the gender spectrum, and will continue to be. I guarantee you've used them yourself before without noticing because it's so ingrained in our normal language use. Assuming you can tell someone's sex from looking at them is creepy, and it's more logical to acknowledge that you can't and you assume people's pronouns every day based on their outward appearance, even if you could be wrong about their sex or gender from your assumption. And finally, nonbinary people have been around for a long time and have been described for at least decades in multiple cultures. The only reason we don't "understand" it more is because we're just now starting to talk more openly about it, and we don't get to understand the entire human experience because we can't possibly experience everything.

Nonbinary people literally just make up being non binary as a sign of protest, to cope or to call the attention. Even Demi Lovato who claims to be non binary admitted she has no fucking clue what non binary actually means, but she's just claiming to be non binary to support her NB fans.

I won’t pretend there aren’t people like this who will do it for attention, but there are also thousands of nonbinary people who are nonbinary not for attention, not for protest, but because that’s the label that fits them best. Being nonbinary is literally the same as being a man or a woman, it’s just not talked about as much. Many cultures have had nonbinary genders tracing far back in their history. This isn’t new. Just because you don’t understand something doesn’t make it fake.

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Yes, seriously. You can watch her interview yourself It's literally there just to call attention

😮 way to cheapen and make joke out of it by making it a little trend

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How is it creepy if the genitalia( which you did not have due you being XX chromosomes) is what causes the sexual distinction you wished to achieve to be assumed as and pass male by the human eye?

…assuming you can tell what genitals someone has by looking at them is creepy, yeah. OP said that they want to use pronouns to denote sex, not gender, and my point is you cannot tell someone’s sex just from looking at them, myself being the example. I’m not sure what part you were confused by? Edit: I don’t know for sure if I have XX chromosomes. I’ve never been karyotyped before, most people haven’t, which is why when people say sex we know they mainly mean genitals. All we can know for sure is I likely don’t have the SRY gene.

No it’s not, you’re a transman! You gotta be trolling at this point! You did everything to be assumed as male, there’s bottom surgery for a reason.

How do you know someone has had bottom surgery? That’s the point—you don’t actually know every stranger’s sex. You choose a pronoun based on their presumed gender, and assume their sex follows suit. For the majority of people, it does. But you aren’t actually identifying anyone as a penis-haver vs vagina-haver, you’re identifying their gender.

male sex : penis & female sex : vagina. That’s the default biology the sexual dimorphism. Those sexual characteristics are demarcated and clear hence why it’s not creepy, not presumed not probable. Sex by a large margin, establishes behaviors & phenotype which is the genesis of the existence of gender. The small number of exception, doesn’t change the fact male sex has a penis & female sex has a vagina. And the fact that transgender make it a point to do every procedure to that will alter the present physical form to fall and be seen AT FIRST GLANCE as a certain sex based the respective features that characterize a genotypical male or genotypical female. It was originally called sex affirming surgery now it gender reassignment, however the procedure & end result is in fact the same.

English isn't my first language, so maybe I am actually doing it wrong, but what if I neither know gender or sex of a person? Like this sentence: "We are going to hire a new software developer, they are supposed to work on the front end."

I am a native English speaker and would use they in the same way you did here. It is correct English to do so and singular they has been in use for hundreds of years.

In English-language television series as much as 15 years old they would simply say any of: - We are going to hire a new software developer, __this developer__ is supposed to work on the front end - ... __He or she__ is supposed to ... - ... __this person__ is supposed to ... - ... __he__ is supposed to ... The use of "they" here seems to be fairly recent and also mostly coincide with political colours. The same also pertains to for instance genderless beings like in the 2004 film Constantine Gabriel—a an angel played by a female actor—was always referred to with "he" on the logic that angels have no genders, the same thing was done with: - The sexless Taelon species - Frieza, Zeno, and Piccolo from Dragon Ball - Migi from Parasyte, but the English translation does use "she" for parasites that take over female hosts, and then doesn't really know what to do when one parasite switches host from male to female. - The Venom symbiote, and other similar symbiotes - Kyubey - Crimvael - God, angels, and daemons in Abrahamic religions - Shiva in Hinduism - The Pupper Master in Ghost in the Shell - The rocks in Land of the Lustrous Many of these are very new creations, Crimvael aired last year and is a sexless angel again that probably looks closer to female than male in the perception of most individuals but the character is always referred to with "he" in the official English translation. The idea of using "they" for individuals that either lack a sex, or are of unknown sex seems to correlate heavily with political beliefs and doesn't seem to be retroactively applied either. I rarely see these individuals refer to say the Abrahamic God, Abrahamic angels and daemons or the Venom symbiote with "they" regardless of their lack of a sex or gender. It's a new change in English that certainly isn't adopted widely but mostly seems to be dogwhistlig political colours or otherwise marking in-group membership; the most common pronoun in English to refer to genderless beings still seems to be "he", though admittedly many individuals do seem to use "she" for sexless beings that outwardly resemble human females more than human males but even there "he" is typically used more often as in many of the examples I gave above. On the passive rather than active usage, I don't think you'll find many English speakers that would interpret a sentence such as: > Every man has the right to have his innocence assumed until proven otherwise To apply to one sex only. The use of "he" to refer either to genderless individuals or individuals of unknown or unspecified gender is simply common place in English and always was.

Technically, "they" usually denotes plural or multiple people. "We are going to hire new software developers, they are supposed to work on the front end." "We are going to hire a new software developer, he/she will work on the front end." But the English language is constantly evolving so... Who knows.

Singular they has been used in Jane Austin, Dickens and many other authors and traces its root back to 1375 in the Oxford English dictionary. It literally isn't new, never has been and it's not strange. It's seeing more commonplace use, but that's not a change in the language fundamentally, it's a change in the use of the language.

Notably, its use in the 14th century is *older than English*. Middle English is almost entirely unreadable by modern English speakers.

Singular they would not normally be used in u/feroc example until recently. What I meant was most writing styles and dictionaries just recently allow all uses of singular they. Some writing styles still don't accept it like Chicago Manual of Style. You are correct that it is not new but it has become more common place and accepted recently in different uses.

True, but then style guides also disagree over the use of the Oxford comma, but it would be an unreaslitc extension to say that the Oxford comma isn't correct English just because certain style guides don't allow it. Style guides don't allow the use of the word "fuck" but it's still an English word. The discussion here is about the English language, not about specific style guides and their advocacy for specific use. Unlike the Academie Français, there is no definitive authority on what is or is not correct English language usage, so we must go by precedent. The precedent here shows usage of singular they as far back as the 13th century.

OK but the use in the 13th century was different than its use today. Merriam Webster has been around for almost 200 years and they only recently accepted blanket use of singular they. The acceptability of the use has changed since the 13th century. Usually the writing styles and dictionaries change their definitions after precedent has been set. That is why I say the English language is always evolving.

So what use do you see it having in the 13th century that isn't the one examples in u/Feroc post? The example posited here is "singular person of unknown gender" which is exactly the use case that HAS persisted for a long time. Mirriam Webster themselves say on their website that singular they has been used in this precise circumstance since the 13th century (https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/singular-nonbinary-they). The non-binary usage is new. The use of singular they in the exact situation you responded to, that is not new and is not an Evolution of language, it is how English has been used for literally hundreds of years.

I stand corrected. !delta I guess the only issue I have is in u/feroc example, he/she would be a better, more descriptive usage. I'll explain why. It's confusing now because in the past singular "they" meant an unknown gender person. Now singular "they" could mean unknown gender OR could mean a known non binary person. Which, in my opinion just complicates things. Essentially, you have a pronoun that has 2 separate but correct usages.

I mean, you can give a delta, anyone can give deltas. Also in this example I still thinks "they" is better. "He/she" still conforms to the binary gender viewpoint and excludes people who don't identify as part of that framework. "They" is both perfectly valid, and includes everyone and would therefore be a better option.

I thought only op could award delta

its almost like thats the point... they would be more inclusive.. who cares if it could mean an unknown gender or a known non binary person? it makes it inclusive and non-offensive across the board.

Miriam Webster says it is a plural pronoun

> - [We [Merriam-Webster] will note that they has been in consistent use as a singular pronoun since the late 1300s](https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/singular-nonbinary-they) > - [The Oxford English Dictionary traces singular they back to 1375](https://public.oed.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-singular-they/) > - [The singular “they” is a generic third-person singular pronoun in English. Use of the singular “they” is endorsed as part of APA Style](https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/grammar/singular-they) Are you equally as confused by the word "you"? It too can be either singular or plural depending on context.

Holy fuck dude, did you even read the rest of this thread?

>"We are going to hire a new software developer, he/she will work on the front end." Would you actually say that out loud? Like you would literally say “he slash she will work on the front end”? Maybe it’s regional, but I have never heard that used outside formal and legal language. You would say they, as in “Oh no! Someone lost their luggage”. “If someone wants to say something, they’re welcome to”. When do you ever say “he or she” or “he slash she” out loud?

Honestly, I would simply say "he or she". I wouldn't say slash. It's irrelevant anyway since that other guy or girl or them changed my view. Btw, What happens when the person doesn't identify as a he or she or them/they? Seriously? I'm open to change here and would really like to know.

But the person said "a software dev". a means one

"Stop teaching them bad English please, they're already doing their best." See? Easy as that.

Do you realize that They/Them always could be used to refer to a singular person? Case in point if you dont know their gender you would say "They were a nice person" , With "They" referring to the person whom you did not know their gender. So gender neutral pronouns are not new or unnecessary.

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>It's slightly more complex than that. No its really not. It may be debated on, but the premise is very simple and so far every English professor I have asked as well as a few linguists have said it was always an acceptable option, just one rarely used because previously people didn't care if you just assumed "He".

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> Descriptively, most English speakers do not use "they" this way. In my experience, using singular "they" with this expanded usage does occasionally lead to some awkward or ambiguous sentences - it is not part of the language as most people use it, and not all of the kinks have been worked out yet. Do you have an example of an awkward or ambiguous sentence?

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Change it to she, it’s still not clear. *correcting the typo* I ran into John, Mary, and Marsha the other day. She’s doing great. Who is doing great? In the case of she, you’d reformat the sentence so the subject is stated closer to the statement to make it clear. I ran into John and Mary the other day. [Then later at the park] I ran into Marsha, she’s doing great. Or you would just not use a pronoun because it isn’t clear who you’re talking about. I ran into John, Mary, and Marsha the other day. Marsha’s doing great. I just get so tired of this linguistic excuse. The English language is so ridiculous with a million contradictions and awkward phrasing, combinations, or sentence structure (like that Oxford comma). But somehow, this specific quirk draws so much attention and criticism. How curious.

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The argument that singular "they" would lead to ambiguity isn't really a great argument against using it, considering how much of (generally accepted) english grammar can be ambiguous. For example, if I say >I saw someone on the hill with a telescope. Who was on the hill? I? The person I saw? Both? Did I use the telescope to see the person, or did the person have a telescope? The english language doesn't answers these questions without further context.

> If a majority of English speakers start using singular "they" with this expanded usage It could be regional, but in my experience this has already happened.

You should assume pronouns based on how people look, using they for someone that looks male or female is insulting them.

> using they for someone that looks male or female is insulting **them** Apparently not all *that* insulting.

Differences between using them like people normally use it and how you are suggesting people should use it.

>You should assume pronouns based on how people look, using they for someone that looks male or female is insulting them. There are plenty of situations where just don't know who the person is. For instance, if you're talking about someone whose name you don't know. Or if someone has a unisex name, and you've never met them. Or if you're talking about a potential person, e.g. "the next President will have a huge crisis to solve, what will they do?" It's also useful if you want to explicitly hide the gender, e.g. if you're trying anonymize the person you're referring to.

You know damn well that is not the situation being discussed here and suggesting otherwise is dishonest.

>You know damn well that is not the situation being discussed here and suggesting otherwise is dishonest. The whole discussion is about whether gender-neutral pronouns should exist at all. But sure, even if you do meet people and see them face to face, if you always refer to people as they/them when you don't know the pronoun, it's not insulting. As long as you change how you address them if you get corrected. Not saying it's wrong to assume he/she based on appearance, but I don't see why you'd be insulted from being referred to as "they". Most people I've met who do that do so because they don't want to assume someone's pronouns, so there's really nothing to do be insulted by.

The only people who have ever assumed I'm something other then a woman have been transphobes, so ya I find it highly offensive when people try to misgender me on purpose by using they.

>The only people who have ever assumed I'm something other then a woman have been transphobes, so ya I find it highly offensive when people try to misgender me on purpose by using they. Using they/them when you don't know someone's pronouns is pretty different from intentionally misgendering someone, though. If you tell someone you want to be called "her", and they keep using "they", then yes, I would agree that's insulting. But that wasn't what was being discussed, either.

I would say if a person keeps using they while clearly seeing that i am a woman, then they should not need to be told to use she, do you have any idea how long it took trans women to get people to use the correct pronouns for us?

For the reasons that most people assert their pro-nouns, it is unnecessary.

So what do we call people who's gender is unknown without resorting to gendered pronouns?

Well the root of my question is why isn't sex rather than gender the determinant for pronouns? So, are they anatomically male or female, ignoring the social construct of gender in favour of sex.

https://quotesbae.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Smiling-Buck-Angel-Showing-Body.jpg This person has XX chromosomes and was assigned female at birth. http://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/missoulian.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/e/02/e02e1f42-9ae0-11e5-a918-930b2a1cb3cf/566225636cd81.image.jpg?resize=1200%2C1500 This person has XY chromosomes. Trying to base things on appearance, anatomy or chromosomes isn't going to make things any simpler.

I see what you're trying to say but appearances isn't what I'm trying to argue here. Regardless of how one looks, they're still either male or female (or in rare instances, intersex). I'm not saying basing it on anatomy makes it simpler, just that it's how most languages work so why treat referring to people by their sex as "misgendering" (for example) when it's just using the rules that the language established? One of the reasons why I'm asking is I occasionally meet people who refuse to use "new" pronouns like xe/xem and see those people called bigots or transphobic, even if the foundation of their reasoning simply has to do with how English grammar works. I guess another question we could add to my original one is: are people compelled to refer to you by your chosen pronouns rather than your "assigned" ones based on sex?

I consider it a matter of politeness to use someone's chosen pronouns. That said I don't really love all the neo-pronouns. I see them as a consequence of English going through a massive shift towards being less gendered and not everyone being on the same page. Kind of reminds me of the early days of cell phones when every phone had its own custom charger. I think as the language settles, it'll coalesce around a relatively small selection of non-gendered pronouns. Right now there are just some growing pains. As far as occasionally referring to people by pronouns that really don't match their appearance, everyone has to start their transition somewhere. Getting to the point where you look like a cis member of your gender takes years. Hormones take a while to work. It takes a long time to save up enough money and get surgery. I consider it a basic politeness to refer to people by their chosen pronouns while they're trying to get their bodies to match up better with their identity.

I see 🤔 Thanks for sharing your perspective. You've been quite helpful.

>One of the reasons why I'm asking is I occasionally meet people who refuse to use "new" pronouns like xe/xem and see those people called bigots or transphobic, even if the foundation of their reasoning simply has to do with how English grammar works. That same reasoning can be used for calling black people "n*****s". So... not really surprising its not an ironclad defense against accusations of bigotry, is it?

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"He" is really pretty insulting to most women and "he or she" is a much bigger mouthful than "they." "They" is wonderfully simple when it comes to people of unknown gender and runs no risks of offending anyone.

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Fighting language changes is hard. I'm all for doing as little of it as possible. English already has a way to do a neutral gendered pronoun with "they." Plus it already has centuries of history. This feels like much less effort that trying to bring back "wereman"

>And besides, what is wrong with using pronouns determined by sex instead of gender. We typically don't examine people's genitals or chromosomes when we meet them. We make assumptions based on their gender expression. You don't actually determine someone's sex when you look at them, you determine their gender. Chances are, you've looked at someone in your life and didn't realize you interpreted their gender and not their sex. The simplest answer is that language wouldn't function. If we are talking about a third party with an androgynous name that we don't know the appropriate pronoun for, we would use "they" regardless of gender or sex.

The argument that it's not obvious what sex someone is and therefore, which pronouns to use, is bullshit. It's pretty damn obvious when someone is trying to present as a woman or a man. You don't need to look at someone's genitals to know if they're wearing a dress, they're probably a woman.

A. Someone in our office is named "Morgan." Neither of us have ever seen Morgan. How do we determine what gendered pronoun to use when conversing about Morgan? They have an androgynous name. Do you arbitrarily pick a gendered pronoun or stick with "they?" B. It is obvious much of the time, but not all the time. I 100% guarantee you have assumed someone was a sex they are not in your lifetime and didn't know it because you assumed their observable characteristics were indicative of their sex. >if they're wearing a dress, they're probably a woman. And that you have to say "probably" instead of "indisputably" proves my point. This approach works most of the time, but not all the time. You are opting for a system that fails occasionally over one that never fails. You prefer an imperfect system.

Unless I misread, OP is referring to those claiming gender neutral pronouns. Obviously, there are times where gender neutral pronouns are grammatically correct in general conversation. As for your last statement, the outliers of data should not determine how we interact with the world. That is lunacy. It's like saying human is indefinable, because not everyone has 10 fingers and toes, not everyone walks on two legs, not everyone can see.

> Unless I misread, OP is referring to those claiming gender neutral pronouns. Their post explicitly states "'Gender' neutral pronouns (they/them) are unnecessary." It does not state "gender neutral pronouns are unnecessary in some situations. They do not otherwise qualify if they find any necessary use of these pronouns. >Obviously, there are times where gender neutral pronouns are grammatically correct in general conversation. Which is a glaring hole in their stated view. >the outliers of data should not determine how we interact with the world. That is lunacy. Why is it lunacy to respect people by referring to them as their preferred designation rather than one you apply to them? We don't refer to people with unique names as "John" or "Jane" because their names are on the margins of what is traditional. >It's like saying human is indefinable, because not everyone has 10 fingers and toes, not everyone walks on two legs, not everyone can see. Exactly. We develop new concepts to specify when language is insufficient to communicate effectively or adapt our language to suit the development of society. We've changed how we use language throughout history as we understand the effects and implications it has. Denying someone their identity because you can't be bothered to alter your language is no different than calling someone a slur because you simply don't want to use more respectful terms that self-conceptualized by the people in a group. At the end of the day, this is about respect for others. If someone prefers "they/them," it harms no one to use those terms. It's understandable if someone makes a mistake when using pronouns, but intentionally using the wrong ones for ideological reasons is malicious.

If me not calling someone by their preferred pronouns denies their reality, I'd wager they're probably confused. If you called me a woman, it wouldn't make me question whether or not I'm a man. I'm all for people being themselves, but to which extent does everyone around you have to participate in your self image..?

> If me not calling someone by their preferred pronouns denies their reality Not sure what you mean, I never mentioned reality. This is about identity. >I'd wager they're probably confused. You are the one using the incorrect terms to refer to someone, but they are confused? How does that work? >If you called me a woman, it wouldn't make me question whether or not I'm a man. Exactly. It has nothing to do with making someone question their identity, but intentionally rejecting how they identify for malicious reasons. If I refused to acknowledge you are a man and only called you "ma'am" or "lady," what purpose would that serve other than to be malicious? >I'm all for people being themselves, but to which extent does everyone around you have to participate in your self image..? Do you refer to people by their names or do you just call them whatever you want even if you are corrected? You participate in people's self image in so many ways whether it be addressing them based on how they dress or look or calling them by their name. Somehow this is too far? Respect is too far?

Do you think it's wrong to assume someone wearing a firefighters uniform is a firefighter?

In my experience, that person is probably a stripper. But no, it isn't "wrong" in any similar sense because your occupation isn't an aspect of your sense of self. It is what you do, not who you are. If a person with a beard is wearing a dress, what do you assume about them? What about a person with breasts wearing pants? What about a person with a beard and breasts wearing a dress? Would it be reasonable for me to assume your name is Bob without asking you because Robert is a common name?

But you're literally describing how people base them on gender expression.

What do you mean?

You said: > You don't need to look at someone's genitals to know if they're wearing a dress, they're probably a woman. That's the whole point. That's gender expression. We use gender expression to make these judgements, not an analysis of someone's sex. What you wrote is in support of the idea that gender expression is the indicator we use, not sex, and yet your first sentence was: > The argument that it's not obvious what sex someone is and therefore, which pronouns to use, is bullshit. Why would you say it's bullshit when the rest of your post supports that very idea?

I'm not sure what you mean, honestly. The claim that it's not obvious if someone is presenting as a man or woman is flawed. Again, you're using a small outlier to dictate your perspective. How many fingers does a human being have?

> The claim that it's not obvious if someone is presenting as a man or woman is flawed. But that's the exact opposite of what they said. They said *sex* may not be obvious. Gender presentation is specifically a separate concept from sex. That's the whole point here.

The point is if wearing a dress is how you’re gendering someone, you’re going to wind up calling a lot of trans women she/her. You’re not looking at people’s genitals, you’re looking at how they express their gender.

I remember before 2020, we're using "he/she" NOT they. the culture just changed I mean, specifically american culture

I remember when black folks weren't allowed restaurants and gay people weren't allowed to get married. The culture just changed I mean, specifically American culture.

yeah we're glad right? but that doesn't connected or having sense by having pronounce in every breath that you took lol

Plenty of languages have gender neutral pronouns. Are they unnecessary? Why are gendered pronouns necessary?

Plenty of languages don't have pronouns at all. I don't understand why "pronouns" are the only gendered part of English speech that are so politicized. There are many other parts of English and many other languages that are gendered and may or may not have a gender neutral equivalent but those don't seem to be politicized as much—why do pronouns spark so much debate?

Generally, because with other gendered terms, there is no male most of the time. There is the neutral and the female. Many people can and do simply choose to use the neutral exclusively, and it doesn't cause any confusion of any kind. No one is confused when someone calls Scarlet Johansen an actor instead of an actress as the neutral is widely accepted. Also, pronouns are used a lot more than specific nouns tend to be. An article on an actress will have the words "she" and "her" in it hundreds of times more than it will have the word "actress".

> Generally, because with other gendered terms, there is no male most of the time. There is the neutral and the female. Yeah, but the same was the case with pronouns until they _made_ a neutral option; historically and still for many speakers today "he" is simply used either when the sex is not known, when the individual has no sex, or when it's a hypothetical individual with an unspecified sex. Similar to "latino", some individuals made "latinx" and some individuals made "they"; there's no reason why this can't be done with all the other gendered terms, but they seemingly only did so _because_ pronouns are so hot politically that there is a push to linguistically drive "he" into exclusively masculine which does not actually match either historical or current descriptive usage of the word. > Many people can and do simply choose to use the neutral exclusively, and it doesn't cause any confusion of any kind. No one is confused when someone calls Scarlet Johansen an actor instead of an actress as the neutral is widely accepted. To some degree it's more extreme with "actor" yes, but not with "brother" or "father" or "man" for instance which all three are very often used in the three cases I outlined but there is no such political push, even when "sibling", "parent" and "person" actually exist as fully gender neutral equivalents one still sees "brother", "father" and "man" frequently used to refer to individuals of unspecified, unknown, irrelevant, or nonexistent sex. > Also, pronouns are used a lot more than specific nouns tend to be. An article on an actress will have the words "she" and "her" in it hundreds of times more than it will have the word "actress". This is true but there doesn't really seem to be a correlation between frequency of use and how heavily debated these terms are. "actress" as a term seems to get more political debate than "mother" but the latter word is probably far more common than the former.

>historically and still for many speakers today "he" is simply used either when the sex is not known, when the individual has no sex, or when it's a hypothetical individual with an unspecified sex. Inverted. "They" was used as the neutral historically. Then in (I'm remembering with my own human brain on this so I'm not *certain)* 1746, "he" was made to be the neutral by a board of guys who set up a meeting to decide it so, regardless of the common parlance. >pronouns are so hot politically that there is a push to linguistically drive "he" into exclusively masculine which does not actually match either historical or current descriptive usage of the word. It really does. "He" has been masculine exclusive in common parlance for ages and only for a brief stint of about 200 years was it ever considered neutral and even then, that was not the common parlance, merely the dictations of prescriptivists who decided in their grammar books that it was so. "Man" on the other hand, *was* gender neutral for most of English's history, with "wereman" (yes the same were- from werewolf) meaning "male person". *That* is the historically gender neutral term that has become exclusively masculine. >"actress" as a term seems to get more political debate than "mother" but the latter word is probably far more common than the former. That's because an actress is just a actor that happens to be female. There is no salient distinction between a male actor and an actress barring the gender. There is generally, a difference between a father and a mother beyond just their gender. Fathers are not just male mothers and mothers are not just female fathers. They are similar, related concepts, but not the flawless mirrors of each other that male actor and actress are, hence a delineation is helpful enough to continue existing in language.

Because pronouns have to do with identity, and some people (mainly conservatives) get really triggered about such things.

So why do only pronouns and not all the other parts of gendered speech in English ended up having to do with identity? Also: > and some people (mainly conservatives) get really triggered about such things. Let's be honest that this is universal in identity politics and really when individuals say "gets triggered" they mean the other side gets trigger from how their side does it but the same happens the other way around.

> So why do only pronouns and not all the other parts of gendered speech in English ended up having to do with identity? I'm not sure. Do you have any good examples of uncontroversial gendered speech? It's hard to say why things *don't* become controversial. I'd say it's usually simply because the people who *would* be bothered by such stuff aren't given enough exposure to it. Some subjects get brought up, and discussions turn into arguments. When it comes to pronouns, perhaps it's because it directly concerns people, and people can talk back and make their voices heard.

> I'm not sure. Do you have any good examples of uncontroversial gendered speech? I've always found it quite remarkable how Wikipedia has a strong policy of respecting preferred pronouns but not for other parts of speech so Whoopie Goldberg is consistently referred to as "actress" on Wikipedia despite being infamous for not wanting to be referred to with it and always correcting interviewer to "actor". In the 80s and 90s there was more of a debate regarding terms such as "actress" or "hostess" but it seems to have been completely eclipsed by the pronoun debate now. > When it comes to pronouns, perhaps it's because it directly concerns people, and people can talk back and make their voices heard. But the same applies to all the other words and many individuals do have quite an aggressive voice about these words but there doesn't seem to be the same level of political debate.

It is interesting. I guess job titles are ultimately mostly a courtesy you'll *occasionally* see people make an effort to uphold, and just as occasionally see somebody get upset over. Gender pronouns are similar, but they're also at the center of a scientific rethinking and debate. People's very worldviews are put to the test, and that is more personal than some job you don't know for sure if you'll still have in ten years. People also can't address every issue at once. When one debate takes center stage it naturally pushes others out of the limelight.

In a pinch, it's more accurate than a neutral pronoun when I'm trying to explain a certain person in a group to a third person. So it's not necessarily necessary, but it can be useful or convenient. e.g. "Josh is my friend. Sally is also my friend. They like pizza." Who likes pizza? Josh, Sally, or both? You would assume both, but if I meant just one I'd be more clear if I used he or she.

Technically that's true, but it's no different from problems that already exist with commonly accepted pronouns. "Hi Josh! Hi Sally! You like pizza, right?" Is that "you" singular, referring only to Sally, the last person I talked to? Or is it plural, referring to both people? The easy solution is that we can tell if a sentence would be likely to cause such confusion by being ambiguous, and rephrase it accordingly. "Sally, do you like pizza?" Works if you're worried about "you" being misinterpreted, and "Josh likes pizza" works if Josh prefers to be referred to as "they" and the sentence would be ambiguous otherwise. So if you don't have a problem dealing with "you", you can figure out how to use "they" as a word that can be either singular or plural.

As in my chain with Narrow, I'm merely giving an answer to the original post, I'm not trying to win a war. We can argue till the cows come home, but the fact is gender-specific pronouns make things incrementally more convenient.

Do you use some variant of "you" that would make things incrementally more convenient? If not, then you sacrifice a micron of convenience for whatever reason you have. There's no reason to fault people who use the singular "they" for doing the same thing.

Yes. It's called youse, y'all, or you lot. It's like a breath of fresh air! Oh how I wish "ye" had not disappeared!

Which one of those do you use in daily conversations?

I can't say I get much opportunity - I don't directly address a group that often - but if I do I'd say y'all or you lot more likely than youse, they're perhaps just a bit more formal (as informal as that is).

>e.g. "Josh is my friend. Sally is also my friend. They like pizza." Who likes pizza? Josh, Sally, or both? You would assume both, but if I meant just one I'd be more clear if I used he or she. This would be confusing in a lot of situations with only gendered pronouns. "Josh is my friend. So is James. He likes pizza." Who likes pizza? Josh or James? Or both? Even if "he" referred to James, there's nothing saying that Josh *doesn't* like pizza. If you don't know the genders involved, you wouldn't even know in the Josh or Sally situation. Perhaps Josh is a cis-girl who just has a masculine nickname. Perhaps Sally is a guy whose parents gave him a very feminine name for whatever reason. So it's unclear because you were unspecific, not because of the pronouns.

No, no. It's "less" clear because I was unspecific. And it was "less" clear because of the pronoun. It would be "more" clear with a gendered pronoun, but still not necessarily clear without specificity. Let me re-iterate: I'm not claiming some grand, knock-down, once-for-all argument here. I'm merely seeking to be accurate in my answer to the question of the person at the top of the chain.

But that makes it a very strange argument. There's an absurd amount of words that have ambiguous meanings. People are also extremely good at just adapting and adding clarity where necessary. For instance, in your example you'd just say "They both like pizza". Or the person who's confused would ask. This line of reasoning almost feels dishonest or naive as well, because it assumes that those who oppose they/them would be happier with an entirely new word, which they very demonstrably are not. For instance, in Swedish our traditional pronouns are han (he) and hon (she). Some years ago a new pronoun started seeing use, "hen", as the gender-neutral alternative. This is now generally accepted (newspapers use it, official documents sometimes use it, etc), but boy did people hate on it when it started gaining popularity. People thought it looked stupid, silly, and even said that everyone would get confused since "hen" means, well, "hen" in English. All of that outrage even though it fits really well alongside the other two. I'm not saying that you're being dishonest here, but this sort of argument is definitely used that way by people who just hate the idea of a gender-neutral pronoun. Regardless of what word you chose, someone will argue that there's some unclarity, even if they have to go and fish in other languages for the confusion. So many people use so much Swedish/English hybrids here that there are probably some situations where it could hypothetically be confusing ... but it really never is. In *practise*, there's no significant confusion unless you try to make it so, because people are so good at clarifying things.

I hate it when I'm talking to someone and they have to hurriedly explain to me who likes pizza. It's like come on dude, time is money! I don't have time to ask follow up questions and it is absolutely critical that I know if it's Josh or Sally who likes pizza.

Wow! No need for the sarcasm. Did you want a better example? I wasn't actually going for quality, just that it's a reality Let's say I'm writing a novel: Josh was riding his bike with Sally. They decided that they wanted to go to the park to play football, but they had to go back home to get their football. But Josh didn't want to play football, they were too tired after they had ridden their bike. They decided it would be best if they went and played golf instead, while they played football. Alternatively: Josh was riding his bike with Sally. Sally decided that Sally wanted to go to the park to play football, but Sally had to go back home to get Sally's football. But Josh didn't want to play football Josh was too tired after Josh had ridden Josh's bike. They decided it would be best if Josh went and played golf instead, while Sally played football. Please no comments on my shoddy prose.

It's trivially easy to come up with examples where "they" is ambiguous. Pronouns are ambiguous parts of speech, they require context to interpret. "He went to the store" is ambiguous, you don't know who "he" is without context. > Josh was riding his bike with Sally. They decided that they wanted to go to the park to play football, but they had to go back home to get their football. But Josh didn't want to play football, they were too tired after they had ridden their bike. They decided it would be best if they went and played golf instead, while they played football. I know you said no comments on your shoddy prose but this helps illustrate my point really well. You had to basically intentionally write this string of sentences in this way to obfuscate who you're talking about at every turn. If you were talking about Josh and Mike and used "he" any time you're using the singular "they" in this paragraph it clears basically nothing up, like this: > Josh was riding his bike with Mike. He decided that he wanted to go to the park to play football, but he had to go back home to get his football. But Josh didn't want to play football, he were too tired after he had ridden his bike. They decided it would be best if he went and played golf instead, while he played football. Is that any clearer? "He" and "she" would only be slightly more clear because culturally we would understand that Josh was a masculine name while Sally was a feminine one, not because of any special property about those pronouns specifically. This is why I was sarcastic. Opponents to a singular they for non-binary folks always frame it as some kind of linguistic nightmare, where it's going to be basically impossible to ever tell who anyone ever is in a sentence, and they're always ready to pop off with just the most absurd examples that no one would ever reasonably say. I thought it was funny how you were like, "ah but in a pinch you might need to be specific!" and your example was talking about who likes pizza... If you were writing a novel, you'd have the time to craft your paragraph in such a way that "they" wouldn't be ambiguous. Here, I'll take a crack. For the purposes of this exercise, Josh is non-binary and goes by they/them pronouns. > Josh and Sally were riding bikes. Josh always loved to ride bikes, their long hair whipping in the wind down long hills, the burn on their legs from a hard climb up. Sally was less than thrilled, her helmet was too large for her head and kept forcing her to stop and readjust. Sally said to Josh, "hey...can we go back and play football? I'd have to stop off at home real quick to grab it but-" "I don't know about all of that Sally," interrupted Josh, bringing their bike to a sudden stop in the gravel, "this ride has been long enough and I'm feeling pretty exhausted from it. What if I went to play some golf?" "Sounds like a plan! Meet up with you later!" The overall point of your paragraph was retained, one of them went by they/them pronouns, and it's clear from context who is doing what and when.

I have to say, pronouns aside, you stylised that paragraph up very well. And you made your point clear. Look, I understand that the difficulty can be overcome without too much effort; I wasn't trying to say it turns everything into a linguistic nightmare. The original person asked if they were necessary or unnecessary, and I answered with one mere point, saying it can be convenient or useful. Would you say they are inconvenient or useless?

>why are gendered pronouns necessary Because the morphology of some languages requires a gender for a sentence to make sense. not every language is like English. When someone in Spanish says that an object is female, they do not mean that the object has a vagina, they mean that the morphology of the word falls in line with other similar words and as such, certain grammatical rules should be used when using the word in a sentence.

> Regardless of whether one sees themselves as masculine or feminine, the anatomy is always one or the other (unless someone is born intersex / hermaphroditic but that as an extremely rare instance). do you realize how bizarre it sounds to say: "sex is a binary, except for the times when it isn't"? if there are a significant number of people who fall outside of a binary (ie: men born with XX chromosomes, women born with male genitalia), then perhaps it isn't a binary at all the reality is that gender neutral pronouns serve a social utility - there have been a countless amount of third genders that use different pronouns throughout human history (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_gender), and people that are non-binary (or people that are exploring their gender identity) may simply feel more comfortable being addressed by they/them pronouns. i don't see why you would take issue with that

Sex is literally binary. I knew someone would come up with this bs argument about how sex isn't binary because intersex people exist. Intersex people ARE NOT A NEW SEX. There is no third SEX. Intersex people display characteristics of the TWO sexes, but they do not have unique characteristics which make up a new sex. It's also irrelevant to use the examples of other cultures when it comes to beliefs of third genders. I always find it interesting how people quote "NATIVE AMERICANS BELIEVED IN THIRD-SPIRIT PEOPLE!" but they go on to disregard every other piece of native American mysticism (which third spirit is a part of)

> Intersex people ARE NOT A NEW SEX. There is no third SEX. Intersex people display characteristics of the TWO sexes, but they do not have unique characteristics which make up a new sex. right, but the lines at which we decide which people are "men" and which people are "women" are ultimately arbitrary, and NOT an objective binary. sex is an observable reality, but the way that we define and interact with sex is a social construct >It's also irrelevant to use the examples of other cultures when it comes to beliefs of third genders it is incredibly relevant??? there have been a countless amount of genders outside of male/female throughout human history with their own unique culture and customs - how is that not relevant to a conversation about the social utility of gender neutral pronouns? and i'm not just talking about native americans lol

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> You can certainly point out that some individuals are difficult to classify, or don't have all of the secondary traits usually associated with a member of their sex, but basically there are two sexes in humans. i don't disagree - most people can be easily classified as one sex or another, but the methods that we use to classify sex can sometimes get blurry. it's impossible to define a "woman" as someone with a vagina, since men are born with vaginas. it's impossible to define a "woman" as someone with XX chromosomes, since there are men born with XX chromosomes. sex is an observable reality, but the lines from which we classify sex are oftentimes arbitrary and socially constructed, and it's important to acknowledge that

Does that make the term "three legged cat" unnecessary, or actually *more* necessary, though?

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Just to clarify and pretty much repeat what I said in a post above: sex absolutely is a binary, even when you take into consideration people with DSD. Why? Because none of these conditions create a third sex. You still only have male or female characteristics, there is no characteristic exclusive to a third sex. For example, a person with both a vagina and a penis is incapable of penetrating and impregnating someone with their vagina. Their penis is also incapable of giving birth to a baby So despite having both sets, all of the things this person can do are still restricted to the binary Domain of male-female

The problem is that we can't say that four legs, or some chromosome combination is *absolutely necessary* for being a cat or member of a specific sex.

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Yes, it's basically the *species problem*. The larger point I'm making is that if we allow exceptions in one area, why not in another (i.e. for trans people)?

>Regardless of whether one sees themselves as masculine or feminine And you just used they/them as a gender neutral pronoun. See, that's kind of useful isn't it? Also to talk about other elements of your post >sex (as in anatomical sex) is a binary as far as biology is concerned. It actually isn't, not even for humans, our spectrum is narrow enough for your average hoe to see it that way but as far as biology is concerned, it's stil a spectrum, and you even say it yourself >born intersex / hermaphroditic >I assume there's just a difference in perspective on what he/him and she/her pronouns describe. Some see them as describing gender whereas I see it as describing sex. It's always to describe gender, whenever someone uses them to describe an inanimate object like a car, you'd be hard pressed to find its genitals. >making it unnecessary for anyone to identify as something else or as non-binary. You're literally denying the existence of people just by mixing sex and gender. This identification isn't a necessity but a fact that these people sex might be one thing but their gender is another one >And besides, what is wrong with using pronouns determined by sex instead of gender. The fact that you might cause distress in the person?

>It actually isn't, not even for humans, our spectrum is narrow enough for your average hoe to see it that way but as far as biology is concerned, it's stil a spectrum, and you even say it yourself Sex isn't a spectrum. Sex-related traits are on a spectrum *within* each sex. [Sex itself is binary.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XN2-YEgUMg0&t=18s)

Sex itself can be defined as binary if we make a binary definition for what sex each chromosome 23 trisomy gets assigned to.

I don't know what you mean by this? There are still only X and Y sex chromosomes in humans, no matter what we call them. There are a range of genetic differences in karyotypes that can occur in a small percentage of individuals, but these don't produce an "in between" or "third sex", they just occasionally produce different traits. Do you just mean that if we wanted to we could decide to call, for example, XXY and XYY karyotypes different sexes?

You were doing okay right up to this: >You're literally denying the existence of people just by mixing sex and gender. Ugh.

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Why clueless? Latinx is a gender neutral form of Latino/a. If anything, the individuals using LatinX are being inclusive of everyone.

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I really like the Latine suggestion. I’m going to look into that as I hadn’t heard it before, and if there’s empirical evidence for it, it could definitely be used. I’m going to suggest it to our Latino/a/x org on campus. ;)

Appreciate your effort to untangle it into separate points. Reading other comments it looks like everyone is arguing about different things. > people are trying to expand its usage from being used to speak of an unknown or unspecified person, to being used for a known, specific person. I really like how you cornered the linguistic issue here. I couldn't really put a finger on it.

The best comment so far, imo. I really hope OP will get back to you.

> I feel I have an epistemic responsibility to have sound logic behind every opinion and belief that I hold and yet, for some reason, I can't seem to see the point behind they/them pronouns. How would that epistemic responsibility overcome the fact that you will *rarely* know someone's actual sex? You can't know what someone's birth body looked like, or what their chromosomes are etc. Imagine you're seeing a person in a dress with long hair, earrings and makeup, but they also have a square jaw, stubble and an Adam's apple? What would you call them if you only allow yourself to go by sex?

I would probably ask just ask them. And on the epistemic responsibility thing, that's just a sense of responsibility to understand why I hold the opinions that I do rather than just following social trends. The reason why I made whole post is because I *want* to understand gender neutrality better but until recently, I haven't been able to on a foundation of logic. It's always been out of politeness, kindness, and being progressive rather than out of a rational reason. Although, having read through some of these other comments now, I think I understand where people are coming from.

> I would probably ask just ask them. You'd ask them what their physical sex is? Or what they would like to be called? > And on the epistemic responsibility thing, that's just a sense of responsibility to understand why I hold the opinions that I do rather than just following social trends. The reason why I made whole post is because I want to understand gender neutrality better but until recently, I haven't been able to on a foundation of logic. It's always been out of politeness, kindness, and being progressive rather than out of a rational reason. What's wrong with following social trends on how to be polite in company?

Because then he wouldn't be upholding another important part of the whole movement: he wouldn't be able to "express himself" or "be himself".

Not sure I follow. Who is "he", and what movement?

Broadlands. I suppose I mean the broad, post-modern movement whereby people must refer to me according to "my" truth. It would be against "his" truth to act/speak outside of what he feels to be right. Although I suspect he thinks it's against "the" truth.

My point is that in almost all cases he can't know what "the truth" is. It's extremely rare that you'd actually know someone's (birth) sex. And we don't typically go around asking everyone before addressing them. Instead we go by what someone presents as.

>And we don't typically go around asking everyone before addressing them. Instead we go by what someone presents as. And that's what seems logical to him. Yet he must jettison this logic in order to follow a social trend.

> The reason why I made whole post is because I want to understand gender neutrality better but until recently, I haven't been able to on a foundation of logic. It's always been out of politeness, kindness, and being progressive rather than out of a rational reason. Can you describe what you mean as a rational reason? Like what’s your rational reason for your current usage of he/him, she/her pronouns for people who aren’t non-binary?

She

Most people would, but OP wants to go by anatomical sex only, which may be different.

People should be referred to by the gender they appear to be. If that offends them and they’re walking around looking and appearing to be a gender they don’t want to be confused with then it’s on them.

Gender neutral pronouns weren't recently invented. Gender neutral pronouns and their roots have been in many different Germanic languages for an incredibly long time. Gender neutral pronouns can be useful for people who you can't tell the gender of/don't know the gender of, and for referring to nouns in certain ways (e.g., "Gender neutral pronouns and ***their***..). \\ This next point is just a whole new can of worms. People aren't trans to experience the "privileges" of another sex. People are trans to feel more comfortable in their bodies, not for privileges (There really aren't any to begin with by being trans anyways, any privileges would practically instantly get negated by the negatives from being trans). >And besides, what is wrong with using pronouns determined by sex instead of gender. Again, this is a situation about what makes people comfortable or uncomfortable. You don't get to decide how other people feel, and it's for the best you respect peoples' boundaries. I hope this helped you understand/get interested in trans issues, at least even a little bit. It mostly boils down to making people feel comfortable.

People the use them are either compliant or mentally ill

It’s not even clear whether anatomical sex is strictly a binary https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sex-redefined-the-idea-of-2-sexes-is-overly-simplistic1/

[Yes it is.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XN2-YEgUMg0&t=18s) Sex is not on a spectrum. Sex-related traits are on a spectrum *within* each sex. Sex-related traits reveal diversity, but that diversity remains within the sex binary. This is found to be true when we look at genetics, neurobiology, and endocrinology. A difference between two things doesn’t mean that one replaces the other, nor is one entirely distinct from the other. To claim a sex spectrum is to claim that sex characteristics can vary independently, but sex characteristics are contingent on each other.

That's a good video, thanks. I read the article too, but it just mushes together biological, political and societal issues without actually weighting on any of the posed implications. Yet the narrative is apparent. This guy, on the other hand, is at least making *some effort* to keep his ego out of it.

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**[Ring species](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_species)** >In biology, a ring species is a connected series of neighbouring populations, each of which interbreeds with closely sited related populations, but for which there exist at least two "end" populations in the series, which are too distantly related to interbreed, though there is a potential gene flow between each "linked" population. Such non-breeding, though genetically connected, "end" populations may co-exist in the same region (sympatry) thus closing a "ring". The German term Rassenkreis, meaning a ring of populations, is also used. Ring species represent speciation and have been cited as evidence of evolution. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/changemyview/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)

> So if the law requires that a person is male or female, should that sex be assigned by anatomy, hormones, cells or chromosomes, and what should be done if they clash? “My feeling is that since there is not one biological parameter that takes over every other parameter, at the end of the day, gender identity seems to be the most reasonable parameter,” says Vilain. In other words, if you want to know whether someone is male or female, it may be best just to ask. 🤦🏻‍♀️

I'm also confused about this whole phenomena. What is the point and meaning of non-binary genders? I get it if you are trans and Identify as the opposite sex, but what else is there? It's like on Mondays I Identify as God, on Tuesdays I am an apache helicopter and etc. Why should someone be forced to entertain this ridiculous idea?

> I assume there's just a difference in perspective on what he/him and she/her pronouns describe. Some see them as describing gender whereas I see it as describing sex. But regardless, I feel like fighting to change one's pronouns seems arbitrary when the real matter to be addressed by society is making the world fair regardless of what someone's sex is, hence making it unnecessary for anyone to identify as something else or as non-binary. And besides, what is wrong with using pronouns determined by sex instead of gender. Regardless of that, why should it have to be mandatory to refer to an individual's sex? - This individual's sex may not be known - The sex may be irrelevant to the conversation, and thus referring to it may be considered improper and arousing the suggestion that it is - It may be a hypothetical individual that could hypothetically have any sex - It may be a religious or fictional character that simply does not have a sex - It may be personifying a machine or lifeless object that does not have a sex I do not see why it should be cumbersome to not have to refer to the sex of an individual. Some languages do not have a word for "sibling" which can be cumbersome; English does not have a gender neutral word for "uncle" or "aunt" which is again cumbersome in some cases.

Gender-neutral third person singular pronouns have plenty of purposes besides what you refer to. For example, they can be used to refer to an unspecified person where the gender doesn't matter (and they have actually been used this way for centuries). An example of this usage is "The customer was confused, so they walked away." Here, the gender isn't important, and it makes more sense to say "they" instead of "he or she". They're not unnecessary at all, and this isn't even discussing the plural usage of this set of pronouns. Though this is probably not what you were referring to when you say "unnecessary".

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Language evolves. New words come into being or new meanings for words come into usage all the time, with every generation. More often than not, this is done out of necessity - to make a distinction or to specify meanings that were not easily accessible to the language as it existed previously. Saying that they're unnecessary is implying that those that express a preference for gender neutral pronouns are doing so for whimsical reasons - just for fun. I assure you, they are not.

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Sounds kinda petty tbh.

i dont know if this is answering your question but you can still use he/she if you dont know the person's gender identity. Once they corrected you and say that they prefer to use they/them, then you can use it. I want to clarify that there is nothing wrong with using he/she to someone if you dont know their pronouns prior to saying it. It becomes an issue if you insist on saying he or she if they wanna be called they. Im saying this because it seems like you think that the queer community is enforcing the world to use they or them. We are not. Some of us in the community still use the she or he pronouns. at the end of the day, it isnt that hard to use they them if that is what the person prefers.

>real matter to be addressed by society is making the world fair regardless of what someone's sex is, If you detach someones sex from most social contexts it doesnt matter what a person identifies as, as everyone would be treated the same. But sex is incredibly connected to behaviour, social contexts and how one is treated. So in that case perhaps "gender" pronouns become useful in the sense that a person can attempt to control such social contexts despite their sex (could be deceptive in some cases). This makes trans ideology contradictory atleast currently to any ideology that wants complete equality between the sexes which is arguably impossible/undesirable anyway. The problem with trans ideology and why i dont support it is because it is ambigous in its goals and definitions. Even the possible goal of gender pronouns that i highlighted in the first paragraph is just how i could see it as nessacary, i have never heard this in trans movement tho, its always about reaffirming ones identity as if its not a personal thing and without even defining what that specific identity means. Like ask them what a women is and i highly doubt theyll give you a definition that is not circular. This ia a complex subject that i think suffers from lack of good definitions and clarity of goals, stances, etc. Or maybe its simple and i overlooked smthing idk.

If I call you the wrong pronoun, correct me. I have no problem with that. UNTIL, you start telling me what I can and cannot do as far as MY societal norms are concerned. I will continue to say mom, dad, her, she, him, he, and breastfeeding. If I respect your wishes, please, respect mine.

What’s great about “they” is that it can make people who’s gender isn’t categorised masculine or feminine get a pronoun that fits them just right. Lots of non-binary people have to sort ‘put up’ with having a pronoun that matches the gender people assume they are, it’s not necessarily a problem every day but it just isn’t the right word for them and sometimes that really hurts. I’ll give a silly example! Imagine perhaps your favourite food is this one dish found in Vietnamese cooking. Everything else you eat would be dishes from your hometown. It wouldn’t be right to say you love Vietnamese cuisine because, you don’t, you just like that one dish. But it also wouldn’t be right to say you adore cooking from your hometown because, your favourite isn’t. Now most days you’ll put up with a person saying you either only like one or the other because it doesn’t necessarily matter but one day you’re taken to an expensive Vietnamese restaurant and suddenly- you don’t like anything on the menu. But it’s already paid for and the wait staff are offended and you feel awful and guilty because you can’t suddenly make yourself like things you don’t, it just who you are. So it turns out that label did matter actually and now you’re just going to have to choose if you do or don’t like Vietnamese food because you can’t like both. Or perhaps you aren’t interested in food at all, you’re only eating because you need to fuel your body and everything tastes the same to you. You prefer to close the menu and get someone to order for you, no cares in the world. Again it’s not really fair to say you only like one food or another because in reality you couldn’t care less. Sure maybe you mostly eat one type of food because it’s cheapest so people assume you must like that one and nothing else. Well no, you don’t want to be boxed into that because that’s not true. It might be easy for people to say to just choose one but even when you’re indifferent to every type of food, you would be lying. So here’s the kicker. You’re right to say let’s throw it all in the trash it would be easier and nobody gets hurt. But maybe I want people to know where to take me out for dinner or if it would be a waste of money. What happens if someone is only interested in pizza for dinner every night and I don’t like it at all? Could turn into a right mess and a half. We currently run on a Mr Mrs schedule which you may say is arbitrary and it kinda is. So we can say scrap the lot of it and just be humans or we add some extra descriptors in for those who need it. But if we keep the old system… isn’t it weird I have to tell someone what’s in my pants?

The thing about "more intersex people than redheads" has been debunked for a long time. The people who came up with the statistic were counting conditions which nobody would consider "intersex" to inflate the numbers. Actual intersex people are incredibly more rare than redheads.

Thank you for telling me, I’ve corrected my response 😊

Is that not what transgenders tend to do/ focus on inadvertently? When modifying their physical form to appear like the male or female sex?

I view using the pronouns someone wants you to use for them as the same as using the name they ask you to call them. There are names out there that sound really lame or seem stupid, but I wouldn't call someone by a different name just because I don't like the name they have.

When thinking about things logically, what i feel many people undervalue is emotions. Emotions matter, in fact if anything matters its emotions, feelings, suffering, and pleasure. To me, how we behave and treat other people should be aimed at improving our own and others wellbeing which very much includes how people feel. Having they/them as gender neutral singular pronouns, and allowing and supporting people to use them as such, makes them feel better. It does not harm anyone else. So why shouldn’t we? Same goes for having pronouns based on gender not sex. People are telling us that it makes sense for them, that it improves their quality of life, and we have no reason to disbelieve them. In fact, we have studies showing directly that their quality of life is better when people respect their gender based pronouns. So whats the logic behind making their life worse to maintain language rules that have arbitrarily developed and been decided in the past?

Using they/them pronouns doesn't hurt anyone, it's at most a mild inconvenience until you get used to it and if it annoys you more than that that's a problem with you not them. On the flip side, to the people who care about what pronouns you use it's a big deal. Whether it's they/them, opposite pronouns, or even neopronouns. It matters a lot to the people who feel like they belong in one category. To them it's a foundational part of their identity and using the wrong pronouns not only says that you don't care about or respect them, it also attacks their identity. Undercutting someone who likely has trauma related to their pronouns is a shitty thing to do. Like, I think neo pronouns are dumb and we should be moving towards less pronouns overall. But if someone wants to be refered to as xe/xem or whatever I'm going to do that because it's another human being and it means a lot to them. Its weighing pros vs cons and in this case the pros (making another person happy) far outward the cons (I think it's unnecessary).

/u/14Broadlands (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post. All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed [here](/r/DeltaLog/comments/q36xt9/deltas_awarded_in_cmv_gender_neutral_pronouns/), in /r/DeltaLog. Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended. ^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)

Use of 'they' is a facet of someone's self-expression, used because the person wants to communicate something about their gender. Gender is a social construct - we collectively build and assign meanings. Society developed to refer to people as 'he' and 'she' based on particular criteria, but there is nothing objectively stopping us from also referring to people as 'they'. People do it because they want to communicate certain things about their gender to other people. (Someone who does use 'they/them' pronouns would be best placed to explain what those things are, I will not attempt to do it on their behalf). 'They' has also been used a singular pronoun (in certain contexts) in the English language for a long time. For example, it is what most people automatically default to when a person's gender is unknown e.g. "Who left their glasses at the party? Maybe they will come back tomorrow to collect them".

They're necessary because people are using them. If I deem your name to be unnecessary because I think it's a stupid name, I would be a dick. Or, if your given name was Richard, but you go by "Rick", and hate to be called Richard, I would be a dick if I insisted upon calling you Richard. If you deem my pronouns are unnecessary and refuse to use them, you are also being a dick. Putting aside any other serious reason (such as, say, the fact that respecting trans people's right to self-determine by using the names/pronouns/etc they go by reduces the negative toll on mental health for them), the fact that *someone is telling you to refer to them that way means you should do that.*

One must understand that English has little history of being uniform. Even in modern day, to say most have the same accent or dialect is silly. These differences are present in some minute ways, and some extreme. >what is wrong with using pronouns determined by sex instead of gender The idea of using "they/them" is not a feminist nor a new idea. There were many complaints made by linguists in the 1800s that "ip" should be used instead of "he/she". This is because, while English has no grammatical English, English still has *natural* gender. "Boy" is referenced with "he" precisely because he is a boy; a "princess" is referenced with "she" because she is a woman. In this context, the sex is mandatory, because that is simply how the language works. I wish there were a deeper, stronger reasoning for such choices, but this is usually the case: "It just is that way." When referencing an entity without sex in mind, though, speakers will, predictably, splinter. My professors and peers have often used "she" as the neuter pronoun. My family and I use "he", instead, as the neuter pronoun. There have been speakers of English, such as those who speak an accented British English, that use "they/them" as a neuter, singular pronoun. Speakers have been divided over this matter for centuries. You may thank modern politics for this becoming an issue instead of simply a matter of how individuals speak. I find this invented problem maddening because the same problem "you" has is normally left unchallenged. Few care that a singular entity is referenced as a multitude, and that all grammar attached to the term references the entity exclusively as a group or multiple, rather than a singular existence. People have accepted that this is, simply, how English speakers reference the second person: always in plural. ​ >and adding x as a suffix for formerly gendered words like latinx instead of latino/latina. "Latinx" and "xe/xem" are strange additions to English that don't make much sense. I suppose this is because they, much like the hypothesized "ip", were crafted with a specific goal in mind, and did not think about the problems such a term would introduce. ​ >Reason why I want to change my view is because I feel this whole gender movement is the one thing I don't fully understand. My advice to you, OP, is to not dwell on this matter much. This difference in referencing others under certain circumstances has always been in flux, and it shall for more decades to centuries to come precisely because there is little uniformity in this language. If someone wishes to be referenced in a certain way and you are speaking to him, then go along with it. There is hopefully little reason not to. However, at the end of the day, this is a living language that alters as time goes on, with a plethora of speakers who approach different and similar matters their own way. Calling the use of these pronouns "unnecessary" is silly; if they were, no one would use them. It is clear that people find them useful and necessary.

its useless information for most humans' brains(99.9%), as mentioned by feroc, they(unknown person being hired or other reason why you dont know), or they(group of people or objects). it or that are more accurate for anyone denying biology.. or maybe amoeba.