Yeah for me the issue is that it concedes a proposition that I think is plainly nonsense. Gender just denotes you’re talking about sex characteristics and not the act of sex. It just makes that distinction. Academics pondered the idea, cooked it until it was burnt toast and then it went viral on social media with the help of celebrity endorsements, amongst kids looking for an identity. And the wokesters went along because they needed a new prejudice to be tolerant of, because the conservatives have long since accepted same-sex attraction and racial differences. Gotta accuse them of something. Anyways. It’s annoying.
More of a deal breaker than being lied to is the expectation that *I* have to lie when referring to Sally with the five o'clock shadow in her preferred mythical context. She's entirely free to pretend. She isn't entitled to my participation.
Names aren't material reality. Biological sex is. Let's have a little thought experiment fun using your disingenuous frame, however. If I go to the courthouse tomorrow and have my name officially changed to Princess Buttercup, can I reasonably expect/demand everyone around me awkwardly refer to me in conversation ONLY by this ridiculous new name? And if/when, say, a coworker slips up, can I report them to HR for the equivalent crime of being misgendered? The answer is, to anyone with an ounce of integrity, no. I can change my name. I can put on an astronaut suit and believe it alone makes me a skilled astronaut. What I can't do is insist others owe me the "courtesy" of pretending I'm something other than deluded. 🥴
Nobody is nonbinary (or literally y intersex either). Everyone is male or female. People can be androgenous in style and manner but we don't need special pronouns for it.
All other considerations aside, it's just a confusing use of language. Consider the following: "Non-binary Alex is getting mugged by a group of men in the street and I will jump in to help them" Who am I saying I wish to help, Alex or the muggers?
I don't think you have a valid point. You need to make a case where pronouns are applicable. Him is not applicable. Her could be applicable. Them is not applicable.
If Alex was being attacked by a group of men and women, then no pronoun would be applicable.
I'm obviously presuming that Alex uses they/them pronouns so neither 'him' nor 'her are applicable. So the "them" at the end of the sentence could refer to either the muggers or Alex. Like I said, they/them gives rise to confusing language.
It's very mildly confusing, and puts a very small burden of attention on the speaker that they didn't previously have. It is an imposition, but most etiquette is.
As I said in an earlier comment, the "them" at the end of the example sentence could refer to either the muggers or Alex. Clarity of language is compromised. Framing it in terms of etiquette is a red-herring.
Cause turning a dumb binary into a dumb trinity isnt liberating and actually within its logic contains the belief in the patriarchal worldview which limits personality expression in both men and women?
Let others be free to be who they are and live their lives as they choose. It's walking the walk of the founding principles defined in the Declaration of Independence. It's walking the walk of the commandment to Love Thy Neighbor.
In my anecdotal experience, at least the people I see online getting yelled at with "pronouns in bio, opinion irrelevant" replies are those using he/him and she/her. If anything, this suggests it's more about policing other folks' acceptance and the potential for broader acceptance than grammar, IMO.
Discovery went off the rails in many places, but Adira and Grey were two of the most irritating woke innovations. It felt like purely a social justice intervention.
I like the “they is” grammar and I’ve occasionally used it just to annoy non-binary “royalty.” When a non-binary royal gets a little too full of themself, they is deserving of a little mockery.
And at least Charles III is real (I think), unlike non-binary people, but you said you didn’t want to get into that angle.
Getting to exist isn't the issue. That's already a given, as evidenced by (lack of) murder rates. The issue - or one issue, anyway - comes from trying to put a legal standard together for distinguishing "actually trans" from "guy* in dress lying to your face", when looking at things like women's shelters, or prisons. Or bathrooms and sports leagues I suppose, but the stakes tend to be lower there.
*Also technically vice versa, but there's no similar outrage for trans men. Ancient China might have cared about whether Mulan was trans or just a woman in a uniform, but we currently don't so far as I can tell.
Maybe it's just England that has this issue. Or maybe it's just anecdotes that wash out as statistical noise when you zoom out to tens to hundreds of millions of people.
Nitpick: the split infinitive was a part of English all the way back in Middle English. Snooty, educated types tried and failed to get people to stop doing it in order to make English more like Latin.
I’ve noticed, here and there, people seemingly uncomfortable with using ‘he’ (never with ‘she’), and this in contexts that have nothing to do with cultural battles. Perhaps it points to a deeper change brewing. At least randomly jumping between ‘he’ and ‘she’ seems to have faded. I guess that failed to bring about equality.
The generic ‘they’ as referencing a singular (although otherwise treated as a plural) has been around for at least fifty years and likely far longer. Up until recently, its use never led to confusion. But more and more, writers jump between singular and plural even within the same sentence. It stops me in my tracks, forcing me to backtrack and reread the paragraph once or twice to see if I’ve missed anything.
We will eventually find an equilibrium, if only temporarily. But I cannot believe that the more extreme demands will ever be accommodated. At its base, certain people cannot feel comfortable in their own skin unless laws are changed, science recants, language is rewritten, and people’s natural good nature is weaponized against them. It was a naked power play by a group who thought, for a brief moment, that they held all the cards. But they overplayed their hand, and are now finding that the moment has passed.
Yeah for me the issue is that it concedes a proposition that I think is plainly nonsense. Gender just denotes you’re talking about sex characteristics and not the act of sex. It just makes that distinction. Academics pondered the idea, cooked it until it was burnt toast and then it went viral on social media with the help of celebrity endorsements, amongst kids looking for an identity. And the wokesters went along because they needed a new prejudice to be tolerant of, because the conservatives have long since accepted same-sex attraction and racial differences. Gotta accuse them of something. Anyways. It’s annoying.
"Academics pondered the idea, cooked it until it was burnt and then it went viral on social media.....". Best way to describe it.
Thank you for sharing this perspective! I never realized how hard it was to be a cisgender conservative.
It's easy, it's just unpopular. I certainly am worried for the two nieces that are suddenly Trans. Crazy.
More of a deal breaker than being lied to is the expectation that *I* have to lie when referring to Sally with the five o'clock shadow in her preferred mythical context. She's entirely free to pretend. She isn't entitled to my participation.
Would you feel the same about someone called Rebecca asking to be called Becky? Rebecca is the name on her birth certificate.
Names aren't material reality. Biological sex is. Let's have a little thought experiment fun using your disingenuous frame, however. If I go to the courthouse tomorrow and have my name officially changed to Princess Buttercup, can I reasonably expect/demand everyone around me awkwardly refer to me in conversation ONLY by this ridiculous new name? And if/when, say, a coworker slips up, can I report them to HR for the equivalent crime of being misgendered? The answer is, to anyone with an ounce of integrity, no. I can change my name. I can put on an astronaut suit and believe it alone makes me a skilled astronaut. What I can't do is insist others owe me the "courtesy" of pretending I'm something other than deluded. 🥴
who has to lie
Nobody is nonbinary (or literally y intersex either). Everyone is male or female. People can be androgenous in style and manner but we don't need special pronouns for it.
All other considerations aside, it's just a confusing use of language. Consider the following: "Non-binary Alex is getting mugged by a group of men in the street and I will jump in to help them" Who am I saying I wish to help, Alex or the muggers?
It isn’t confusing. Help Alex. The language doesn’t matter.
You're avoiding my point.
I don't think you have a valid point. You need to make a case where pronouns are applicable. Him is not applicable. Her could be applicable. Them is not applicable.
If Alex was being attacked by a group of men and women, then no pronoun would be applicable.
I'm obviously presuming that Alex uses they/them pronouns so neither 'him' nor 'her are applicable. So the "them" at the end of the sentence could refer to either the muggers or Alex. Like I said, they/them gives rise to confusing language.
I think it's easy to understand through context.
My point is linguistic, and a reader shouldn't always have to deduce intended meaning through context.
It’s over blown.
It's very mildly confusing, and puts a very small burden of attention on the speaker that they didn't previously have. It is an imposition, but most etiquette is.
As I said in an earlier comment, the "them" at the end of the example sentence could refer to either the muggers or Alex. Clarity of language is compromised. Framing it in terms of etiquette is a red-herring.
Cause turning a dumb binary into a dumb trinity isnt liberating and actually within its logic contains the belief in the patriarchal worldview which limits personality expression in both men and women?
Let others be free to be who they are and live their lives as they choose. It's walking the walk of the founding principles defined in the Declaration of Independence. It's walking the walk of the commandment to Love Thy Neighbor.
In my anecdotal experience, at least the people I see online getting yelled at with "pronouns in bio, opinion irrelevant" replies are those using he/him and she/her. If anything, this suggests it's more about policing other folks' acceptance and the potential for broader acceptance than grammar, IMO.
Discovery went off the rails in many places, but Adira and Grey were two of the most irritating woke innovations. It felt like purely a social justice intervention.
I like the “they is” grammar and I’ve occasionally used it just to annoy non-binary “royalty.” When a non-binary royal gets a little too full of themself, they is deserving of a little mockery.
And at least Charles III is real (I think), unlike non-binary people, but you said you didn’t want to get into that angle.
One thing for sure this was a lot of words that could’ve probably been summed up in a half paragraph.
Could you expand on that?
"But I don’t want to get bogged down in a sex vs. gender debate, nor to make or refute claims that are ultimately unfalsifiable."
I understand why, but I think this is 90% or the reason. People don't think non-binary is a real thing.
:: “I tried my hardest to quantify the harm from trans people getting too exist too and this is the best I could do.”
Who are you and why would anyone value anything you type?
Getting to exist isn't the issue. That's already a given, as evidenced by (lack of) murder rates. The issue - or one issue, anyway - comes from trying to put a legal standard together for distinguishing "actually trans" from "guy* in dress lying to your face", when looking at things like women's shelters, or prisons. Or bathrooms and sports leagues I suppose, but the stakes tend to be lower there.
*Also technically vice versa, but there's no similar outrage for trans men. Ancient China might have cared about whether Mulan was trans or just a woman in a uniform, but we currently don't so far as I can tell.
Cool imagination, “Skivverus.” That’s a bad-actor bot reply from you.
I'm not claiming it's a new argument, but I'm not seeing a refutation of it.
Literally only exists in your imagination. Find a new marginalized group to slander, Goebbels.
https://legislature.maine.gov/testimony/resources/CJPS20210518Gingrich132667016258173317.pdf
Now, maybe I'm imagining the concerns in that PDF. Maybe Maine is secretly a hotbed of transphobia.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/male-rapist-transfer-womens-jail/
Maybe it's just England that has this issue. Or maybe it's just anecdotes that wash out as statistical noise when you zoom out to tens to hundreds of millions of people.
But this is not based on *my* imagination.
Nitpick: the split infinitive was a part of English all the way back in Middle English. Snooty, educated types tried and failed to get people to stop doing it in order to make English more like Latin.
I’ve noticed, here and there, people seemingly uncomfortable with using ‘he’ (never with ‘she’), and this in contexts that have nothing to do with cultural battles. Perhaps it points to a deeper change brewing. At least randomly jumping between ‘he’ and ‘she’ seems to have faded. I guess that failed to bring about equality.
The generic ‘they’ as referencing a singular (although otherwise treated as a plural) has been around for at least fifty years and likely far longer. Up until recently, its use never led to confusion. But more and more, writers jump between singular and plural even within the same sentence. It stops me in my tracks, forcing me to backtrack and reread the paragraph once or twice to see if I’ve missed anything.
We will eventually find an equilibrium, if only temporarily. But I cannot believe that the more extreme demands will ever be accommodated. At its base, certain people cannot feel comfortable in their own skin unless laws are changed, science recants, language is rewritten, and people’s natural good nature is weaponized against them. It was a naked power play by a group who thought, for a brief moment, that they held all the cards. But they overplayed their hand, and are now finding that the moment has passed.
We already have a pronoun for the neuter gender singular, and it works just fine. The problem with They is subject-verb agreement.