>Hasn’t it always been the case that you could use “they” as a way to refer to a singular human without implying any gender?

Yes, since Shakespearean times.

For example: "I saw someone walking down the street the other day, they were carrying a guitar" -> a normal use of they as the 3rd person singular pronoun.

I feel like I learned that the Chicago style guide, for example, embraced that only a handful of years ago.

Which is really just unfucking a mistake that language pedants invented for themselves in the 19th century.

"They" has been used as a singular pronoun as far back as the late 1300s, but for the case where you didn't know the gender of the person or the gender was not relevant. Using it for someone whose gender is gender is known but is not male or female is much newer.

Here's an article with details [1].

The problem of what pronoun to use for someone who is neither male or female is not new, of course. That article says:

> There have always been people who didn’t conform to an expected gender expression, or who seemed to be neither male nor female. But we’ve struggled to find the right language to describe these people—and in particular, the right pronouns. In the 17th century, English laws concerning inheritance sometimes referred to people who didn’t fit a gender binary using the pronoun it, which, while dehumanizing, was conceived of as being the most grammatically fit answer to gendered pronouns around then

[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/singular-nonbi...

I'll add that while the OED dates the singular they to the mid-14th century (betw. 1335-1361), use as to avoid gendering an individual is found from ca. 1450; the OED also gives earlier attestations for them (1429) and their (1398) of the same usage.

Wow TIL. That’s very interesting.

No, and it’s frustrating for people who had it hammered into their reading and writing habits all through school. I can’t read a singular “they” without mentally tripping on it.

> No, and it’s frustrating for people who had it hammered into their reading and writing habits all through school. I can’t read a singular “they” without mentally tripping on it.

If you mean "no" in the sense that this specific sentence isn't true:

> Hasn’t it always been the case that you could use “they” as a way to refer to a singular human without implying any gender?

then you are mistaken, as sibling comments point out. Certainly there is a history of teaching people not to use singular 'they' (I don't know how long, but I was certainly taught it), but people have actually been using singular 'they' for a long, long time, and usage trumps fiat at least in English.

Singular-they constructions have been in English for literally hundreds of years.

Tell it to my English teachers from grades 3-12

Sure, point me to them.

I learned a lot of wrong things in school. One could say I have spent most of my adult life unlearning them. Welcome to the club.

Consider also James Loewen's classic book, too: https://www.amazon.com/Lies-My-Teacher-Told-Everything-dp-16...