My boomer parents will die on the hill that it sounds “wrong” to use “they” to refer to a singular entity. And whenever they bring that up, I always remind them that the word “they” has been used in that way for AGES.
Example: “Whose umbrella is this? Did they already leave?”
It doesn’t seem to make a difference.
Watched a video that addressed this in good faith, because it is a tad awkward. They brought up and old term (because this isn’t new), “thone”, short for “the one”. And I’mma be real with you, “THE ONE, DIRK MCCALLAHAN” does ring kinda hard.
It doesn’t seem to make a difference.
Most people arguing about this are coming from an emotional place, so facts and truths don’t really matter. If gender in language is important to your in-group, that’s what matters. Not the history of language. Not the dictionary. The group believes this. If you reject your group, you’ll die alone. Or that’s what the brain would have you believe. We’re all a little susceptible to social influence on belief. Some people are just unwilling or unable to overcome it.
Belief is social.
For many people, emotion is the only truth.
What’s craziest to me is that people so often adopt beliefs as to belong to some sort of in group, right, but won’t necessarily adopt the set of beliefs that actually immediately benefits them, ingratiates them to their immediate surrounding environment, gives them a more functional outlook. No, it’s way simpler, people just adopt the beliefs of what they perceive in their immediate surroundings. Oftentimes this manifests more as people locking themselves into increasingly insular media environments, rather than, say, having productive conversations with their kids, or allowing themselves to be convinced by their friends, or being able to even really talk on a surface level with their co-workers. Their immediate environment, their “in-group”, can supercede physical reality.
have you tried having these conversations?
they don’t go so well IRL than they do in your head. the conservation you want in your head requires two willing and thoughtful parties… often there is only one person with that mindset… or sometimes none.
I had at trans friend who I did talk about this stuff with a few years ago… but now they are a radicalized nutcase and they are more focused on being ‘pronoun’ police and making every topic about ‘their suffering’ etc. oftentimes sane people become crazy people.
yep.
my entire life I got shit form grammar nazis for preferring gender neutral language. now i get shit for not asking everyone their pronoun. and my entire life I have had to put up with people’s shitty assumptions about me based on my physical appearance.
it never ends. people just want to be angry and feel superior to others who don’t agree with them and browbeat others into submission, all the while being judgemental about how others look vs how they think they should look.
“He or she” sounds and looks so cumbersome. “They” is the superior pronoun on style/conciseness alone.
It was beaten into me in school that this is incorrect. “They” is to be used as a plural pronoun only. It’s commonly used in the singular, but it’s wrong according to the English teachers I had. In referring to a person, you must choose either he or she under those grammar rules.
With that said, maybe it’s time for me to move into the future and accept that the meaning of the word has changed. I am confident those English teachers weren’t concerned about actual gender issues. Now, I think those issues are more important than the technical grammatical issues of English.
I’ve offended people in a social setting by insisting that this is the correct usage, when truly it was just me being autistic and informal rather than political.
Perhaps it was the English teachers who were wrong.
Correct or not, people have been using it like that for a while.
Fascinating! I didn’t know there was an article about this.
This use of singular they had emerged by the 14th century, about a century after the plural they.
That’s more than official enough for me!
Ok, even there we have bigger issues. How can literally mean figuratively?
Oh yeah, that one is absolutely terrible and I will die on that hill. Figuratively speaking.
“literally” being used to mean “figuratively” dates back to 3 years after the word “literally” began meaning “actually”. If this is a hill to die on, you need to use “literally” exclusively to mean “as written in the texts”. Common usage of “literally” to mean “actually” and “figuratively” both date to the 1590s
It’s important to understand that Hank is specific to say “correct prounons” and not “preferred prounons”. We as creature of civilization have to right to control our place in that creation, so when someone misgenders, it’s not that they are nessecarily showing disrespect, but being factually wrong. It’s okay to state the wrong thing if you don’t know, but if you insist that only YOUR interpretation of another person is correct, even more so than how THEY THEMSELVES interpret themselves, then you have crossed the rubicon in to bigotry.
To see another person on the street and think you have a better view of them than they do in a mirror is just wild levels of arrogance. They know themslevss far more than you ever will.
That’s John Green, but they’re the same person, according to the internet.
Try some proofreading your own comments. Dimwit.
🤣 😂
Sorry if the quick comment I left on my phone while on the toilet wasn’t up to your standards, but since you aren’t actually contributing anything of substance I don’t see a reason to care what you think.
Edit: Jesus your comment history is sad. Seems like you never can think of anything worthwhile to say. Stay mad I guess?
I have to deal with extremely bad gender dysphoria, so yes I would trade my struggles with any transphobe who thinks they have it rough
I’m getting pretty old.
Transgender stuff is new and confusing to me.
My only experience with it was in a bar I used to frequent in Los Angeles, though I think they were more transvestite than transgender. Pronouns never came up there. We just used names.
It’s easy for me to use any name given when introduced. If you introduce yourself to me with a feminine name when you appear quite male, it’s no skin off my teeth.
Pronouns are more difficult simply because of my embedded native language of English dictating gender. While difficult, it’s no more inconvenient than to slow myself down, think about what I’m saying, and try to use what’s preferred. If I should slip up, then maybe a brief, “oops, sorry about that,” is in order.
The hardest thing for me is if I have known you as one name and now I’ve got to use a new name. This has nothing to do with gender or politics however. It’s just how my brain stores things. My sister uses a different first name in adulthood than when we were kids, and I never have been able to adapt. Since my sister is awesome and understands me, she gives me a pass on this.
Bottom line, the linguistics can be difficult for us oldies, but that doesn’t give us reason to fear, hate, or persecute.
I think (in general) any one should be just allowed to say “oops” in any situation, in any case, however bad it is, to note he/she/(add any extra pronouns) has said/done and gone something that should not have happened or taken place. It’s like software crashing of thinking, which happens and will happen more than we would like to.
And yet, in both cases, there is a significant subset of people who don’t see it that way. They see it as your personal fault/failure as a human being from not knowing the right pronoun, or that the software crashing is your fault.
If I’m genuinely trying to adapt to something, I’ve got no time for intolerance toward my errors en route to learning. That’s on the other person regardless of makeup or identity.
38 years here. Pronouns based on appearance are pretty solidly baked into my brain.
I’m willing to improve if you’re willing to be patient and deal with my fuck ups.
Bro just use singular they. Why is it so hard.
because people change their pronouns and they get pissed off if you use the wrong one.
I’ve had trans people tell me their pronoun. OK, cool. Then a few weeks/months later, they change it. Then they jump down my throat for not knowing the new one they have picked. One person I know was she/they, now they are he. well sorry if I didn’t check your FB status or whatever to see when you updated it… but last time I talked to this person and used the old pronoun they went OFF on me about what a facist I am or something. (let me add this person IDs as androgynous and claims to be asexual and does not have a gendered appearance)
Look, most trans people are cool, but there are a few out there who are DETERMINED to be complete assholes about it. And it’s like… ok I’m not going to bother anymore. I’d rather just avoid them entirely, just like I avoid middle-aged white women like the plague since too many of them have Karen syndrome.
From my experience most trans people are pretty clear cut. I get that they change their pronouns a lot when transitioning and coming out of the closet because it must be hard to pick a pronoun when you dont even know who you are. They are usually ok with the singular they. My problem is with tiktok queers and people who just change it for fun basically. I dont care if your pronoun is xe or idk but i do care when you dont accept if i use they(which i even use for cishet people because in my native language we dont have genders and its just generally easier).
sadly where I live lots of queers/trans are of the tiktok variety. a lot of them are trust fund types who aspire to be influences and have vanity jobs and want to lecture you on how they are an artist or something. they get really pissed off if you call them ‘they’ for some reason.
Avoid “them” meaning all trans people or the handful of dipshits you were choosing to talk to?
All of them now. It only takes a few times of being physical threatened and verbally assaulted before you just decide it’s not worth it. IME the ratio of cool trans people to psychos is 1:1, so it’s 50/50.
I get they feel ‘under threat’ but taking it out on well-meaning people who support you isn’t the answer… and frankly a few years ago it was never big deal. But like I said me not being ‘up’ on the latest pronoun you choose used to be NBD a few years ago… now it’s ‘erasing my existence’ or some crazy extremest nonsense. I have no interest in interacting with extremists.
You can’t know if someone is a dipshit until after you interact with them, btw.
Yeah painting all trans people that way is nonsense. It gets pretty close to bigotry territory. I gotta wonder where you live or what kind of choices you are making to surround yourself with that many unhinged people. Where I’m at I’ve encountered zero trans people that act like you’ve described.
I can only paint people with the experience they give me of themselves. If I’ve treated like a bigot, I will start be likely to start acting like one. I live in Boston and it’s become really bad the past few years. I have been physically attacked by trans people for standing in line at a coffee shop because they demanded I ‘give up my privilege’ and I ignored their crazy nonsense, so they escalated because they know nobody would take by side, because I’m the ‘big bad white guy’ and most of the staff were trans.
Least to say I don’t go to coffee shop anymore. And yeah, I am becoming a bigot because of how I’m treated with bigotry. It’s almost like hate breeds hate and I want no part of that horrible shit.
“You can’t know if someone is a dipshit until after you interact with them, btw.” That you said that is kinda at odds with what you are saying now.
If you are going to treat all members of a group as being the same as the worst members you have met then you are just choosing to be a bigot.
The issue isn’t trans people as a whole. It’s also not even close to half of trans people. There is something unique about your situation.
This person is either lying, or had some karen at the coffee shop go off, and is now stretching that. I have family in Boston, Including a couple that live Jamaica Plains. That has been like LGBTQ central for a while. They, and no one they know, have ever been assaulted by people over privilege, pronouns, or for being white/straight/male/cis. They said the only place they have ever seen such eruptions of behavior is online, meaning it’s just the rare karen.
That, or they are bigot that goes out and agitates this type of behavior. Then frames it in a manner in which they are the victim.
no, it’s basic survival instinct.
if i eat the purple berries and they make me puke, i’m not going to eat them again. am i now bigoted against purple berries? or should i just keep eating them and getting sick and doing it over and over again?
just like if i have a shitty meal at a restaurant, i won’t go back to that place, or that chain if it’s a chain. etc etc.
You used they in this comment but don’t state you use they as a generic pronoun. Dude just use they
That is a quality of life issue. This person’s issue is not their changing pronouns, it is that they are an asshole, who loves to milk the victim role.
I am a cis, male guy, who due to some hormonal issues looked androgynous and sounded like a girl when I was in my late teens and early 20s, and was addressed as “miss” quite often, and for the most part, people would just say “Sorry” when corrected, then address me as a guy.
This is how people should behave, the person you describe is just an asshole, whether they are aware of it or not.
Same issue I used to have with gay people, I used to think they were all loudmouth assholes, until I found out that what I had been exposed to was a loud minority, a ton of gay people are your regular Joe and Jane, and you would never know they were gay unless they told you.
Don’t let a loud minority sour your day, you have been doing the right thing, and the downvoted are overzealous, reactionary assholes.
I know, they are an asshole. Just like many cops are assholes.
But give the propensity of assholes in the group, the safest course of action is to just avoid them entirely. I also have no interest in interact with police, and yet I bet nobody would call me a bigot for saying that…
Eh, that’s different. Police officers choose the profession. Trans folks aren’t choosing the trans life, they’re discovering who they really are (maybe I should have just quipped “…the trans life chose them”, ha).
There’s nothing wrong with trying to avoid assholes, but when you start painting with a broad brush like that, well, it does smack of bigotry. Same energy as racists who memorize arrest statistics and then say things like “It’s not racist if it’s true!”
Also, to be clear: I don’t mean to accuse you of anything. I just see some uncomfortable parallels.
Personally, I don’t have a lot of experience in this area. I’ve really only been acquainted with two trans people, and I don’t/didn’t know them very well (I say didn’t because I haven’t seen the one person since before covid). Both were friends-of-friends type acquaintances that I’d see at game nights and the like.
Cool. I’ve been acquainted with dozens of trans people and known a dozen on a regular social basis and a few quite well…
turns out they are just like… people. some of them are cool… but a good chunk of them are selfish jerks just like any group of people.
for some reason people want to lionize trans people as they suffering saints… and anyone who criticisms trans folks is clearly a hateful bigot… which also tells me they know nothing about trans people and put them on a podium. the brush i paint trans people with is broad… because they are people. they aren’t some other subspecies of human beings with superior moral worth, empathy and insight. some of them are really great, most of them are not so great, and a bunch of them are awful humans who delight in antisocial behaviour. have you ever hung out in trans internet forums? they are full of awful hateful and bigoted shit… often direct at other trans folks, and incessant gatekeeping about who or what is really ‘trans’. it’s disgusting.
and being trans is a choice. just like me presenting a a cis het man is a choice. just like i wanted to dress up in a woman’s outfit an go out tonight… that would be a choice. just like the trans folks who go around policing other people’s pronouns, fashion choices, and their gender worthiness choose to do that.
but of course don’t let the complexities of the human condition and identity get in the way of a good ‘hurrr durr well yer a bigot and i am a good purrrson for saying so’ internet self-righteous indignation.
How does that differ from plural they?
the same way singular “you” differs from plural “you”
I’d even go simpler than that. “If calling people by their preferred pronouns is one of the hundred biggest challenges…” Inserting “correct” into the statement just begs to get into an argument with a conservative and feels like you’re trying to force them to accept a different reality than they want to.
IMHO it’s simply a personal preference thing. Let people live how they want to live. You don’t have to convince everyone that Sally is really a woman trapped in the body of a man, you just have to say that it’s her preference you call her as a “she”. People should have the freedom to define themselves. That’s it. End of story.
My conservative neighbor brought up trans stuff thinking he’d use all the conservative media talking points and my answer was simply “it doesn’t really bother me. I’m a live and let live kind of guy. If they want me to use a different pronoun I’ll do my best to switch to that pronoun.” If you spin it as a freedom instead of a reality then it’s easier to accept.
but someone’s preferred pronouns are the correct ones to use for them
It’s the right phrase, and if it triggers a conservative to start arguing, so be it
Yeah, let people live. But also, let me live. Let me define myself the way I want. Stop telling me what the fuck to say and do and think and labeling anything that is ‘different’ than your way of thinking ‘bad and wrong’.
You are asking us to tolerate the intolerant.
that’s what tolerance is. not tolerating them is being intolerant, and self-defeating ultimately.
sorry, should we go an extirpate the Amish because they don’t accept lgbt+ people in their community? or another community that disagrees with lgbt identities? are we going to bomb the middle east in the name of trans rights? those are utter ridiculous ideas, so is the idea of being ‘stamping out intolerance’. all that tells me is you think others should conform to your beliefs or be removed.
no, we’re not. because that’s insane. we tolerate the intolerate all the time. just like you don’t scream at your annoying co-worker who bores you to tears about sports or wahtever shit they try to chat you up about.
Look up the paradox of tolerance. In order to be tolerant, you must be intolerant of intolerance.
ok. lets just round up all the intolerant people and re-educate them until they are tolerant like we are.
because it’s totally cool fo us tolerant people to be fascists, as long as we are eliminating fascism!
Hey man, I’m just sharing the philosophical concept of what happens when a society is tolerant of everyone.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
No one is suggesting that only fascism can prevent fascism. It’s the ‘right to refuse service’ when people are being an asshole, and you have to exercise that right when people go too far. There have to be some consequences for being intolerant in order to maintain a tolerant society.
No one where? Here?
Where I live in liberal leftie land… people are 100% often totally for facism, as long as it’s targeted at the ‘right’ people. And ironically, also they all bend over backwards to accommodate assholes as long as have a minority identity, because you know, it’s perfectly ok to treat people like shit because you’re categorically oppressed.
And in the few spaces that are generally open to everyone… they get shit on by these same supposed tolerant people, becuse these spaces are not ‘safe’ if the evil bad majority is allowed into them.
It’s pure insanity. Largely fueled by nitwits who have no experience with genuine oppression and tell me I’m an asshole when I tell them my stories of genuine racist and sexism, because it makes them ‘uncomfortable’. lol
If you’re not on-board with the LGBTQ movement, are you a transphobe?
What exactly do you need to “be on board” with? Not being a raging douche?
That’s the thing. While I don’t use any of the labels myself and I don’t feel personal connection to the movement, it looks to me like there’s the side of 1) reasonable human being and 2) asshole.
according to the assholes, anyone who is a reasonable human being is a bigot and asshole.
I mean, if changing your pronouns is one of the hundred biggest challenges in your life, I am super envious of your life.
FIFY
Why do you think anyone who chooses their pronouns finds it a challenge?
Do you find it challenging to know which gender you are or do you just know?
I find it challenging how many people assume so much shit about me based on how I look, yeah.
Perhaps we could all just use he/her for everyone because its less typing (e and r right next to each other vs im on him or he on she) and less space taken up on screens and paper? It would end run the haterade bigots looking to stir shit up and the self serving jackasses that inject themselves as the main character in every else’s life choices and experiences.
In my own case, I only really take issue with the singular vs plural pronouns because they/them implies multiple people. Declaring they/them as your pronoun feels like an awkward adjustment to force on everyone else, not at all from a gender fluid or gendered language position, just from a logical expedience of exactness of language position.
We make all this shit up anyway, so let’s just collectively define a shortest pronoun to represent individuals universally. Equality of respect among peers.
This person, they understand singular pronouns, if everyone was like them no one would use they or them to refer to one person.
I mean, my only real argument is about efficiency and language exactness for the sake of clarity of meaning. Here’s a version based on my suggestion:
“This person understands pronouns, if everyone was like her then no one would use they are them to refer to one person.”
I’m not attacking pronoun users, I’m advocating for more efficient pronoun usage rather than arbitrarily requiring others to redefine their pronoun usage for every single individual that wants to use a different unique pronoun. Why, you ask? A pronoun is a shortened identifier than can be used in many different instances to represent a noun, in general, individual pronouns are a substitute for individual names.
Your name is the actually unique identifier more-so than any pronoun is or needs to be.
‘They/them’ has been used for singular people for centuries.
The Oxford English Dictionary traces singular they back to 1375, where it appears in the medieval romance William and the Werewolf. Except for the old-style language of that poem, its use of singular they to refer to an unnamed person seems very modern. Here’s the Middle English version: ‘Hastely hiȝed eche . . . þei neyȝþed so neiȝh . . . þere william & his worþi lef were liand i-fere.’ In modern English, that’s: ‘Each man hurried . . . till they drew near . . . where William and his darling were lying together.’
https://www.oed.com/discover/a-brief-history-of-singular-they/?tl=true
Yes and languages evolve. I also worry that your same sort of historial logic can be used in favor of preserving gendered language and traditional gender definitions that is contrary to the goals here.
I’m arguing for a standard usage, he/her for everyone covers always having a singular standardized pronoun so that they/them can be used as plural pronouns without the potential confusion that you may be talking about more than one person in the same literal contextual frame of a discussion. Preciseness of language improves the quality of communication.
Even in that example, and perhaps the modern English translation is just incorrect in its wording, “Each man hurried… til they drew near” is still a plural representative form of usage, as ‘each man’ is an implied amount of more than a singular man.
To say “Each man hurried… til he drew near… where William and his darling were lying together” creates a confusion of singular subject and does not work since ‘each man’ and ‘they’ represents more than a single self identifying entity.
Cool. Good luck getting people to change language they’ve used for centuries because you want them to.
No, not cool. Languages do in fact change over time, regardless of what you or I may think, do or want.
I never demanded others conform to what I want, I argued in favor of an idea that has evolved over time from my own personal growth and life experiences, and it’s a suggestion that is certainly open for discussion.
This was shared as a thought out consideration meant to improve on existing language in several ways, including:
- as a compromise and simplified solution on pronoun gendering,
- more exactness when discussing single individuals or multiple individuals,
- and as a pronoun that is inclusive of everyone without having to talk down to people you disagree with.
I don’t know if you just constantly see red when you go to reply on certain thread topics, but not everything is or needs to be a reactionary agitative internet fight. Have a nice day.
You can argue your idea all you want, but language doesn’t change because someone has an idea that they think makes sense. That’s not how things work.
That’s exactly how things work.
Ideas affect change.
Not every idea brings change, but exploring new and different ideas is always worth pursuing.
Our entire civilization is built from, on, and around ideas put into actions.
Guarantee most of the people who argue about pronouns on the internet don’t even know a trans person.
and most decent transfolks don’t give a shit about prounouns. they just want to be left alone and stop being made into child raping monsters by politicans looking to scare up the voter base.
I mean… I care about pronouns, so do most of my trans friends, and I’d like to think we’re all “decent” trans folks. It sucks when someone misgenders you. I would also like the conservatives in my country to stop using trans rights as a wedge issue. I can care about both of these things at the same time.
I’d like people to stop screaming at me for misgendering them when I meant no ill-will. Just like I don’t scream at people when they ask me if I’m Italian or when they mispronounce my surname.
God forbid we don’t get pissed off at people for making mistakes, especially strangers.
Oh, you’re the same user who was lying in another comment thread about trans people beating you up in a coffee shop.
Ironic that you’re commenting about politicians making up stories about trans people to scare voters, seeing as you’re doing the same thing to win an argument on the Internet.
Nah, unlike you I’m capable of realize that trans people are people. Which means they are just as shitty as any other person.
My question comes from a grammar /German background: We have four cases. They have different pronouns. Which ones should I list?
whichever one you feel is the most correct any any one time
Using pronouns isn’t a “problem” though, it’s that people genuinely don’t care.
I don’t care very much if I’m honest. I’ve never interacted with someone who informed me that their pronouns were not the usual ones.
It also never happened to me but I imagine the conversation would be something like:
Hello X
Please don’t call me X I don’t like it, call me Y instead
Ok
~ ~The end~ ~
You’d hope that.
But in my experience it’s a 50/50 chance they will go off on you.
My experience has been that transgendered people will correct you politely when accidentally misgendered. They get it. They don’t like it, but they get it.
It’s the cisgendered people who get offended when they are accidentally misgendered (i.e. calling a cis-female who has masculine features “he/him”).
No different than assuming a fat woman is pregnant or a man with a high voice is gay. And the embarrassment is felt all the same, for both parties.
People genuinely do care considering Jordan Peterson’s entire career is based on the whole “you can’t force me to use your pronouns” bullshit that no one was trying to force him to do in the first place.
I will start by saying I am very open minded and really don’t agree with a lot of what Peterson says. I’m also pro LGBT and leaving people be who they are and love the life that makes them happy… But he’s right that we shouldn’t be forced to use someone’s pronouns. At the time there was discussion about making this a law. If someone wants to be a prick let them. Better to know who they are.
No one is being forced.
For fuck’s sake.
Peterson just lied about the bill.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/qbnamx/no-the-trans-rights-bill-doesnt-criminalize-free-speech
No one is stopping him or anyone else from being a bigoted asshole. Asking people to stop doing it and telling them why is not forcing them.
lots of people are being harassed and intimidated into it though. lots of people take an absolutist stance on pronouns, and if you misgender someone or don’t ask them what their pronoun is, you are considered a ‘bad person’.
labeling and harassing people into social conformity is being forced to do something.
What people? I have never seen anyone get angry about being accidentally misgendered.
No one is being “harassed” or “intimidated” into calling people what they want to be called. You’re just an asshole if you don’t do it because you’re not giving them a very basic amount of respect: the acknowledgement of the right to be who they are.
I have, many times. Don’t know where you live… oftentimes it’s not ever the trans person getting mad… it’s a straight cis person with a hero complex goes around as a self appointed pronoun police officer and calls you names if you even ask them wtf the deal is.
If someone was a jerk to you, then that person is a jerk.
If everyone is a jerk to you, then you’re probably the jerk.
It was made a law, it’s also a law in many parts of the US. It’s not about preventing random people from being pricks, it’s about discouraging harassment from employers, school administrations, and government officials. They’re prohibited from persistently misgendering you in the same way they’re prohibited from calling you slurs. I struggle to imagine a scenario where life would be improved by removing those sensible guard rails on civil society.
As a person who learned English as a 2nd language, I would like it if you could transform the language into gender neutral and end this insanity.
I still get classic genders wrong, this whole LGBTQ movement is confusing me even more when I’m trying to type/speak.
English is gender neutral. You have to deliberately apply a gender to something unless that word is gender specific, like cow or removed referring to female animals.
In my brief forays learning other languages one of the more frustrating things to learn is that you can have female refrigerators, male buses, and gender neutral roofs. That is not gender neutrality.
So I don’t get your issue with genders, seeing as they have nothing to do with English language neutrality and everything to do with how you address a specific individual at their request.
In what fucked up language are refrigerators female? They’re obviously male.
bro, there are folks out there who think spanish/french and other gendered languages are wrong and bad.
