Re:Richard Stallman Has Announced the GNU Kind Communication...
by pseudalopex on Wednesday October 24, 2018 @12:40PM
(#18294005)
I don't think we have a good idea of how many nonbinsry people there are. The number of people who openly identify as nonbinary seems to be increasing as awareness and acceptance spread. Those are nowhere near universal.
Referring to Alice and Bob with gendered pronouns is fine becauae we know their genders. Also, the same logic suggests it's convenient for any third party to be nonbinary.
Re:Richard Stallman Has Announced the GNU Kind Communication...
by loup-vaillant on Wednesday October 24, 2018 @12:44PM
(#18294050)
Here's my guess: non binary are less than 1%. Probably less than 0.2%.
Re:Richard Stallman Has Announced the GNU Kind Communication...
by alliecat on Tuesday October 30, 2018 @04:53AM
(#18334843)
We still exist, yo.
Re:Richard Stallman Has Announced the GNU Kind Communication...
by loup-vaillant on Wednesday October 31, 2018 @03:26AM
(#18343886)
Of course you do. I just don't think there is enough of you to warrant a special gender pronoun.
Yet. Who knows how things will be next century.
This is probably different. I for one don't think there are enough non-binaries out there to warrant a generalised pronoun, let alone its generalised used. I believe even most trans people identify as either "he" or "she".
On the other hand, I like to maintain uncertainty whenever someone's gender is either unknown or undisclosed. When talking about a hypothetical individual for instance, being able to refer to them neutrally is convenient. On the other hand, I hate to use "they" whenever there might be a number ambiguity. In those cases, I'll use "he" or "she", or find another phrasing.
Finally, gender-full pronouns are pretty good at disambiguating roles without having to repeat people's names all the time. Crypto examples with Alice and Bob for instance benefit from saying "he" and "she", so the audience (or student) readily understand whether we are talking about the initiator or the recipient.