Instead of (or in addition to*) he, she, they and all of the more fine-grained pronouns such as xir, we could just invent one for everyone that doesn’t require prior knowledge of the person to which it’s being applied.
* I could see a neutral pronoun being used until you know for sure what regular gendered pronoun the person prefers. That way, you can always just play it safe with the neutral one if you want. No harm done.
By way of example, let’s say we used “it/it’s/its”. Obviously we wouldn’t use that because it sounds dehumanising, but it would work for every person with no chance of offence or bigotry (I think?). It doesn’t deny the person’s identity, it just makes their identity untethered to one small part of casual language in the same way it is now.
Do you agree, and if not, why not? I’m not sure where I would stand on such a proposal, so I’m interested to hear the for and against, particularly from the non-binary and trans folks.
P.S. I’m not saying we do away with gendered language entirely, just those introductory pronouns; the part of language that requires the speaker to make a snap judgement about the person’s identity based on unreliable visual and aural clues.
“They” is literally that.
You are completely right, but many people don’t like they because it’s historically been more frequently used as a plural pronoun.
When Sam is talking at the board meeting, and “they told them x and they responded with y” it doesn’t help me understand who said what.
(Just like OP said we DO NOT WANT TO USE “IT”, EVER. But, rather than making up a new pronoun off the top of my head, I’m going to borrow it for an example because it is a word we already understand)
“It told them x and they responded with y” easily tells me which is the group and which is the individual.
I know it’s nitpicking, but the best way to get people to adopt a new habit is to remove as much frustration from the translation as possible. And this example has been the most common reason people have told me that they don’t like “they”.
If Fred & Bob are talking and 'he told him x and he responded with y" then that is also unclear. This is not a problem that is unique to the word ‘they’.
Of course, in either case, the answer to use phrase it so that you remove any ambiguity and communicate clearly: “Sam told them x and the board responded with y.”, “Bob told him x and Fred responded with y”.
Yes! Pronoun reference errors hurt my very soul, but they are an inherent risk and pitfall of all pronoun usage. It is fun, when someone is resistant to using another person’s pronouns or is a dumb fuck bitching about pronouns because an angry bigot shouted about pronouns on TV, to point out that those people already use pronouns like shit. Because they always claim a concern for accuracy, then speak and write like shit.
Everyone I have met against “they” was just a queerphobe. Their concerns are worth less than nothing to me
Perhaps, and you have no obligation to worry about those concerns, but…
“This is how we should be doing this.”
“But what about…”
“YOUR CONCERNS ARE LESS THAN NOTHING TO ME!”
Isn’t any more inclusive than misgendering people.
many people don’t like they because it’s historically been more frequently used as
This argument is worth nothing TBH. In the decades prior to 1960 it was also “historcally more frequent” that having a bank account was an exclusively male right, and certain people complained loudly when that changed and still refused to comply for about 15 more years (where many banks required a permission slip of the husband in question before even considering to give a woman an account of her own). Does that mean we should have never granted women the right to their own bank accounts just because it made a handful of people uneasy at the time?
Big changes are rarely immediatly accepted by everyone, but we should never consider stopping or slowing down positive progress just because a few people “don’t like it”. If they are unwilling to adapt, that’s their problem to fix, not ours to prevent.
I’m not saying it’s a reason to give up on it completely. I support neutral pronouns, and I’ve been trying to say they exclusively for everyone I do not personally know, but understanding why potential allies are reluctant and helping them get where you are will lead to much less resistance than “DO IT OUR WAY OR FUCK OFF AND DIE”.
Sure, the assholes will never get on board, and fuck them anyway, but there are people who want to be supportive, but are uncomfortable with certain things because they are new to them. Understanding needs to go both ways in order to expand support.
Language rarely changes under duress. That’s like trying to give yourself a nickname, it just doesn’t take.
Ngl but we can be pretty grateful that we even have “they” in English. In most Germanic and Latin based languages we have gendered third person plural pronouns or at least they are the same pronouns for something else, like in German with “sie” (third person female singular) and “sie” (third person bigender plural).
This (and sadly some other things) make it talking gender neutral in German really hard because your either have to use no pronouns at all (I’m doing that, then you say “that person is doing …” for example) or you use neopronouns, which, to be honest, most German speakers don’t like at all.
Also I have to add the following:
The language we use may not even influence current political situations, as Tom Scott points out: https://youtu.be/CmZdGo6b5yA?si=XIabOE5eLjcg9ciU
Summary: it may be that changing the language we use does not have an effect on the society we live in, because it probably is not the cause of discrimination but one effect of it or completely disjunct.
Like the other comment says, “they” already exists in English.
So I’ll answer for my own language, German, which actually doesn’t have a gender-neutral pronoun for people. Personally, if people wanted to start using such a pronoun, I wouldn’t have a problem with it. I also think, however, that this sort of language change can’t be forced and if the majority of people don’t want to use it, there’s nothing to be done about it. So far, any attempts to establish such a thing were widely ignored, so I don’t think there is much demand among the population to have one.
As a sidenote, it gets really awkward when German translators have to translate a non-binary person’s pronouns into German. There is a scene in Star Trek Discovery where a character comes out as non-binary and in the German dub, they’re using a combination of the English “they” and the German plural form to address them. Sounds extremely strange and stilted, most Germans were probably quite confused by that scene.
German also has the disadvantage that one can’t just use the German equivalent of “they” as it is already identical with the female pronoun and the polite way to adress people (“Sie”), so it would basically gain a fourth meaning.
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Er redete mit ihr = he talked to her
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Sie redete mit ihr = she talked to her
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Sie redeten mit ihr = they (plural) talked to her
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Sie redeten mit ihr = You (formal) talked to her
Now if “Sie” would also be used as a gender-neutral single pronoun, it would be even more confusing. We defo need a different word eventually, but like you just said; every new addition to this language sounds awkward at first, and there is always the risk of it just not catching on. Remember the last few times someone tried to propose yet another new word for “not thirsty anymore”? The public always rejects it and it is always forgotten after a few weeks. (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sitt)
And to be perfectly honest, the singular “they” also felt awkward to me at first, but the more you use it, the less awkward it feels, the more normal it becomes, and eventually it doesn’t feel weird anymore. You just have to power through the initial awkwardness and stick with it for long enough until you get used to it, that’s all it takes ;)
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Yes. “They” is clunky at times, especially when distinguishing people among groups.
I think the Japanese language handles this pretty well. People typically refer to someone by name, even when speaking directly to them where “you” would be used in English.
First person pronouns, on the other hand…
And more often, they leave out the name or pronoun entirely because who you are talking about can be understood by context.
sigh
We need to straighten up and realize what pronouns are worth keeping, redefine some that are better explained and stop introducing newer ones that come off incredibly pompous and pretentious. Any one is going to find fault in how they wish to be pronounced or identified by. And just because that someone is offended, doesn’t mean we need to make an entirely new set of pronouns for them. That’s their problem that they need to sort out and need to be much more transparent over than just walking on eggshells for.
That just will not work, because some languages have different rules about gendered words, to those of English.
E.g.
English:
One man
One woman
One non-binary person (they)
Bulgarian:
Един мъж
Една жена
Един не определен човек (те)
Notice how in the “non-binary/they” form in Bulgarian you still have to use the male version of “One”, it’s just how the language works…
Many languages will have to be entirely re-written to account for the new pronoun. I think until that happens, “they” gets the job done.
They / them is already in use
So is xe / xyr to a lesser degree
What does adding a third, competing pronoun set get us?
I expect it wouldn’t awkwardly share space with a plural pronoun. It sounds like Xe is what OP is looking for
a/an exists
