I've been using singular they for as long as I can remember. Sometimes you don't know a subject's gender, and most of the time its irrelevant. Using they is jus

I've been using singular they for as long as I can remember. Sometimes you don't know a subject's gender, and most of the time its irrelevant. Using they is just easier, usually natural, and only rarely stilted. People use and respond to it in speech without even realizing it, and it only catches their attention, if at all, in writing. Once upon a time, before the debate really hit the mainstream, the predominate rule in academia was still to use "he" as the neutral or indefinite. I tried but it always seemed... wrong. I got into an argument with a writing instructor once, not because I was invested in the gender debate, but because singular they just seemed so obviously like the correct approach I couldn't understand the pushback. Fine, deduct points because I didn't follow the specified grammar rule--to use he. That's fair. We're being graded on how well we follow the specified rules. But at least admit the rules are wrong in so far as they purport to reflect reasonably correct professional usage. Don't deny the obvious and inevitable! It was so frustrating.