To some extent this is a hill I’m willing to die on. Singular they is pretty entrenched usage now, and as it implies nothing about its referent’s gender, I don’t see how someone could legitimately object to being referred to in that way.
However, if someone tells me that they don’t want me to refer to them using singular they (something which has never once actually happened to me outside of arguments on the internet!), then I would respect their wishes.
If you live in an English speaking country, listen closely for a week or two. You’ll probably find that people around you are already (without conscious intention) using singular they to refer to individuals of known gender.
I also wonder if you might not be undermining your own line of argument elsewhere in the thread. If you get to be fussy about being referred to using singular they (which is certainly unobjectionable from a grammatical and semantic point of view in modern English), then presumably everyone else gets to be picky about their pronouns too.
The singular they is entrenched when you don't know who the person was ("I hope they realize they left their umbrella here and come back and get it.") It is not entrenched at all for referring to an individual who is standing right there.
I recall being contacted by a distressed neighbor who had been referred to as "they" in a thread on NextDoor. She has a name that could be male or female (it's short for different things), but her photo was unmistakably female. She was offended that someone referred to her as "they" and asked me if her photo looked at all male.
I would also imagine that someone who is presenting as a particular gender and wishes to be referred to as that gender could also be offended to be referred to as "they" because it could imply that the person is in-between, and not successfully presenting as their desired gender.
Lastly, people who are unaware of the changes in pronoun usage (older people, people who don't interact with people in liberal enclaves) may be confused by usage of they. They may think you're talking about multiple people, for example.
It is in fact quite common (at least in some parts) to use singular they for people of known gender. I hear it all the time here in London. Here’s an abstract that covers some of the patterns of variation: https://www.colorado.edu/event/cuny2019/sites/default/files/... There’s even an example in Shakespeare: “There’s not a man I meet but doth salute me / As if I were their well-acquainted friend.” It would clearly be ok to use ‘his’ here, but we find ‘their’ nonetheless.
> could also be offended to be referred to as "they" because it could imply that the person is in-between
‘They’ is gender neutral; its use implies nothing about a person’s gender. If someone gets offended anyway then the simplest solution is obvious - use their preferred pronoun. But taking offense at singular they doesn’t seem to be something common, at least in my experience. It’s certainly the option that’s least likely to cause serious offense if you can’t remember (or were never told) a person’s preferred pronouns.
If we’re ok with cis people being fussy about being referred to using singular they, then presumably we must also allow trans or non-binary people to be fussy about their own preferred pronouns.
> [older people] may be confused
Confused != offended. But singular they has such a long history that I think such confusion is rather unlikely in practice. (Are older people confused by the Shakespeare quote above?)
> taking offense at singular they doesn’t seem to be something common
That's probably because most people don't refer to people as "they" except when specifically asked to. If people went around using "they" as the standard pronoun when referring to known people, there would be much more offense.
I guess we will have to agree to disagree on that point. I often hear 'they' used in that way and have not see anyone take offense to it. Nor can I see any logical reason why people should take offense. There are plenty of languages where pronouns are gender neutral (e.g. spoken Chinese). People who speak these languages seem to do ok without constantly explicitly referencing each other's gender. There's a huge difference, both logically and emotionally, between misgendering someone and simply not making reference to their gender.
By the way, I am totally fine with not using singular they to refer to people who are genuinely offended by it. I just have not actually encountered any such person outside the class of 'argumentative people on the internet'. For this reason I think that 'use singular they if unsure' is good, though not infallible, advice.
> There's a huge difference, both logically and emotionally, between misgendering someone and simply not making reference to their gender.
Referring to someone as a "they" would be considered misgendering to a lot of people. It is not "not making reference to their gender" because the vast majority of people who want to be referred to as "they" are not cisgender. Referring to someone in this way suggests that you think they are not cisgender.
> I just have not actually encountered any such person outside the class of 'argumentative people on the internet'.
The neighbor who approached me after having been referred to as "they" was not an argumentative person on the internet. She was someone (who lives in a very liberal area, BTW) who was perplexed and offended to have been referred to that way.
I see what you mean, but I think it's slightly the wrong analysis on a linguistic level. 'They' doesn't generally introduce a presupposition of non-binarity (either semantically or via pragmatic inference). If it did, it would be hard to account for the innumerable examples of 'they' being used with unambiguously masculine and feminine quantificational antecedents.
For this reason I think that people who are offended by being referred to by 'they' are wrong to be offended. I think they're wrong in a way that, say, a trans woman is not wrong to be offended if someone insists on using 'he'. In the former case, the person may feel that they are being misgendered – but only on the basis of a dodgy linguistic analysis. Of course, we should accommodate people's pronoun preferences, regardless of whether we agree with their underlying logic in any given case.
The story about your neighbor doesn't really make sense to me. Surely it occurred to her that the other forum poster might not have cared much what her gender was, or have paid much attention to her photo, or simply didn't care to take a guess even if she appeared clearly female. To interpret this as intentional misgendering seems a bit nuts. If she was simply worried about whether she appeared clearly feminine in the photo, then that's an understandable anxiety, but one that has little to do with singular they. (If singular they were off limits then I guess the poster might have used 'he' instead, which hardly seems better.)
> For this reason I think that people who are offended by being referred to by 'they' are wrong to be offended
My understanding is that these days, we are not allowed to opine on whether others are wrong to feel offended. In modern parlance, I'd say that you don't understand why they're offended. It seems you're trying very hard not to, considering that this term is not the preferred term of reference for practically anyone who is cisgender.
Are we not? I’m doing it right now and no-one has come to arrest me yet.
If the best you can do is tell me that I have to accede to the ineffable and indefinite reasons for your neighbor taking offense, then I suppose the discussion is over. (Of course I do accede in practice - I’m not going to refer to her as ‘they’ just to be a dick.)
If you really believe that people are entitled to be arbitrarily offended by pronouns, then you can have no objection to trans or non-binary people being arbitrarily fussy about their use. I mean, I’m “woke” by HN standards and am all in favor of respecting people’s pronoun preferences. But even I don’t believe that the subject is entirely in the realm of subjective feelings of offense and beyond rational discourse.
The point in this case was simply that singular they isn't a recent phenomenon. This is relevant when considering the (probably incorrect) claim that singular they is confusing for older generations.
In any case, my mention of Shakespeare was an aside and not crucial to the overall argument of my post. So it is arguably you who are missing the point.
Nice example. So the photo should be enough to infer the gender, and the person somehow expected that, failing it, was offended. Very nice. Imagine how a blind person must feel, in this social minefield? Thats exactly a problem we have. Given unspecific voices and unusual names, we are left pretty much out in the cold regarding how to address someone. We cant just look at the body or clothing.
However, if someone tells me that they don’t want me to refer to them using singular they (something which has never once actually happened to me outside of arguments on the internet!), then I would respect their wishes.
If you live in an English speaking country, listen closely for a week or two. You’ll probably find that people around you are already (without conscious intention) using singular they to refer to individuals of known gender.
I also wonder if you might not be undermining your own line of argument elsewhere in the thread. If you get to be fussy about being referred to using singular they (which is certainly unobjectionable from a grammatical and semantic point of view in modern English), then presumably everyone else gets to be picky about their pronouns too.