gardenspiderfeeling asked:
Hi! I am agender and the only correct pronoun to use for me is ‘they’. The more i think about gendered pronouns, the more they ALL seem unnecessary to me. a pronoun is a word used to refer to somebody without describing them in any way.(?) I’m all about knowing and acknowledging a person’s gender identity/experience/expression to the extent that they’d like me to,but i feel like pronouns are not the place to display anything about gender/race/personality. Can i rightfully call ALL people ‘they’?
Hello gardenspiderfeeling!
What an interesting question. Language is inadequate for almost everything, in my view (which is something I look at in my academic work on social justice education approaches). However, we need it, so why not just get rid of specificity and refer to everyone as they?
I have two lovely friends who have made the decision to use they pronouns for everyone they ever talk about (even, you know, their old mums and dads who are decidedly she, she, he and he). I think this is a lovely gesture because they have made the decision to privilege people who might be uncomfortable with she or he and NOT the status quo. They have completely reversed the equation: if someone wanted to be called she or he they would have to ask my friends to make the change, and my friends would have to work at it. Isn’t that something?
In the beginning, this resulted in some rather funny moments where I thought that someone my friends mentioned was ‘one of my people’ (e.g., ”I didn’t know THAT PERSON used they as their pronoun! OMG that’s so exciting!!!” I exclaimed) only to remember that, well, everyone is ‘they’ for these people. This happened about five times. Eventually I adapted and didn’t hear or care about anyone’s gender who they brought up in conversation. It was and continues to be rather nice!
Of course, I believe that people have a right to the gender (or gender-neutral) pronoun of their choice including he or she or hir or xim. Trans people who have struggled for acceptance as he or she could of course feel invalidated when ‘they’d’ by people with the best of gender-inclusive intentions. I definitely see where you are coming from, gardenspiderfeeling, but many people really do love their pronoun and do feel like it displays a lot about who they are (me too, I guess).
Absolutism of any kind has its risks, but that’s where we are today: where people who don’t want she or he have to do more work. Imagine if it was the other way around? What would change? What would be eerily similar?
Food for thought!
Thanks for writing, and be well,
Lee
They Is My Pronoun 
Just like to mention that I personally am cis female and use she/her, but I really don’t mind if someone uses they/them for me. I much prefer they/them to he/him, which I get sometimes online because people assume everyone online is male.
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Adding things to a language, like adding the use of singular they/their for agender people as well as hypothetical gender-unknown people, is relatively easy. 😀
Abolishing things from a language, like abolishing he/him and she/her or abolishing less-phonetic words, is much harder.
People would still need to learn he/him and she/her and still need to learn spellings like “money” instead of only “munny,” in order to read books published before the abolishment.
Look at these comments from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/6250184.stm:
“I was one of the unfortunate one’s who was initially taught to read using the ITA spelling system that MB mentions. I was a prolific reader – and very, very quickly consumed all available books at school and at the public library. I can still remember my frustration when I couldn’t read the “normal” children’s books (or my Dad’s Glasgow Herald!). Such relief when we moved on to real spelling!”
“We’ve been here before with ITA haven’t we look what happened to that. Once you reached 7 or 8 you had to learn the entire English language again this time correctly.”
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Language is fluid and always has new words. Taking away words is just stupid. The reason why some people get offended at the word gyp, and others don’t, is because language has evolved. Most people don’t even know where it comes from, so there isn’t any actual harm in using it when 99% of the world doesn’t give a shit.
Why do we call them manholes? Why do some people call them maintenance holes? Both are correct.
They can now be used as singular, it’s apart of English now. Those who don’t like it are the same people who don’t like the fact that ‘literally’ is now figurative, and ‘sick’ means cool.
I prefer being called she/her, because that’s what I am. If someone called me they, I’d feel like I am just some sort of vague nondescript being. But to others, that’s what they prefer.
It would also get EXTREMELY confusing when reading books. Even if most of the characters are cis, but you have to use the word ‘they’, it’d be hard to tell who it is. And when you use they as a group, then it’s even more confusing if you’re thinking of it as one person.
Or it can be used for a person who you don’t KNOW the gender of, but it’s then revealed later. To me, everyone is they unless they are explicitly showing one or the other (Whether people hate gender roles or don’t, I don’t give a crap. If a man is in a dress, that doesn’t automatically make him a woman, neither does a man in a suit make him automatically a guy. Could either be transgender female, or a crossdressing man.) or unless corrected. If they are androgynous, or I’m not sure what gender they are, I will use they. I use They more at cons when it’s harder to really tell, but in a store, It’s safe to assume. And if I get it wrong, they will politely correct me. Then again, it’s not like I’m going to randomly say “And there he is” to a random stranger… That makes no sense. So even if I get it wrong when talking to a friend, it’s not like the person will give a crap cause unless they’re eavesdropping, they’ll never see me again and never know it happened.
I’ve been called sir many times, I just kind of don’t notice it until later. Usually it’s understandable, if I am wearing something baggy or having my hair short or tied back.
Point is, we can’t get rid of pronouns. Some of us actually like them.
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End the insanity. Third person gendered/non-gendered pronouns are entirely unnecessary and becoming increasingly harmful no matter how used. Thank goodness we don’t both try to gender first or second person pronouns. Could you imagine how ridiculous that would be? We could allow they be used to indicate plurality and nothing else. Then a far superior shorthand reference to another person is to use the first letter of the name.
Example below:
Abe sold As car to Bart at Bs home. They both loved the deal and shook each other’s hand after. B even joked “Have you got any other cars of yours to sell me?” A said “Nope I’m fresh out! But my Mom may want to sell Ds car.” B then asked, “Oh lovely I’ll have to ask D about that. By the way what’s Ds name?” A replied, “Ds name is Darlene”.
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