I don't think that it's clear at all, but I suppose that's subjective. To me it's much more difficult to parse and got in the way of my enjoyment of an otherwis

I don't think that it's clear at all, but I suppose that's subjective. To me it's much more difficult to parse and got in the way of my enjoyment of an otherwise excellent book. I'd have much preferred "new" pronouns like xe/xer/xem. I've read thousands of books, and changing an old word to mean new things (but only under specific circumstances) is much more difficult for me than learning a new word. I Googled it, and for what it's worth, the APA recommends against the singular "they" because they also think it can be confusing (except in cases of gender diversity): https://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2015/11/the-use-of-singular-they-in-apa-style.html https://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2015/11/the-use-of-singul... The Chicago Style guide is much the same. I don't think either mean's to say that it automatically becomes less confusing when gender diversity is involved, it's just that we don't have better options. It's sci-fi. If we're imaging a better future, can't we also imagine some new pronouns that don't confuse people?