I understand not wanting to ask everyone all the time, but defaulting to a neutral pronoun isn’t going to become the norm unless people start using it even when it isn’t the norm. That said, it does feel a lot less natural in Ukrainian and Russian to me, so I’m still trying to figure out the best option there. But in English, singular “they” is pretty widespread already, I think.
I don’t think singular “they” is that common except among very young people, and does lead to confusion.
As an example, my brother once showed me a picture of a person on a dating app and said “they are nice” and I thought he was talking about the person’s breasts…
Also, “it” is dehumanising, I’d feel uncomfortable calling someone “it” even if they told me it was their preferred pronoun.
I understand not wanting to ask everyone all the time, but defaulting to a neutral pronoun isn’t going to become the norm unless people start using it even when it isn’t the norm. That said, it does feel a lot less natural in Ukrainian and Russian to me, so I’m still trying to figure out the best option there. But in English, singular “they” is pretty widespread already, I think.
I don’t think singular “they” is that common except among very young people, and does lead to confusion.
As an example, my brother once showed me a picture of a person on a dating app and said “they are nice” and I thought he was talking about the person’s breasts…
Also, “it” is dehumanising, I’d feel uncomfortable calling someone “it” even if they told me it was their preferred pronoun.
“They” is pretty widespread but I agree about the “it” part.