I don't understand why people have an obligation to use "they" specifically as long as they respect the gender neutral concept.
The same reason we use people's names. Or their nicknames. Or their middle names sometimes. Or their stage names, noms de plume, or noms de guerre. When you are introduced to someone you expect to be spending some time around, you might ask them, "Do you prefer Henry or Hank? Charles or Chuck? William or Bill?" And if they say, "Actually, I use my middle name, David." you wouldn't immediately say, "I'll go ahead and use your full first name because it's an equally equivalent name for you, because I'm respecting the concept of you.
Culturally, we already accept a wide variety of markers for people in a host of different situations, and have generally settled on "it's polite to try and refer to people in the way they prefer."
To me, it's as if RMS had posted a blog post that said, "I propose we use only people's full and legal names when referring to them, because I believe that system works better."
- RMS's main reason for introducing "per, pers, ..." was to use them in written English; this was just his own weird solution to a problem that a lot of people have noticed in modern English, the lack of a good singular pronoun for "a person" in general, without referring to anyone in particular. Lots of people have come up with crazy ideas for this, not many people are passionate enough about their use of language to write long blog posts about them, but, well, rms isn't everyone.
- Using people's preferred names is a matter of common courtesy, and this has been the case pretty much for all time. People having preferred pronouns, in contrast, is relatively new, and even 50 years ago nobody would have been familiar with this idea. It would be charitable to not judge an older generation by the standards of the young when something is changing even within our lifetimes.
- Insisting on using only full names would be bizarre, but surely nobody would take that as a personal attack, because presumably nobody would feel "singled out" by this. I think if you want to know if RMS was trying to antagonize non-binary folks or if he was rather just being prickly and a little eccentric about language, you would need to look further than this one idea of his. As far as I know, he is rather progressive on these issues, and he also has a history of passionately advocating unusual word choices, almost none of which have caught on, so I would lean towards this being just another example of his eccentric opinions about language, rather than trying to antagonize anyone.
People having preferred pronouns is a new idea in most English speaking cultures because intersex, transgender, and nonbinary identities are new ideas in most English speaking cultures. Stallman doesn't use an older generation's standard. He says we should respect other people's gender identities by using the appropriate pronouns.[1]
Many people felt singled out when Facebook insisted on full and legal names, for what it's worth.[2]
[1] https://stallman.org/articles/genderless-pronouns.html
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_real-name_policy_cont...
The first sentence of this thread: "Dude has gone out of his way to make other people uncomfortable."
I'm simply saying that, on the basis of your [1] alone, I would not come to that interpretation.
Undoubtedly a weird, outsider view of things but I wouldn't advocate him being punished for doing so. Nor would I advocate for shaming him for choosing to use people's full names in daily conversation.
This argument makes no sense as before knowing you, I cannot know neither your name nor “preffered pronoun”.
I’m going to call you by the default pronouns defined for the default genders as established by millennia of biological and linguistic evolution.
Anyone demanding everyone else to deviate from those established norms for the sake of pleasing their “personal” pronouns, are simply holding unrealistic expectations, only serving to bring themselves down.
I have no reason to think Stallman didn't support whatever gender people in whatever roles, he seems more like a gender nihilist than anything. But it's pretty weird to spend time arguing with people about what their own personal experience is and I can see why it would make someone uncomfortable and unwelcome. It's very intrusive.
It's this exhausting, endless series of crusades against these utterly ridiculous things because of some kind of poorly defined principle.
Like history has decided hundreds of years ago that singular "they" is entirely appropriate, just as singular "you" is in common-use. Language changes. That's why we don't write "ye" any more, mostly because we decided to kick the letter þ (thorn, or "th") to the curb.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-person_pronoun#Preferred...
I think one of the tensions here is between people who think that providing one non-gendered pronoun is a sufficient individual vs. societal customization setting versus those who think that every(-ish) stated individual pronoun choice being mandatory is the appropriate and respectful customization setting.
I first started thinking about these issues not from a trans / non-binary / fluid direction, but from the point of view of removing unnecessary gendering when it was irrelevant to the situation under discussion. So, from that perspective a single unambiguous non-gendered pronoun seemed sufficient.
I wasn't looking at things in terms of providing people with fine-grained customization to express themselves.
I find the desire for fine-grained gender-expression customization in tension with the desire to de-emphasize gender. But I can also see how he/she/they sounds suspiciously like he/she/other(not normal) and could be interpreted as alienating or insulting.
I still don't really understand, but frankly I don't have much skin in the game.
I'm half and half white/black so I've never really felt the urge to identify with either. I identify as a tennis player or scientist or programmer.
We live in a society where these days lefties are not disadvantaged, although they were brutalized in the past, and I see no intense desire among lefties to identify as lefties. It makes me wonder whether, if we did not brutalize non cis-gender conforming people, would we see such intense desire for recognition and affirmation of fine-grained gender identity? But obviously we don't live in that world yet.
I may have offended someone here, but I hope it's clear from my care and tone that it's not from a place of disrespect, but one of unfamiliarity and desire to understand.
EDIT> By "lefties", I mean left-handed people.
With that being said, I think English is a language ill-suited for 'gender agency' because the gendered pronouns are third person and innately require other people to acknowledge your preferences. You're placing a burden on someone else to not only remember your preference in name, but also in your pronouns. To me this is what I find so troublesome about the whole affair since I typically prefer to avoid placing burdens on other people to accommodate me. I also think that third person pronouns exist to be convenient and that treating them as a second name makes it as inconvenient to use as a proper noun. If someone prefers singular they, I'm much more likely to just always refer to them properly because it requires less effort to think about the sentences I am saying/typing, albeit awkward to my ears.
In Japanese, there are gendered first person pronouns that allow a person to easily communicate this part of their identity. Those who identify with the male gender might say "boku" or "ore," while someone who identifies as a female might use "atashi." Those that don't identify with either could use "watashi," since it is gender neutral.
It doesn't place any unnecessary burden on other people. You get to communicate it yourself. You don't have to rely on other people to acknowledge your gender in their language, you can do it yourself.
As for the 'they' pronoun, Stallman is at least correct in that it does present itself with challenges that other pronouns don't face. Since it has a duality of meaning it can create a lot of confusion, particularly when it's in print since there are far less context clues usually. In fact I implicitly pointed this out in my original comment.
I think a problem is the failure to distinguish between gender identity and externally imposed gender and gender stereotypes. Increasing range of expression and social recognition of gender identity is aligned with reducing and eliminating socially-imposed gender and gender stereotypes.
I would certainly question whether I was welcome at an event where he was a speaker/key presenter. Even if I was told I was welcome, I suspect others would feel emboldened to antagonistically challenge my pronouns. To me, it makes sense that if he's causing people to consider not attending events or signing up for his causes, then he's maybe not the right 'perse' for the job.