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.
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.