'Mx' and non gender specific pronouns.

[marplots]

Or simply a linguistic question.

English has he , she and it. French has He and She. There is not it in french there is no neutral and there is no gender neutral for anything. All object are a she or an he, there is a the-he and a the-she (le , la) a a-he and an a-she (un une). Pretty much only plural does not indicate a gender.
Having a gender neutral stuff would be tacked on from Anglo-germanistic languages. That is not the only languages where this happen.

So how do the French handle the problem?

 

[Aepervius]

So how do the French handle the problem?

There is no problem, they are simply called he or she, masculin is actually used as a neutral form sort of, if you do not know the gender or if one masculin form is in the group use male form (il a plu hier, it rained yesterday - similarly a group of 10000 women/female objects will be refered as elles, but a group of 10000000 women/female objects and 1 man/male objects as ils - masculin - before one take the patriarchy card out, if you have two gender, when you have a mix you have to use either male or female form frankly even if the origin is dubious, nowadays it is simply a grammatical rule ). I have not heard of anybody trying to introduce a 3rd one and frankly even if introduced, the concept would be "foreign" in all sense. You can't imagine how difficult for me to call Das Mädchen and not Die Mädchen. It tooks me a decade. And I am living there. Now try to imagine for those not living in a country where neutral is used.

 

[BardKesnit]

Depends on your definition of 'rare'. According to Gallup polling, the percentage of the population in the U.S. who identify as LGBT is 3.8%. Those specifically identifying as trans were 0.6% of the population.

I didn't say being TG is not rare. I said it is probably not as rare as many people think. I know several trans people, and most of them "live stealth" (don't openly say they are trans). In contrast, more and more LGB people are coming out, making it seem they are a greater part of the population than they actually are. (Though I am surprised that those studied thought 23% of the population is LGB!)

 

[Corsair 115]

I didn't say being TG is not rare. I said it is probably not as rare as many people think.

The Gallup polling data, if similarly true for transpersons specifically rather than gay/lesbian, would indicate the opposite.

 

[Dessi]

A recent scientific study of revealed that as many as 55% of people are trans and 91% self-identify under at least one letter of the LGBTQ alphabet.

Source: my facebook friends and social circle.

 

[Fudbucker]

Dan Simmons, the Hyperion series. I kept mentally reading it as "Monsieur", which added another level of weirdness to the books, as everybody was not only futuristic and in space but also French and (in my mental processes, anyway) Poirot.

That's funny, I was going to post that and scrolled to see if anyone else had read the series. The androids were referred to as "A", like A. Bettik

 

[Seismosaurus]

I remember in the early Star Trek films the officers, regardless of whether they were male or female, were addressed as "Mister".

Seems to me that's at least as good a solution as inventing a bunch of new terms—just strip the gender expectation off of an existing term and use it for everyone.

The thing that has always struck me as odd about that is that in every single work I've seen that has ever done it, it's universally the male term that the society has adopted for everyone.

So for instance, in Star Trek it's "Mister Saavik", rather than "Miss Kirk". One wonders why that is.

 

[dasmiller]

The thing that has always struck me as odd about that is that in every single work I've seen that has ever done it, it's universally the male term that the society has adopted for everyone.

So for instance, in Star Trek it's "Mister Saavik", rather than "Miss Kirk". One wonders why that is.

I'd misheard it as "Miss DeSavik." Ah, well.

 

[Brian-M]

A recent scientific study of revealed that as many as 55% of people are trans and 91% self-identify under at least one letter of the LGBTQ alphabet.

Well, if by "as many" they mean "up to" then that could be, technically, correct.
Mathematically it would be expressed as n <= 55% and n <= 91%.

So even if it were the case that n = 0 for both groups, what they're asserting would still be true.

Do pronouns refer to the sex of the individual or their gender?

If you're using these pronouns in social interactions rather than for biological categorization, they probably should be used to refer to gender rather than sex.

For example, if you constantly referred to a trans-woman as "he" or "him", this would be regarded as an insult.

 

[TragicMonkey]

The thing that has always struck me as odd about that is that in every single work I've seen that has ever done it, it's universally the male term that the society has adopted for everyone.

So for instance, in Star Trek it's "Mister Saavik", rather than "Miss Kirk". One wonders why that is.

The sexism inherent in most cultures assumes the default sex is male, and female is something unusual that has to be specifically stated. Thus the old surgeon can't operate because he's my son thing: it's not that most people don't think women can be surgeons, it's that most people assume surgeons would be men unless otherwise stated.

 

[Peterson]

I'm surprised the bookstore mentioned in the OP didn't come up with gender neutral terms for "feminism" or "feminine products".

 

[Eddie Dane]

Singular 'they' is the only one that has a good chance of catching on IMHO.
Or something else that seems organic to the language.

Ze, XI etc, not so much.

And how often will most people need to use this? I've only once met a transgender person and that was 25 years ago.

OMG! Google Chrome spell-check doesn't recognise 'transgender'. Is that a micro-aggression? It is, isn't it?

 

[Peterson]

Singular 'they' is the only one that has a good chance of catching on IMHO.
Or something else that seems organic to the language.

Ze, XI etc, not so much.

And how often will most people need to use this? I've only once met a transgender person and that was 25 years ago.

OMG! Google Chrome spell-check doesn't recognise 'transgender'. Is that a micro-aggression? It is, isn't it?

Don't transgender people typically identify as a male or female? I thought that the idea behind transgenerism* is that gender is fixed and not fluid or changeable. Would someone really go through with surgery if they can change their gender rather than their sex?

*sorry I don't know what word to use here, no disrespect intended

 

[ZirconBlue]

And how often will most people need to use this? I've only once met a transgender person and that was 25 years ago.

The use of gender-neutral pronouns is not really for addressing transgender people.

 

[Eddie Dane]

Don't transgender people typically identify as a male or female? I thought that the idea behind transgenerism* is that gender is fixed and not fluid or changeable. Would someone really go through with surgery if they can change their gender rather than their sex?

*sorry I don't know what word to use here, no disrespect intended

I had a classmate who was formerly a girl, transitioning to man and we were instructed that he would like be addressed as a boy. Even though his transition was not complete yet.

We obliged, but I never really go to know him. He seemed to have absolutely terrible psychological problems. Was found unconscious from alcohol abuse in front of the school on one occasion. Didn't socialise much and was only enrolled at our school for a short time.

You are right, the gender-neutral pronounce are not for these people, who have a strong identity m or f.

 

[luchog]

Don't transgender people typically identify as a male or female? I thought that the idea behind transgenerism* is that gender is fixed and not fluid or changeable. Would someone really go through with surgery if they can change their gender rather than their sex?

*sorry I don't know what word to use here, no disrespect intended

Up until recently most openly trans people identified as strictly Male or Female, in large part because they are encouraged to do so by the culture. In fact, in order to get sexual reassignment surgery, a trans person is required to live openly as a stereotypical example of male or female.

A who lot of trans people, myself included, do not identify as strictly male or female; but as something somewhere in between, or something else entirely. This is becoming more common, as more trans people realize that its an option, instead of being socially forced into a cultural-mandated binary condition. The term "gender-fluid" has been coined to refer to those who do not feel they fit into a strict binary.

 

[Peterson]

Up until recently most openly trans people identified as strictly Male or Female, in large part because they are encouraged to do so by the culture. In fact, in order to get sexual reassignment surgery, a trans person is required to live openly as a stereotypical example of male or female.

A who lot of trans people, myself included, do not identify as strictly male or female; but as something somewhere in between, or something else entirely. This is becoming more common, as more trans people realize that its an option, instead of being socially forced into a cultural-mandated binary condition. The term "gender-fluid" has been coined to refer to those who do not feel they fit into a strict binary.

Interesting, thank you.

Honestly I have a very hard time thinking about gender as anything other than binary but I can get on board with using gender neutral terms when things are unclear or when a preference is made known. I have to do this at work to a certain extent because I can no longer assume a person is married to the opposite sex (I have to ask people about their marital situation in some instances). I wish there was a better word than spouse though.

 

[The Atheist]

What's wrong with just leaving off the honorific?

I've been leaving them out for twenty years and I'm such a stickler on it that I seriously upset one bloke who wanted to insist on being referred to as "Mr Mudgway" when he was told to go away and pleasure himself..

He was applying for a senior management job and I explained that I wasn't interested in old-fashioned tossers who thought honorifics were a good idea.

I've said it before. I'll say it again. Just call everyone "mate"

That's why it's hardly ever a problem down here. Some migrant women struggle with being called "mate" but it's starting to become pretty standard usage and Kiwis of the female persuasion are using it more and more.

Mate.

 

[Corsair 115]

A recent scientific study of revealed that as many as 55% of people are trans and 91% self-identify under at least one letter of the LGBTQ alphabet.

Source: my facebook friends and social circle.

Hence the need for properly controlled studies and polling data. Like what Gallup does as a routine matter as its business, for example. Or Pew Research.

 

[casebro]

Hence the need for properly controlled studies and polling data. Like what Gallup does as a routine matter as its business, for example. Or Pew Research.

But where did Gallup poll? Not urban California, unless all the LGBTs from the midwest moved here.

Mostly they are phone polls aren't they? Subject to selection bias of who is dumb enough to answer a call from a number they don't know? Of those, who participates in the poll?

And who is going to out themselves to a stranger on the phone?

Hmm, I wonder if records are kept of SSMs vs Hetero? Would ratio there of be a proxy?

But I guess that's a subject for another thread- "How to get a truly representative sample for a poll?"