Singular “they” and the many reasons why it’s correct (2009)

I use singular they, and used it through tech interviewing and onboarding recently. It was a real challenge trying to figure out whether I wanted to use singular they during the interview. Correcting an interviewer or recruiter when they get your pronouns wrong is scary (on top of the anxiety that is programming job interviews.)<p>Over the years in tech I&#x27;ve found all sorts of different responses to me sharing my pronouns -- mostly people being supportive and a bit forgetful. But also people saying some unnecessarily cruel things, or going out of their way to say, &quot;I DON&#x27;T HAVE TO RESPECT THAT!&quot;.<p>I&#x27;ve had people tell me, &quot;Yes, fine, I&#x27;ll acquiesce. But you should know you are wrong and I&#x27;m lying to you every time I use singular they.&quot;<p>Ok, sure, but we&#x27;re colleagues and I&#x27;m just letting you know that&#x27;s what I&#x27;d prefer? You can also always just use my name. I&#x27;m not going to go to HR if you get it wrong, I&#x27;m not going to get mad. I might remind you, but the reminder will be gentle and not accusatory. Why so much aggro?

The part that throws me is verbs. &quot;They want to go for a walk.&quot; If we&#x27;re referring to just one person then it seems it should be &quot;they wants to go for a walk.&quot; It sounds horribly wrong but do we really want plural verb forms to also be singular sometimes?<p>Historically, I guess that&#x27;s how we&#x27;ve always done it. But now, for people who prefer non-gender-specific pronouns, does it make sense to use plural verb forms when describing their actions, and singular verb forms for everybody else? Won&#x27;t that get confusing sometimes?<p>Maybe we should bite the bullet and start treating singular &quot;they&quot; as singular.

I&#x27;ve gotten used to saying &quot;they&quot; when referring to people I don&#x27;t know. When it comes to people I <i>do</i> know, I prefer &quot;he&quot; and &quot;her&quot; because it still provides context when referring to multiple people while saving on syllables. But I think it&#x27;s a good thing not to immediately assume gender when referring to someone(one doesn&#x27;t know) in an occupational role so we get out of the habit of thinking of nurses as &quot;she&quot;, for instance.<p>I really appreciate someone pointing out that &quot;they&quot; is perfectly adequate. Ze and zir are still gendered, and extraterrestrial genders at that.

&quot;Harper presented to the leadership committee and they were confused.&quot;<p>Is &#x27;they&#x27; referring to Harper or the leadership committee?

In my dialect of English, singular they works well for unspecified third persons, but very badly for specific ones.

&gt; “She kept her head and kicked her shoes off, as everybody ought to do who falls into deep water in their clothes.”<p>I fall into category C: Native English speaker who has no idea how to use English properly. Could someone please explain what is supposedly wrong with this sentence?

The first 3 paragraphs could&#x27;ve been skipped.<p>It really starts at: &quot;I’ve wanted for some time to have one place to send everyone who complains about singular they&quot;.

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;stallman.org&#x2F;articles&#x2F;genderless-pronouns.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;stallman.org&#x2F;articles&#x2F;genderless-pronouns.html</a><p>Can somebody explain, what&#x27;s wrong with `he&#x27; referring to a person of unknown sex? At least in German (er) and in Russian (он) masculine pronoun is still being used for that purpose.

Has anyone been disputing the continued use of &#x27;they&#x27; in referring to a person of unknown gender?<p>I was under the impression that the recent controversy surrounding the word is linked to the LGBTQ movement.

Although this essay is interesting and amusing (and a great rebuttal to many of the sillier objections to singular they), it does not address the main objection I hear (and the one that I find compelling enough to ask that people not use &quot;they&quot; for me):<p>I present to you as a singular entity. I find it disempowering to be addressed with a pronoun that might be understood as plural, as if you might address some of the needs of the multitudes within me but not others.<p>I very much prefer to be addressed with a different pronoun if I&#x27;m being addressed alone versus when I&#x27;m being addressed in a group.<p>Is that so weird?<p>Now, on the other hand, I think that gendered pronouns are downright idiotic.<p>So the pronoun that I&#x27;ve come to prefer is simply &quot;it.&quot; I call many wonderful living things (think of an elderly redwood tree) &quot;it&quot; all the time, and it doesn&#x27;t seem to bother the three nor anyone else.<p>If it&#x27;s good enough for it, it&#x27;s good enough for me.