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Non-binary identities are valid

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angrysoba said:
I've already explained why names and pronouns are not the same and how pronouns present more problems then you seem to be acknowledging. This is why I said you are dismissing it. You say you are not dismissing, and acknowledge it is hard. Now, you are back to saying it is easy.
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Remembering someone's pronouns is easy. Changing the common use of words is what is difficult.
 
arthwollipot said:
It's really not.

I agree. Which is why I think that you will find that the number of people who insist on idiosyncratic pronouns is very small and will continue to get smaller, and that you will not get into too much trouble if you just use they/them.

Should be easy enough to remember through repetition then.
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When an article is written using someone who uses 'they/them" I find it very difficult to read properly. The move from plural people to a singular that sounds plural means I have to read it several times to see if I can determine what sentences are actually saying. It's a lot of "wait...what? who? reverse and read again!"

Maybe the singular they need a different font or italics or something.
 
Sherkeu said:
When an article is written using someone who uses 'they/them" I find it very difficult to read properly. The move from plural people to a singular that sounds plural means I have to read it several times to see if I can determine what sentences are actually saying. It's a lot of "wait...what? who? reverse and read again!"

Maybe the singular they need a different font or italics or something.
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No, you just need practice, that's all. We all do. It'll become easier the more you do it and the more integrated it is in common usage.
 
angrysoba said:
Okay, what is it?
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It was, to me, quite clearly stated in your post #456. My point is that I don't believe that it's a problem, because general usage will take care of itself. No-one needs to prescriptively mandate that anyone use any language in a particular way, they just have to show basic respect for peoples' identity by using appropriate pronouns, and the language will change by itself. In fact, it already has.
 
arthwollipot said:
No, you just need practice, that's all. We all do. It'll become easier the more you do it and the more integrated it is in common usage.
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Sure...easier. But it wont really be common since it isn't common. However, the words they and them are very common to use. If you had to regularly integrate one singular 'they' into an article with others using the usual pronouns it would need to be explained each time that one of the 'they's was not the group but one specific person. Maybe there is a trick to it and writing will get better.


An article about a swimmer can perhaps illustrate the point. There are some uses of they and them that could be other people but the best reading seems to be to assume the writer stayed consistent and used the singular meaning if the sentence refers to the subject of the article.

Ultimately, though, Ryan decided to wait to pursue top surgery because they were unsure of how it would affect their swimming scholarship or position on the team.

Ryan said they considered switching to the men’s team or quitting swimming altogether at the end of each year. However, they said there was no alternative that seemed appropriate, an obvious conundrum for athletes who identify outside the gender binary in a binary sport.

When Ryan came out, they wrote an article in a swimming publication about being non-binary and decided to come out to their team by alerting them of the article before it published. While Ryan said it may have been unconventional, the decision allowed them to come out to multiple people at once.

While Ryan said the team’s reaction was positive, they did encounter obstacles with their decision to use they, them and their pronouns, which often felt exhausting.

LSA sophomore Claire Maiocco, Ryan’s former swimming teammate at the University, confirmed that teammates struggled to use Ryan’s pronouns, despite respecting Ryan and their abilities.

“Even to this day, I know there’ll be people like, ‘Oh how’s G doing? Is she doing well?’ and I’ll be like, ‘No.’ Or, ‘Yes, they are doing well,’” Maiocco said.
“It’s not that people didn’t really accept them, because they were a big part of the team — especially in the distance crew, they’re very well-respected on the team — but I don’t really think people could understand the same struggles that they had to go through every day.
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Sherkeu said:
Sure...easier. But it wont really be common since it isn't common. However, the words they and them are very common to use. If you had to regularly integrate one singular 'they' into an article with others using the usual pronouns it would need to be explained each time that one of the 'they's was not the group but one specific person. Maybe there is a trick to it and writing will get better.
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It won't have to explained every time whether or not they represents an individual or a group. Quite often it can be understood in context, as with you for the individual being addressed, a group being addressed or used in the way that one was formerly used.

That said, in some contexts it is definitely confusing. That article shows plenty of examples where the pronoun is ambiguous and many where it isn't.
 
Sherkeu said:
Sure...easier. But it wont really be common since it isn't common. However, the words they and them are very common to use. If you had to regularly integrate one singular 'they' into an article with others using the usual pronouns it would need to be explained each time that one of the 'they's was not the group but one specific person. Maybe there is a trick to it and writing will get better.

An article about a swimmer can perhaps illustrate the point. There are some uses of they and them that could be other people but the best reading seems to be to assume the writer stayed consistent and used the singular meaning if the sentence refers to the subject of the article.
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Okay, hopefully it will help when I say that I had absolutely no difficulty reading that passage - I never had to go back to clarify what the writer meant the way you describe. But I've had some practice, seeing as I have a number of nonbinary friends (including one whom I raised since they were a baby) and have absorbed some literature. I also think that the issue you raise about mixing binary and nonbinary pronouns could certainly be an issue if the context is not clear. Yes, it will require us to be a little bit careful about our writing and editing, but we'll adapt. We always do.
 
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arthwollipot said:
It was, to me, quite clearly stated in your post #456. My point is that I don't believe that it's a problem, because general usage will take care of itself. No-one needs to prescriptively mandate that anyone use any language in a particular way, they just have to show basic respect for peoples' identity by using appropriate pronouns, and the language will change by itself. In fact, it already has.
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The highlighted is a bit of a contradiction, but nevermind.

For what it is worth, I agree with the idea of using terms that are requested out of basic civility, though the request, which I think is more cognitively demanding than you seem to acknowledge should not be made with the air of emotional blackmail which is sometimes seen in these discussions (and which you have brought up from time to time). These forms of emotional blackmail are statements about how misgendering is violence. Sure, it can be insulting, or mocking, but calling it violence seems to be a kind of shibboleth.

Anyway, here is an article by linguist John McWhorter who explains better than I have, what I meant before about using gender neutral pronouns and how he shows that it is the reverse of what you were saying before:

We are opening up to the idea that binary conceptions of gender are unnecessarily rigid and don't correspond to the self-image of a great many people, and even that people's sense of their gender may not correspond to their biological sex. In this new world, a bland opposition between "he" and "she" seems increasingly antique, and even insulting, to many.

However, doing something about that is going to be a challenge. We are dealing not with merely giving new names to new things or actions, which is easy, but with using new pronouns, which is very hard.

This is hard because human cognition makes some parts of language more resistant to change than others. Nouns, verbs and adjectives, for example, are like software. It feels natural to add them, subtract them, revise them.
We expect them to change from era to era -- of course we now have blogs and twerking when we didn't 20 years ago; ...

Pronouns, however, are closed class words. As shorthand for any thing or concept, pronouns are used so often and so unconsciously that they are more like hardware. A new object or practice is one thing -- but a new "you" or a new "him" or "her"?

It's harder to wrap our minds around changing something so cognitively fundamental, just as one does not pop up with new prepositions: You might wish there were a little word to indicate "on as in upside down on a ceiling, rather than on a wall or floor." But if you made one up it wouldn't catch on -- nouns and verbs are lightbulbs; prepositions are the wiring inside the walls.
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Anyway, he agrees that pronouns should become more inclusive, but it is going to take time and mental effort. You cannot expect everyone to do it.
 
d4m10n said:
I'm not a huge fan of neologisms in general [...]
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We definitely differ here. I adore the fact that English is a living language, with new words being coined and old words changing meaning all the time.

(What is the preferred pronunciation, though?)
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I'm not sure there has to be a singular, preferred pronounciation. If "Mrs" can be pronounced "misses", "musses", and "messes",* depending on accent, then I see no reason why "Mx" can't be the same.

*And that's just variations on the first syllable. There are more.
 
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arthwollipot said:
Okay, hopefully it will help when I say that I had absolutely no difficulty reading that passage - I never had to go back to clarify what the writer meant the way you describe.
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I didn't, either, but it's easy to see how it could be problematic. Take the following sentence:

While Ryan said the team’s reaction was positive, they did encounter obstacles with their decision to use they
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That could easily be a garden path sentence, because the "they" after the comma would, in most contexts, refer to "the team". The sentence could easily have gone something like: "While Ryan said the team's reaction was positive, they did encounter obstacles from other teams in the league, who felt they should not be allowed to compete with a non-binary member". That would be an equally valid sentence, and it's only several words after that "they" that it becomes clear who it is referring to and you can mentally go back and put the word in its correct context.

I don't think the singular "they" is the best way to facilitate clear communication. Especially if the aim is to have everybody adopt it. It must be remembered that there are plenty of people out there who find reading difficult (whether due to educational failings or some medical reason), and certainly many who are less literate than professional writers like the author of that article.

I don't think widespread adoption of other pronouns is likely now, for reasons I've already gone in to at length, but I do think that there needs to be some conventions developed for identifying who the word "they" is referring to in any particular context, if that is to be adopted as widely as it is hoped it will be. At least before Millennials and younger have become old enough to dominate culture, society, and institutions. And maybe even Millennials are a little too old for it to be widespread and natural.

I'm not sure what that convention could be, though. A specific sentence construction seems unwieldy and prone to mistakes, modifications in pronunciation wouldn't affect the written word, and spelling wouldn't affect pronunciation. I wonder if perhaps one or other context will mutate over time? I could see "they" mutating into "thy", for example. "Thy", "tham", "thars", perhaps?

Perhaps not. But, as it is, I think there are fundamental flaws with every proposed and adopted solution to the problem of gender-neutral pronouns in the English language. Which is a shame, because widespread adoption of one would be useful - even absent the existence of enbys - and is long overdue, and Sweden has demonstrated how quickly a non-flawed solution can be widely adopted. I fear that without the flaws in the English solutions being worked through that it'll continue to be a long, uphill battle, and would be even if people who object on ideological grounds didn't exist.
 
I expect everyone to act in accordance with their own values and goals, even if they do not align with my own.
 
arthwollipot said:
No, I realise how difficult it is for some people to acknowledge that "themself" is now a valid word. However, as has been pointed out, new words and new constructions are coined all the time, and people seem to be able to cope.

What I read here is "Avoiding momentary inconvenience is more important to me than your wellbeing."
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Yeet!
 
Sherkeu said:
When an article is written using someone who uses 'they/them" I find it very difficult to read properly. The move from plural people to a singular that sounds plural means I have to read it several times to see if I can determine what sentences are actually saying. It's a lot of "wait...what? who? reverse and read again!"

Maybe the singular they need a different font or italics or something.
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The most useful singular pronoun is it. The word has absolutely no connotations, is universally understood by English speakers, and is perfectly clear in context of the object referenced. People just need to get over the idea that they are a special type of object that require special pronouns.
 
Steve said:
The most useful singular pronoun is it.
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To which the obvious objection is that "it" strikes the ears as objectifying/dehumanizing, much like menstruator.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N920A using Tapatalk
 
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