this post was submitted on 25 May 2024
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Honestly, do this anyway. Default to they/them until someone requests otherwise. It's the best way to normalize it for people who don't present in an assumable way, without exposing yourself to the same level of potential retaliation that asking leads to.
Please don't do this. This is just misgendering by default. The vast majority of people are exactly the gender they appear to be on the surface, and if they aren't, they'll let you know. I've only known one person who wasn't the gender they appeared (a very masculine-presenting enby), and they weren't offended at all when I misgendered them at first; they corrected me, I apologized, and that was the end of it.
However, if you call the wrong clearly-masculine "alpha male" or clearly-feminine "queen bitch" they/them, you're likely to get a violent reaction.
Gross. You care more about preserving the delicate feelings of bigoted snowflakes than actual vulnerable people.
It's not misgendering if you use non-gendered language. Non-gendered language is not gendered. Grammatical gender is idiotic and we'd be better off without it.
I completely agree. Gendered pronouns are not helpful and at this point only confuse things. I'm just glad English doesn't have gendered nouns, too, like Latin-based languages.
Anyway, the fact is that they/them has become "gendered" in the sense that it's now a preferred pronoun for a lot of people, mostly androgynous enbies, so its implicit meaning has changed. Sure, it's still used as a non-gendered pronoun for hypothetical people, but when used for a real, known person, it has the same implication as he/him or she/her - that they appear to be a certain gender, enby in this case.
I'm a clearly masculine person - I've got a beard and I wear masculine clothes. I personally wouldn't be offended, but I would think it very odd if someone saw me and thought they/them was an appropriate pronoun for me. If masculinity was as important to me as it is to most men, I could see myself getting offended at someone implying that I appear androgynous. Same as if an enby was referred to as he/him or she/her. Cisfolk's emotions are just as valid as valid as enbies'.
"They" as a neutral singular pronoun has been in the English language for hundreds of years.
Enbys also use it as a personal pronoun, sure - but no one gets to dictate that it can no longer be used as a neutral pronoun for everyone of any gender.
English is my primary language, so yes, I'm aware of the historical use of they/them as a non-gendered pronoun for hypothetical people.
I'm also aware of the fluid nature of language. I'm still salty about "literally" becoming its own antonym, but I have to accept it because it's now part of English.
That being said, it's never been socially acceptable to use they/them for a known person of a binary gender, and I'd argue that it's even less acceptable now, thanks to the common adoption of they/them as a personal pronoun for known persons of nonbinary gender.
It'd be much less confusing if there was an entirely new pronoun for enbies. Or, better yet, if there were never any gendered pronouns to begin with. But this is the world we live in, and we all have to find the best way to navigate our own paths without kicking up dirt onto others'.
I'm sympathetic to what you're saying but there's a part I just can't get on board with at all. I don't know if it's just that I come from a really different society to your one or what is going on here, but this paragraph doesn't ring true to me at all:
It's totally socially acceptable where I am to call people "they", or at least it always has been.
Didn't mean to insinuate anything about your English btw; in my experience most native English speakers don't have much interest in historical useage or etymology. Formal English style guides have only come on board with singular "they" in the last 15-20 years despite everyone using it colloquially for decades and decades.
True, it’s a good practice for those you don’t know. I think using it exclusively for the people they’ve known and worked with for years would send a clear message of disagreement with the policy. It’s also not something they can forbid, because it’s rightfully inclusive.