@dietz199 Wow. That article makes it more confusing. If they acted to be supportive right away it would have been irreversible mistake. And you don’t want to not be helpful. Maybe no one should be on drug transition until 17 or 18.
Re: 66
Shakespeare just dropped a notch in my book. haha
If we’re going to dubiously continue using “they” as singular, why not use the singular verb tense with it too:
“They is…”
That would be right on one level and hilarious on another, doubling down on the ridiculousness of using a plural pronoun to refer to one person. 
You is missing something here.
Our form for you when it’s singular is are. You are, not You is. Similarly, our form for they is are, whether it’s singular or plural.
When I say that I am unhappy with the use of “they,” I’m not suggesting that I’m offended as a grammarian. I find it confusing and awkward in certain situations. For example, Shakespeare wrote
He was technically using “they” to refer to the singular “Not a man,” but in context he was talking about many people “not a man” implies that he ran into many men and all of them saluted him.
Similarly, it is common usage to say, “has everyone found their books?” Although “everyone” here is technically singular, it is clearly referring to a group. On the other hand, when my D says, “my friend Jay called. They want to come for dinner.” Its a bit more confusing and awkward. This doesn’t mean that I won’t use it. I just don’t like it and I find myself tripping over it. I would rather have a different non gendered pronoun. But my discomfort is small compared to the benefit of making someone else feel comfortable.
Great Atlantic article. Thanks for posting, @dietz199.
A Facebook friend’s kid transitioned and detransitioned. I don’t know the details.
I’ve heard that kids with autism are vulnerable to mistakenly thinking they’re trans. They’re unhappy and rejected, and they can’t meet the social expectations of their assigned gender, especially if they’re girls. They imagine that everything will be fine and they’ll be socially accepted if they transition to the other gender. This is a path to sorrow.
The article also mentions the acceptance of trans people as paradoxically reinforcing rigid gender rules. It annoys me when a celebrity transitions to being female, and she describes characteristics she thinks of as typically female, but that don’t apply to me. “Now I’m a woman I’ll wear makeup, high heels and frilly dresses, and act helpless in front of men!” Hey, what am I, chopped liver?
For those who object to the singular they, how do you rephrase this?
First person: My doctor called me about the X-ray.
Friend who doesn’t know the gender of the doctor: What did they say?
or this one?
Person: My cousin just gave me $5000.
Friend: Why did they give you the money? That was nice of them.
Are you going to use he, pretending that it refers to both men and women (it doesn’t)? Are you going to say he or she, kinda awkward in conversation?
@“Cardinal Fang” This is why it would be useful to have a singular gender neutral pronoun. I’m not sure why we have a plural one and not a singular one.
In answer to your question, I would probably make the mistake of saying “he” out of habit. But I’m not happy with that answer either.
I was talking to a distant relative recently. From Facebook, it seemed her daughter was no longer calling herself “Mary” but was now known as “Mike”. But rather than ask outright which I thought was none of my business, I asked this relative about her child without the use of pronouns at all.
“How is your child”. (no use of Mary, Mike daughter or son, since I didn’t want to get into it).
She answered “Just fine”. (note she didn’t use a pronoun either).
CardinalFang: " I remember reading, in grade school, a book by the doctor in the David Reimer case, talking about the wonderful result of taking this baby boy, whose circumcision had been horribly botched, and raising him as a girl. (I don’t know why this book was in our grade school library but it was and I read it. Maybe it was jr high.) According to this book, treating the child as a girl, doing surgery to make his body more like a girl’s by castrating him and further mutilating his penis, he’d be a girl. I believed the story, and accepted the idea that if a boy was raised from birth to be a girl, he’d be a girl.
It was only when I was a young mother that I stumbled on Reimer’s own story. Throughout his childhood, his parents and doctors kept his true birth story from him and forced him into stereotypical girls’ clothing and girls’ pursuits, but he never accepted his gender identity as a girl, and when he got older, he transitioned back to his birth gender."
That is so beyond ridiculous to think you can cover for a botched external surgery. Nothing changes his DNA, no matter how you dress up the package. It’s astonishing that they thought they would get by with that.
"Cardinal Fang: For those who object to the singular they, how do you rephrase this?
First person: My doctor called me about the X-ray.
Friend who doesn’t know the gender of the doctor: What did they say?
or this one?
Person: My cousin just gave me $5000.
Friend: Why did they give you the money? That was nice of them.
Are you going to use he, pretending that it refers to both men and women (it doesn’t)? Are you going to say he or she, kinda awkward in conversation? "
First person response: What did the Doctor have to say about that? Then the other one would respond, “She said blah blah”. Then it continues with the proper pronoun.
Second person response: Really? Well, GLORY! Woo Hoo! That’s so awesome!
It’s not hard to respond without using they.
Well, because it applies to everyone, regardless of race or background? You would be a “she.” Or you could just leave it blank.
I’ve never encountered these nametags being a problem with young people at freshmen orientation, any more than printing their hometown or potential major. If it offends you somehow, or you just don’t want to answer (or just didn’t bother to fill out the entire form, which happens all the time) leave it blank. No big.
We had a similar discussion at work recently - we’re updating new hire welcome packages and a recent HR conference (I’m not in HR) recommendation is to include a statement requesting preferred pronoun (or none) -
My POV (as a 60 yo) is that it seems very similar to when I was growing up. My parent’s adult friends were addressed by us (kids) as Aunt and Uncle. They were neither but it was less formal than Mr. or Mrs. which were reserved for men and woman we didn’t know at all socially (Mr. Green Grocer, Mrs. Bus Driver). As times changed, so did how I (and now my adult D) address people - who remembers being able to choose Ms. vs Mrs. or Miss? My D calls my best friends by their first name, we know the grocer ‘enough’ to call him Ralph, etc. I am not put off by learning how someone wishes to be addressed, to me it’s a courteous thing and one I should be interested enough to know.
Petramc, for 99% of people, the visually apparent pronoun is accurate. So why make an issue of It? Do you begin every speech with, “I’m going to speak in English now, just so you all know”. Or maybe start in sign language, then change over when it is clear most of the audience does not have impaired hearing? This is no different.
I would like to be respectful and address people the way they would like to be addressed. I may slip up from yime yo yime, but I want to make the effort.
The benefit of everyone saying how he/she/they would like to be addressed is that it makes it possible for those who are not opting for what you might assume to state a preference. That seems a small accomodation for all of us.
And to those of us who remember the toddler days and having a short haired daughter cry when referred to as he or a pretty son yell at a stranger who called him she – that’s the unfiltered response to having someone address you in a non-conforming way. Nobody likes it.
Here’s the problem I have with this. Transgender people, let alone gender fluid, are a very small part of the population. While I do think the rest of us should be aware of their struggles, support them and address them however they wish to be addressed, the unrelenting focus on transgender issues feels very much like just the latest fad, kombucha-like. And it’s totally possible this may push some young people into doing irreversible things with their bodies, while in fact they just have depression or other mental health issues, as the Atlantic article says.
Funny you mentioned kombucha. Just yesterday, someone from Nebraska asked me what that was. They’d never heard of it. Which makes me think that “the unrelenting focus on transgender issues” also is a regional thing. I suspect in most of the country, transgender issues barely register on anyone’s radar.
Agreed, Yucca. The amount of time and effort devoted to this issue is extraordinary, given the relative size of the population group. I wish that time and effort were devoted to other issues affecting more people. It does seem trendy right now to be gender fluid, but like most trends, I suppose this too shall pass.
I had to Google kombucha. Never heard of it.
Let me clarify. There was a prominent psychologist named David Money who promulgated the theory that gender is entirely socially constructed, and a child who is raised as a girl will be a girl, while a child who is raised as a boy will be a boy. Under this theory, an intersex child can be raised as one gender or the other, and will successfully become a child and then an adult of that gender.
The parents of the boy who was the victim of botched surgery wanted to do the best for their child, and came to believe that the best was to take their baby to Money and follow his theory of childraising. This was not a matter of “covering for a botched surgery.” The parents made the decision to raise Reimer as a girl because they believed that was the best thing they could do in the circumstances. That’s why I find it so heartbreaking.
@“Cardinal Fang”
“You are” is second-person. Attempting to use “they” as the singular subject, the related construction would be “they (replacing he or she…) is.” 
Why can’t we just come up with something that is both grammatically correct and inoffensive in ambiguous situations – that is, a unisex pronoun?
We are simply brought up to think of “they” as plural and of “they are” as the third-person plural form of “to be”. How can it be both plural and singular? That’s the grammatical/definitional complaint. To boot, saying “he or she” becomes cumbersome over the course of a paper (the convenience argument) and using “he” or “she” might offend some (the sensitivity argument).
All three issues pointing to a unisex singular pronoun, let’s use the heck out of “sheesh” so that, in about ten years, it’ll show up in style guides and Webster’s.
This is not a terribly important thing, of course, and I appreciate your response.