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Why would you use "they" when talking about someone you know for sure is a man? Aren't you supposed to "respect peoples' pronouns"?
by Grustaf 5y ago
Why would you use "they" when talking about someone you know for sure is a man? Aren't you supposed to "respect peoples' pronouns"?
- dragonwriter 5y agoKnowing that someone is a man doesn’t mean knowing their pronouns; gender identity and pronoun preference are correlated but not 1:1 tied. It is somewhat inconvenient that the long traditional use of “they” for semantically singular cases where the correct pronoun is unknown has become blurred by “they/their/them” becoming a reasonably common preferred pronoun (especially among the nonbinary but also among some who identify as men or women), so its use to avoid the risk of an incorrect specific pronoun can be misread.
- Grustaf 5y agoHas PG, or anyone else, ever referred to him as anything but a "he"? Since 99.9% of men refer to themselves as men, that would seem like a useful default.