<i>"Sally is working with Brian. They are working on a method to diagnose cancer in lizards."</i><p>Am I talking about Sally and Brian or only Sally? Does the context help at all?<p><i>"Sally is working with Brian. She is working on a method to diagnose cancer in lizards."</i><p>It is now immediately recognized that I am talking about Sally's work. Perhaps Brian is working on a way to detect clogged arteries in lizards and is working on lizard-related research with Sally.
This is insanity at best. Genders exist, differences exist, accept them and live with it.<p>And by the way, let's take two languages that use honorifics: french and italian. In those language, the neutral third person does not exist at all. Every being, and every thing is associated to a gender.
Take the "sea": in french is feminine, in italian is masculine, and nobody ever gave a dime about it.
"Use the pronouns they/them/their."<p>No. We have gender differences and writing so gives a different perspective on the subject at hand. Why are we trying to be the same when we obviously aren't?