nonbinary gender pronouns

I have no idea who that is, so no

lol wrongfooted an editor

Smith explained how the decision to change their pronouns are the culmination of their path towards self-acceptance.

I myself enjoy the “challenge”, such as it is

I like using words like themself and theyself, gender neutrality is both serious and fun

otm i was about to say I have used they/them my entire life because I like to be evasive and play coy.

the thing with the twins just ties my head in knots because if you say "they/them" you could be referring to both of them or one of them, and without being able to tell them apart/keep their names straight ... eh I just won't say anything

"You! You ... two!"

xp - as long as you don't refer to them as Thing 1 and Thing 2?

I’ve understood and used “singular they” since I was a very small child, without knowing anything about nonbinary gender - feel like ppl who say it’s confusing are either lying or thick

It is IMO a giant nontroversy

it's def a nontroversy, just an odd language thing. my mind unconsciously/automatically goes to they/them as plural (guess I'm thick, sorry), although obviously as pointed out there's a long history of singular usage in the language.

using the pronouns people tell you are their correct pronouns is p. basic common decency and respect, etc. seems like a noncontroversial no-brainer to me at this point. maybe if you'd asked me in high school or something, i'd have been uptight about grammar and "words mean things, man!" but i feel like that whole line of thinking has been debunked in so many other capacities anyway.

anyway i'm not sure i even understand the challenge ostensibly posed by the twin case. what's an example of a sentence where (1) it's essential that you use a pronoun and not the person's name, (2) you're speaking about them in the third person, (3) it's not immediately clear from context that you're talking about a single person and not the pair of twins?

well, with my kids the sentence "I told them to put their pants back on" could very easily be singular or plural

I kinda get what Shakey is trying to figure out -- the plural/singular confusion -- like I am in a volunteer group with two people who are roommates, one is a woman and one is non-binary, and one of the group's projects involves the house where these two people live. I have to think about phrasing in a way that I wouldn't if "they" obviously referred to both roommates, as opposed to just the singular non-binary roommate.

Yeah we use singular they/them all the time in life when we dont know the gender,extending it to be also used when we know the person doesnt identify as male or female doesnt seem a lot.

My issue is being a dumbass and using feminine pronouns when referring to the assigned female at birth mon binary people I know which I thankfully dont do very often and they (plural) haven't been too upset about

And I will either use both their names, or "they and female person's name" or "they and she" or "she and they" or "they plural"

here's an example:
my daughter discussing the twins at her school and it not being clear if she was referring to one or both of them when saying that they were upset about something

xp

When we use "you" when addressing two people it is uncertain as to whether we are talking to one or both

the assigned female at birth mon binary people I know which I thankfully dont do very often and they (plural) haven't been too upset about

heh, my non-binary fellow group member was FAAB and gets pissed when they are mis-gendered as "she"

my daughter discussing the twins at her school and it not being clear if she was referring to one or both of them when saying that they were upset about something

You couldn't just ask her "who was upset? was it nb twin or both of them?"

well yeah there's where the conversation went

so? I mean, that's normal? Imagine if she had three friends named Chris, and said, "The Chris-es were mad" ... you might want to know if it was all three or just two of them or ...?

so...

Agree "they" has long been an acceptable gender-neutral pronoun, but there are still situations in which it is ambiguous or confusing (and in which it wouldn't likely previously have been used as a singular). E.g. I was recently with friends who have a non-binary teen and there were a lot of times when I couldn't tell whether the parents were discussing the teen or the teen plus one or more other people (e.g. a friend). A relatively harmless but mildly confusing example: after the parents picked me up at the train I heard them say "They asked us to pick up food for them on the way home." I wrongfully assumed they were referring to the teen having a friend or friends over. I mostly just use the teen's name though and it's basically all good.

When we use "you" when addressing two people it is uncertain as to whether we are talking to one or both

This is why English has words like "youse" and "y'all" (though "y'all" can be singular, thus creating the need for "all y'all").

guys i think we sorted it out!

yes we should all just speak scouse

Which is why we have 'youse' in Scotland, eh Jim?

guys

was this really necessary

(though "y'all" can be singular, thus creating the need for "all y'all").

haha yeah ... all y'all being another good usage to avoid the dudes/guys problem where previously it had been "acceptable" to use in a gender neutral way, but now it's not

this is how I break it down to an extent - trans and non-binary people are some of the most marginalised people in our societies. any accommodation we can make to make their lives easier, however small, should be investigated and employed, notwithstanding the edge cases which may make our lives marginally more ‘difficult’

yeah I agree w that

again I'm not making out like this is a huge problem or unbearable burden, I just a) didn't understand/hadn't thought about why they/them was the most common usage (this was quickly answered in this thread - thx all!) and b) like to puzzle out grammar/language stuff and this came up recently

“I'm intrigued by the pronoun they came up with ("hen" as opposed to "han" or "hon")” doesn’t this make hen faps confusing?

I am pretty good about pronouns and they/them these days, but it is proving very difficult to break myself of "guys". It's really in there as my go-to plural when addressing a group (of any gender).

xp

Which is why we have 'youse' in Scotland, eh Jim?

― The Inner Mounting Phlegm (Tom D.), Friday, September 13, 2019 2:03 PM (seven minutes ago)

aye, i use youse

but most speakers of british english don't have such a term

won’t be saying fkn “guys” because not from the west end

maybe i'm really dense but i have no clue what it is about twins that makes this extra difficult.

anyway tho, sure, in the abstract 'they/them' may seem stranger than the attempts to create new, exclusively singular pronounces like ze, etc., which wouldn't present even these fairly minor hurdles of clarification. but the very fact that they/them's become so widespread suggests that these pronouns work very well for a ton of nb folks. and that they, at least, hit these singular/plural confusion points, likely much more often than cis people do, and are able to surmount them. so as a cis dude i feel like i can roll with that.

won’t be saying fkn “guys” because not from the west end

― prorogue mahone (||||||||), Friday, September 13, 2019 2:12 PM (two minutes ago)

troops

Also always defaulting to they/them/neutral options is easier so you don't assume the gender of someone's partner/spouse. I have found it also annoys people who are really into being "not gay" and that it always fun.

since (a) singular they is a kludge, (b) but it can surely be fully naturalized given time since language dgaf, (c) point-by-point dialectics about whether it's juuuust right or whether there might not be soooomething else that serves better seems idle, (d) as does moral scorn directed at doddering dinosaurs like shakey who are trying to be cool but just aren't quite sure, (e) although obviously deliberate misgenderers can and should be hounded from all forae.

i think really misgivings about the kludginess of proposed alternatives stem from the sense that language is basically being de-naturalized, which there are evident reasons for (it is in concert with the coercive binary gender system being denaturalized so it can be seen as coercive / so that a possibility of permitting the recognized exercise of autonomy over one's gender is freed up), but also understandable bridling at, since speakers rely on a presupposition of 'fit' between their language and the way the world is articulated.

doddering dinosaurs like shakey

tried to be clear that this thread was well intentioned but

yes that's why i portrayed you as a kindly huggy dinosaur

such little arms, such big love

doyouthinktheysaurus

I didn't see nothin

sorry i came in with guns blazing shakey, i've just heard the "aagh my precious grammar" argument (which is not what you were saying but you can understand how i made the mistake) from a lot of secret bigots

no apology necessary c'mon now

My preference would be to use singular they/them for everyone

but yeah while some people choose neologistic pronouns (for reasons I am essentially uninformed about) they/them is accessible to every native speaker and really only sounds weird if you are thinking about it harder than you would in an ordinary circumstance

zooey d and m ward more like shee/it amirite
― Famous Anus (rip van wanko)

there should be a godwin's law analogue: anyone criticizing the use of singular "they" will reflexively use singular "they" somewhere in their comment. it's uncanny how often it works

are there gender neutral terms for mother/father brother/sister aunt/uncle other than 'parent' 'sibling'?

I like parent, sibling, nibling. I call my two gn siblings "my sibs" with a certain amount of enthusiasm.

what's a nibling? personal pronouns are important because everyone needs to use them; i don't really see words for familial relations in the same need category at all. they show a relationship. if you want to sever your relationship, that's up to you. one cannot sever one's pronominal relationship to oneself.

LL, many relationship-showing words are inherently gendered, e.g. niece, nephew, aunt, uncle. There is no standard non-gendered equivalent for these words, so it's impossible to reflect a relationship without gendering a person who is simply not of that gender.

"Nibling" is an ungendered niece/nephew child-of-siblings word.

Have heard a few for siblings-of-parent but don't much like any of them. Any other suggestions?

the siblings of your parents are your 0th cousins once removed. (your siblings are your 0th cousins.)

oooooh duh
i forgot about that bc i don't have siblings and my aunts/uncles are not a part of my life bc we haven't spoken in years

silly mistake
nevermind! sorry

your siblings are your 0th cousins

whoa

they's all kin

Huh, I didn't know the current usage of 'sibling' was so recent.

1903, modern revival of Old English sibling (“relative, a relation, kinsman”), equivalent to sib +‎ -ling. Compare Middle English sib, sibbe (“relative; kinsman”), German Sippe. The term apparently meant merely kin or relative until the 20th century when its necessity for the study of genetics led to its specialized use. For example, the OED has a 1903 citation in which "sibling" must be defined for those who don't know the intended meaning.

The word 'sib' or 'sibling' is coming into use in genetics in the English-speaking world, as an equivalent of the convenient German term 'Geschwister' [E.&C. Paul, "Human Heredity," 1930]

Iceland came up with an official patronym for nonbinary folks this year (-bur):

https://www.icelandreview.com/news/icelandic-names-will-no-longer-be-gendered/

so parents still have to petition to give a girl a "boy" name and vice versa unless they identify the child as gender-neutral? weird progressive/regressive juxtaposition there.

No, all first names are available to everyone now irrespective of gender "claimed" on birth certificate, but your choice on your birth certificate determines the suffix you must use for your surname (-son, -dottir, or -bur).

"Nibling" is an ungendered niece/nephew child-of-siblings word.

I feel like it's a significant enough thing to have a non-gendered term for, but Nibling makes me think of gifs of cute rodents eating carrots, or cute rodents eating carrots in Viking helmets singing Wagner

Family words are so confusing for me — tbh I wish we could all just go by our first names instead of foregrounding the family relation. Pronouns are necessary syntactically but to constantly refer to someone as their familial relation is different and not syntactically necessary.

https://twt-thumbs.washtimes.com/media/image/2018/10/12/election_2018_utah_senate_fact_check_24824_c0-233-5568-3479_s885x516.jpg?9568f5f5f6044ba51ec7d024630fbd9c34c30ce5

well said, friend

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2019/12/05/teens-argentina-are-leading-charge-gender-neutral-language/

In Spanish, a language in which all nouns are assigned a gender, the word for soldiers is masculine: “Los soldados de Perón.”

The lyrics Mira sang were different: “Les soldades.”

To most Spanish speakers, the “e” in both words would sound jarring — and grammatically incorrect.

But here, teenagers are rewriting the rules of the language to eliminate gender. In classrooms and daily conversations, young people are changing the way they speak and write — replacing the masculine “o” or the feminine “a” with the gender-neutral “e” in certain words — in order to change what they see as a deeply gendered culture.

this whole entry
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Universal_Friend

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n13/amia-srinivasan/he-she-one-they-ho-hus-hum-ita

Ethics requires that we embrace a practice of naming that makes people’s passage through the world more bearable. But ethics is not exhausted by such a practice. A true ethical relation requires that we see the other, just as we see ourselves, as ultimately beyond names and categories: not because (as liberals like to say) we are ‘all human’ or ‘all persons’, but because each of us exists, finally, beyond the reach of mere words. We all know this instinctively in our own case: that feeling of exceeding, bursting beyond, all the words that can be truly applied to us. What does it take for us recognise that this is true, too, of everyone else: of him and her, of them, of you?

Reading this now..

is this ... meta-woke?

It's a very good essay on language and politics and better than Sharkey's concern trolling.

I was just kidding, it seemed like an overreach to start with pronouns and blast through to “why is language dealing with the ineffable anyway?” Spose I’d better read it now.