"Pronouns" Topic

I was trying to read an article about Bella Ramsey and kept tripping over They. Like who else are we talking about? So a comedy skit popped into my head:

Mrs: Bob is coming over later and they want to talk to you?
Me: Stacy is coming too?
Mrs: No, just Bob
Me: Yeah you said They
Mrs: Bob is trans remember, he goes by They
Me: Right, what if both were coming? How do we separate Bob they and plural they?
Mrs: Stacy is cisgender she/her. If you used they like that you misgendered her.
Me: So it's Bob and Stacy are coming over, they and she would like to talk.
Mrs: I guess so
Me: that doesn't even sound like English.
🤷‍♂️

I'll be here all week, please tip your server they..no she…no he…good lord just tip.

Truly we live in insane, irrational times.

We could just stop using pronouns. They're a shortcut anyway.

"Bob is coming over. Bob would like to talk to you."

"Bob and Stacy are coming over. Bon and Stacy would like to talk to you."

Of course, you could also say "Bob and Stacy are coming over to talk with you." But that leaves out the desire part of the meaning. "Bob and Stay are coming over because of a desire to talk to you." But then it's unclear who has the desire. How about "Wanting to talk to you, Bob and Stacy are coming over."

Or just "Bob and Stacy are coming over and want to talk to you." "Bob is coming over and wants to talk to you". Doesn't that work? It will just take a little getting used to.

The big problem is that we normally use the third person pronoun when that person is not present, so how will people know we've successfully avoided the bad pronoun when discussing that person?

I just realized "that person" works, too. "Bob is coming over. That person wants to talk to you."

We're going to have to get used to something.

Do you know what? – there really are more important things to worry about. In My Humble Opinion.

And actually it isn't at all hard anyway – any person of normal intelligence can master it.

Yep, about as simple as are you a male or female.

are you a male or female.

I always say: check for a penis. You will know right away.

And actually it isn't at all hard anyway – any person of normal intelligence can master it.

The specific construct in question increases the lexical inconsistency and ambiguity ratings of communications. That means that there are more cases of communication using that construct that cannot be unambiguously resolved within the lexical unit (a sentence), thus requiring additional amounts of context.

Basically, it makes communication more difficult.

"This/that" person is lexically equivalent to "him/her/he who identifies as female/she who identifies as male/he or she who identifies as neither/he or she who identifies as both", but contains less information (cognitively less robust).

So, under a larger number of circumstances, no one of any intelligence can figure it out.

Some people just want to be accepted for who they are. I'm okay with that.

If you have a problem with that, I'll just accept you for who you are.

But, duh, once someone says "I am steve and my pronouns are they/them" then all the information is there.

And compared to war, famine, pestilence, violent crime, natural disasters, man made disasters, etc, etc then I see this as a fairly minor issue.

But, duh, once someone says "I am steve and my pronouns are they/them" then all the information is there.

Correct. So the information is there, but not anywhere else. So unless every time this person is referenced (by themselves or others), that context is not there.

Even with that information, it still conflates singular with plural, and therefore increases the lexical ambiguity of the communication.

Some people just want to be accepted for who they are

It's not whom they "are"; it's how they perceive themselves. Gender identity, like any identity, is an artificial psycho-social construct.

And compared to war, famine, pestilence, violent crime, natural disasters, man made disasters, etc, etc then I see this as a fairly minor issue.

This is just a cop-out, or more formally an instance of the false equivalency logical fallacy.

And your total argument is contradictory. You claim that this is so minor that it doesn't merit discussion, but you continue to discuss it.

You claim that this is so minor that it doesn't merit discussion, but you continue to discuss it.

Yeah, I had noticed that myself. But thanks for pointing it out for anyone who might have missed it.

Although with the link to this

This is just a cop-out, or more formally an instance of the false equivalency logical fallacy.

It's not really a cop-out, it's the heart of my point: some people get really hung up on stuff that makes absolutely no difference at all and have no interest in resolving the huge problems that actually have an effect on the world. It's the very driving force behind the ridiculous obsession with the idiotic so called "cultural wars" – spending all of one's energy on the truly trivial.

Duh.

And Done.

Glad you're done. And that you're the arbiter of what people should spend their time on. At least you have the omniscience to know how people spend their time.

Who refers to another person who is present in the third person anyway? Unless you're giving instruction ("You stay with him; I'll go with her"), you are going to be using "I", "me," "mine," "we," "us," "ours," "you," "your/yours" and in the American South "y'all."

So the time you will be using third person pronouns are more likely than not when the subject isn't present. In which case you can call ‘em whatever you want to, with the only goal to be clear for the hearers, as it doesn't affect the subject one bit.

I for one don't really care what terms are used for me when I'm not present. I gave up that childish hang up long, long ago. And if you choose to be insulting in my absence, well, that says more about you than it does about me, and does not harm me in the slightest.

Speaking as someone whose wife left to become his ex husband I'd just like to correct the everyone's male or female just check for a penis approach. We have 3 reliable ways to determine gender.
- the look between the legs method is very occasionally ambiguous.
- A brain scan shows clear differences between male and female
- Finally a DNA sample checking for XX or XY should be conclusive.
But most trans people will show as their preferred gender on a brain scan and a lot of them are either XXY or XYX so there is a real medical issue underlying the whole situation.

Sorry but I'm up to here with simplistic answers to complex issues.

Robert

A link to your sources for these two claims would be helpful.

Logically, if men and women have different brains AND chromosomal sex pairings determine what sort of brain a person has, how could that person have a brain other than the brain which matches the person's chromosomal pairing?

In simpler terms, if one has the Y chromosome, then one will have an XY brain.
If one does not have it, then one will have the XX brain. So clearly, having the Y chromosome and an XX brain is a logical impossibility. If the Y is present, it's a Y brain. If it's not, it's not. So whatever is being scanned and called "female" or "male" is clearly not a function of the sex chromosomes, but something else.

Otherwise XXY or XYX is simply Klinefelter Syndrome, a known genetic disorder and chromosomal abnormality— but it has nothing to do with being transgender or "having a female brain." Such a person is male, although they may suffer various conditions from the syndrome: link

From what I have read, gender dysmorphia is a mental condition, not a chromosomal one.

However, I am open to reading provable scientific findings which establish a chromosomal cause.

gender dysmorphia is a mental condition

We have had sissies and tomboys since as long as there have been humans. I think it's genetic variation to ensure survival of the species. If all the Neanderthal men in the tribe died, you would need the butches to keep things going for a while.

If you're a dude and feel the need to be a hairdresser so be it.

Not the same thing at all, Mr. Elmo, and demeaning. "Sissy" is only ever the term of a two-bit bully trying to assert a dominance he fears he himself lacks, and most likely due to abuse by an aggressive and violent parent.

Gender dysmorphia is a mental condition— a belief that one actually is the opposite sex to one's biological form. It has nothing to do with evolution. And I suspect that it actually isn't biological, but is itself the result of socialization trauma and emotional abuse— quite possibly by the same sort of bullies I described above. But perhaps there is a biological component. Proponents assert that there is, but never to my knowledge offer any scientific evidence for the claims, aside from the persistence of the delusion.

And, for the record, the hair stylist I most recently used was male, married (to a woman) and eagerly awaiting the arrival of his first child. He was not effeminate in any way. He just cut the hair of men as well as women, and earned a lot more money that way. Smart guy— he saw that the money is in being able to trim hair for both sexes— and that women are more ready to shell out $$$ on their hair than men are (dude was making a good living, too. He moved to Texas to start his own salon there— he'll do very, very well).

We have had sissies and tomboys since as long as there have been humans.

Mr. Elmo, glad to see you embrace the idea of gender identity. I don't know what attributes you assign to "sissy", "tomboy" or "butch", but equating something that is not gender to gender is exactly in line.

I, personally, have never had much use for the old or new versions of that type of thinking. I have a hard time caring what genitalia other people have, what they think about it, or what they do with it (other than when that behaviour is (1) in public, or (2) harming someone else).

But I am not the Thought Police, so if you want to spend time thinking about other people's genitalia, and assigning meaning to it, you have a good time with that.

I can understand Parzival's concern over the terminology being demeaning. I tend to side with Elanor Roosevelt on that one.

I was well into my adult years before I figured out that Polack jokes weren't self-deprecating humour. An "I'm an idiot because I believe this about others" kind of thing. Growing up, all the people of Polish descent I knew spoke at least half a dozen languages and had jobs and advanced degrees in math and science. Then there's Curie, Weigl, etc…

So, if you want to think that men who like to play with dolls (like all the males here on TMP) are sissies, enjoy yourself. I'll think what I like when you express such an opinion…

Then you have my neighbor across the street who had a stroke some years ago and everyone is he/him, even his mom, my mom, the dog next door, everyone.

"the idiotic so called "cultural wars" – spending all of one's energy on the truly trivial."

Nothing trivial about it. We've gone from a world where some of the richest men of the US and UK gave up seats on lifeboats to poor women and children when the Titanic hit that iceberg, to a world where it's acceptable in some circles to shoot up a school and children because the shooter had gender dysphoria.

"And I suspect that it actually isn't biological, but is itself the result of socialization trauma and emotional abuse"

A lot of it now is because it is being presented as 'cool, hip, makes you a victim' etc.

Not only that Dn but thinking it is okay for 8 or 9 year old children to have a sex change. To saying that men can have babies. That the term woman is unacceptable and many more. We are rejecting scientific fact in order to approve of this nonsense.