Seattle
Valued Senior Member
Gender personal pronouns, love them or hate them?
I'll be up front, this is an area where I may be the grumpy old man who isn't embracing change so readily so I'd like to hear from a broader cross-section of people. The main exposure to this for me has been from one female 25 year old who wanted to be called "they". Non-binary, gender fluid type. Another female 25 year old who is gay explained that another 25 year old "person" that we both know wants to be referred to as "they" and later "they" posted on Facebook that this is what she wants to be referred to as.
The gay female (I know from the climbing gym and I like her a lot) is what I think of as a "normal acting person". The 25 year old who looks like a female, has female sex organs, is engaged to a male and dresses in a unisex way much of the time and occasionally in a more feminine way is a pretty dramatic and quirky, very sensitive individual.
I say all this just to put in all in perspective. She posted that she never really felt comfortable with girly, pink, frilly things and wants to be addressed as "they" even if she sometimes decides to appear more feminine.
I do get that gender and sexual orientation are two different things and that gender can be on a continuum. In the past I might have thought of a guy who was a little on the effeminate side or a guy who was a little too macho or a woman who was overly feminine acting or dressing. They were still referred to as she and he though.
My initial reaction is that if you know someone and want to show them respect you refer to them however they want to be referred to. At the same time, it strikes me as being a little too self-absorbed to expect society to know what your preferred gender pronoun is and to use it so that you won't be offended. Beyond that referring to a single person as "they" just seems to be a play for attention rather than anything else.
Instead of saying "I was talking to Mary earlier, oh, hey they just walked into the gym!" and who ever you were talking to having to say "Who is "they", you were just talking about Mary" and me saying "Mary is they" it's obviously much easier to just say "hey she just walked into the gym".
Even if this is a bigger societal issue than I realize, isn't there a better gender neutral personal pronoun that we could come up with than "they" for a single person? How about "shim" or something?
Is this a "thing" that is going to catch on or is this a thing where more people will be more accepting of gender as being on a continuum without requiring a single individual to be referred to as "they"?
I'll be up front, this is an area where I may be the grumpy old man who isn't embracing change so readily so I'd like to hear from a broader cross-section of people. The main exposure to this for me has been from one female 25 year old who wanted to be called "they". Non-binary, gender fluid type. Another female 25 year old who is gay explained that another 25 year old "person" that we both know wants to be referred to as "they" and later "they" posted on Facebook that this is what she wants to be referred to as.
The gay female (I know from the climbing gym and I like her a lot) is what I think of as a "normal acting person". The 25 year old who looks like a female, has female sex organs, is engaged to a male and dresses in a unisex way much of the time and occasionally in a more feminine way is a pretty dramatic and quirky, very sensitive individual.
I say all this just to put in all in perspective. She posted that she never really felt comfortable with girly, pink, frilly things and wants to be addressed as "they" even if she sometimes decides to appear more feminine.
I do get that gender and sexual orientation are two different things and that gender can be on a continuum. In the past I might have thought of a guy who was a little on the effeminate side or a guy who was a little too macho or a woman who was overly feminine acting or dressing. They were still referred to as she and he though.
My initial reaction is that if you know someone and want to show them respect you refer to them however they want to be referred to. At the same time, it strikes me as being a little too self-absorbed to expect society to know what your preferred gender pronoun is and to use it so that you won't be offended. Beyond that referring to a single person as "they" just seems to be a play for attention rather than anything else.
Instead of saying "I was talking to Mary earlier, oh, hey they just walked into the gym!" and who ever you were talking to having to say "Who is "they", you were just talking about Mary" and me saying "Mary is they" it's obviously much easier to just say "hey she just walked into the gym".
Even if this is a bigger societal issue than I realize, isn't there a better gender neutral personal pronoun that we could come up with than "they" for a single person? How about "shim" or something?
Is this a "thing" that is going to catch on or is this a thing where more people will be more accepting of gender as being on a continuum without requiring a single individual to be referred to as "they"?
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