this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2023
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We don't need more pronouns. We need less of them.
In my native language there is no even he/she pronouns. The word is “hän” and it’s gender neutral. You can be male, female, FTM, MTF, non-binary or what ever and you’re still called “hän”. You can identify as anything you like and "hän" already includes you.
And we've nowadays taken it even further, in spoken Finnish we've even got rid of the "hän" and mostly use "se", which is the Finnish word for "it". The same pronoun is used for people in all forms, animals, items, institutions and so on, and in practice the only case for "hän" is people trying to remind others they consider their pets human.
Context will tell which one it is.
I feel the same but with genders. To be clear if anyone identifies to a specific gender, I'll respect that. However I don't see why genders are necessary. We are all unique human beings and there's no need to label everyone to a specific gender.
I think a little bit it's just that people typically like labels. They want to fit neatly into their little labeled box and the more labels they have, the more unique and/or complete they feel.
I really rejected labels as a teen, I hated the idea of it. Now I realize they can be useful for some things, and you know, if my trans brother feels better because his label is now male, that's fine it doesn't hurt me any to call him what makes him feel good.
That sounds completely bonkers to me but you might be right.
No, of course if you don't like the body you have and you want to change your "gender-defining" features, you should. It's a bit like changing your haircut - although more impactful. You didn't like your looks/body before, so you changed it and now you feel better so that's perfect!
Before I learned about the LGBTQ community, I thought of gender as something you were born with and that described your body type: masculine or feminine. Aside from that, I don't and never believed that it defines what kind of person you are, it only defines a part of your looks.
Now with the community there are people who describe themselves as non-binary or agender and again, I'll totally respect that. However when I tried to think about what my gender really was, I started to realize that the whole concept of gender didn't really make sense to me. What does it really mean to be non-binary? Heck, what does it even mean to be male or female? If it's not just your body-type then what is it? Why do we need it? Isn't it easier to not assign any genders at all? Just be who you want to be and love who you want to love!
We should remove the gender information from ID and other documents unrelated to the gender
(Maybe kept the XX or XY mark on medical papers though, may be useful to avoid death from medical poisoning, but even your gender and sexual preferences have nothing to do here, so no gender mark neither)
I just like the thought of removing genders.
You are what you are and what you want to be.
The only difference is you over there have a vagina and you over there have a penis.
yeah I agree that's completely unnecessary apart from medical reasons
And if many people (specially, even if not exclusively, in a certain country whose name I'll avoid mentioning) didn't have as their favorite passtime "kill the freak", where "freak" is anyone not belonging to their narrow definition of acceptability, difference would truly be unremarkable. However, reality doesn't seem to be working well for those folks, and they need a way to identify each other to provide community and to feel less alone and, maybe, to defend each other.
fair enough
That sounds like a solution that should make everyone happy. However, the crowd arguing against more pronouns would also argue against this, just because they're impossible to appease.
Wouldn't be surprised if the (mostly) political right that seems all these new pronouns as stupid would also ironically be against giving up on their own gender specific pronoun for a gender neutral one.
I'll go one further: I get (and respect) the utility of they/them pronouns for a singular entity, but it IS clunky and confusing. English is ever evolving but when I hear a "they" it is still very much more abstract and plural than a more specific he or she.
Whatever: it's my shit and I'll gladly deal with a nanosecond of confusion and adjust if it allows people to maintain their dignity. Point is, by insisting that there's nothing confusing about they/them in reference to a single entity feels disingenuous. I know moderate people who are otherwise live and let live as well as receptive to basic human dignity who are turned off by the confusing abstraction, switching tenses, etc.
They/them isn't the elegant, seamless drop in that people say it is and it hurts the messaging. I get that being rigid and forceful is necessary with the rampant transphobia and "i'm just asking (bad faith) questions" going on, but I still fuck up semantics and tenses like whoa
This argument has never made sense simply because of the fact that singular they/them has been in use for literally centuries. It's even reasonable to say it's always been in use considering singular they/them was in use in the 14th century and modern English formed around 14-17th. I can guarantee you have never batted an eye when you heard something like "someone called but they didn't leave a message".
There are only two differences with recent usage: people are less likely to assume genders so use they/them more freely; and people identifying specifically as they/them. The words themselves haven't really changed, they're just more common now. Opposition to singular they/them is almost entirely political.
Even if has been in use since forever, a more appropriate word can be introduced now.
Sure, but that's a separate argument.
Their argument has a lot to do with people not establishing context upfront unlike your example with “someone called”. I can’t count the number of times I’ve had a conversation with someone talking about a non-binary person, only to realize five minutes in they weren’t talking about a group of people. It’s super jarring when it happens.
True, but singular they is undeniably clunky. Unfortunately it's the best we have, so we will have to get used to it. Opposition to the natural evolution of language has never worked.
Thank you.
It’s not people using the neutral that bothers me, it’s the fact that the neutral is both singular and plural while the non neutrals are only singular/plural.
and the plural part also alters the entire sentence structure to plural.
“He is over there” - Singular and easy to understand
“They is over there” - Just sounds wrong.
“They are over there” - Both singular and plural. Is it a person of unspecified nature or multiple people of mixed ones?
English could use a popularization of a strictly singular neutral that doesn’t carry implications of being an object rather than a being (“It is over there”)
Are you speaking about that english, which has the same word for "you" and, ehm "you"?
I don't think they/them is the ideal word to replace he/she with either. It probably needs to be a whole new word. They/them exists in my language too and it's used when you're talking about multiple people. It's confusing to say "they did something" when you're speaking of a single person.
My language is the exact opposite, everything is gendered in a binary way, and there's no way to talk in a neutral or non-binary way, at least not in a super awkward way.
No. I need to feel special.
/s
Had me for a second there lol