> 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."

Just a few points to present another perspective.

- 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.

Nobody said he was trying to antagonize nonbinary people. The problem is how he responded when people told him he had.

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...

> Nobody said he was trying to antagonize nonbinary people.

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.

> "I propose we use only people's full and legal names when referring to them, because I believe that system works better."

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.

Disclaimer: I use they/them pronouns. As far as I’m concerned, there’s two ‘gender neutral concepts’, people who you don’t know the pronouns of, and people who explicitly use gender neutral pronouns. If he wanted to refer to people as per by default, I don’t care, you do you. But as soon as I tell someone that I go by they/them, I would absolutely expect them to respect that. By reading his article on pronouns, it sounds as though he likely would not do so.

Because one basic way of showing any respect at all for someone is calling them by their preferred name and pronouns. Refusing to do so suggests that you somehow know someone else better than they know themselves. If someone is that upset about it they can seethe elsewhere on their own time, but when interacting with someone, just use their preferred name/pronouns.

Respect really goes both ways. I suggest this post that I personally agree with on the topic https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21092138

> Because one basic way of showing any respect at all for someone is calling them by their preferred name and pronouns

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.

Sure, but I don’t really expect people to know how to refer to me before they meet me. Context provides some clues, and if they guessed then they’d probably be correct. “They/them” also works if in doubt. But presumably when you meet someone they’ll tell you what they want to be called (their name), and potentially their preferred pronouns. It’s more common in some circles than others, but all it requires is being a good listener and some humility. If you misgender someone by accident, it’s an honest mistake and that’s okay.

Because why wouldn't you? It's pretty minimal effort for something you want to express respect for.

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 the general pattern of Stallman going off on some obtuse point and making a mountain of out things you didn't even know were even mole-hills.

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.