I’ve started yelling “NO PRONOUNS” and “USE HE/SHE BECAUSE HE/SHE IS NOT AN OBJECT” at my conservative relatives and acquaintances who complain about pronouns and gender-neutral anything.
No, Deborah, the non-binary person who helped you figure out your phone today is not the cause of societies’ downfall, nor are they responsible for high grocery prices.
They complain about pronouns, but use them constantly. Clearly they don’t truly know what a pronoun is. They complain about gender neutral stuff, but use neutral language all the time.
So I’ve been loudly pointing out every time they do.
I’ve been uninvited from a lot of future family gatherings. oh nooooooooooo
The thing that really grinds my gears is the excessive use of “he/she”. Workplace training is a regular offender for this. Just use the word “they” FFS, it’s sat right there on the shelf for you.
Or don’t, just go with “he” or “she”, this fictional person in your ‘case study’ isn’t real, they don’t give a shit.
To me it’s quite unnatural to use singular they about someone whose gender I actually know.
“There’s someone at the door”
“what does he or she want?” -nobody
You’d realistically say ‘who is it?’
“There’s someone from the water department here”
“What do they want?”
If you’re going to make any statement referring to the person, using “they” is both natural and understood by anyone.
