It seems annoying because personal names like Jenny and John have grammatical gender in English, so the unknown grammar use of they/them/their seems unnatural. It's also perhaps why similar-sounding names are generally spelt differently between genders, e.g. Danny/Danni, Jerry/Jeri, Tony/Toni, Billy/Billie, Francis/Frances, Robin/Robyn, Sidney/Sydney.

No, they don't. There is only natural gender here, not grammatical gender.

Why is it annoying?

There are certain cases where it feels very ridiculous. For example, some authors use "her" to refer to even a group of people generally known to be predominantly male oriented. While it definitely won't be criticized by any feminist group, it really is distracting from narrative point of view because most readers feel it's unnatural. I remember thinking "This guy is clearly talking about dudes, why is he using female pronoun?" I also think it's stupid to have to use female pronoun just to be safe, because this in itself is sexism--it implies that they are afraid of feminists accusing them but not afraid of masculinists (if it even exists). When I say it's annoying I am not saying these people are annoying, I'm saying the reality we live in is annoying. In some non-english cultures they don't have this problem because they have ways to refer to people without being gender specific.

Now we know how women feel, all day long every day. It'd be reasonable to say "get over it", which is essentially what women hear all their lives.

Your sentence is obviously valid but i'm not sure how it relates to my comment

Its equally ridiculous to use either gendered form for the wrong group. But groups of women are called 'guys' all the time. The observation that it sounds funny/annoying when a group of 'dudes' is labeled using a feminine term, is only something a male would notice. I'm suggesting 'get over it' because men have no special right to be not-annoyed by this.

Please don't try to use wordplay to get your feminist ideology across. Nobody calls a girl "Him" in real life, just like nobody calls a guy "Her" in real life. That's what I pointed out, not some interpretation of "guys" (I can go on forever talking about the semantics for that term too but that's not even what I was talking about)

I didn't think equality was a 'feminist ideology'. Its just humanism. That original point is, using 'her' to refer to a group of people, even men, seems odd. Its no less reasonable than using 'him'. So there are good reasons to mix it up.

On a similar topic, I find it more amenable in an HN discussion to remove all references to 'you' and 'your'. Its adding nothing to the discussion, can feel like an attack, and distracts from the topic, to the people talking. Its close to Ad Hominem.

You'll see this in Facebook, too. Even though they ask for your gender.

But that's because you can choose which set of pronouns you prefer.

(They also have a pretty okay list of genders to choose from, if you're into labeling things)

I just wish they had "Nonbinary" for people who feel weird about the word genderqueer.

Why is using "her" everywhere worse than using "him" everywhere?

> Why is using "her" everywhere worse than using "him" everywhere?

Because its just as gendered and conflicts with standard usage (which, in English, accepts the use of the masculine linguistic gender for subjects of unknown sex or gender identity, so it is not better from either a "gender neutrality, regardless of accepted usage" standpoint or from a "clarity of communication through conforming to accepted usage" standpoint.)

Tell me, where did I say that? This behavior of yours (putting words in people's mouth and accusing or insinuating them of sexism/racism/elitism etc.) is exactly why this stupid "singular they" phenomenon has arisen.