Got referred to as them/they at work today

Standard practice

I'm sure you gave the staff room a chuckle.

No

Ii think they can be colloquial.

People say how are they in themselves all the time.

Or, they're being cautious because yoj didnft bother replying, they didnt want to offend you (and you're complaining about them again).

Reading that I'd have assumed it was incorrect grammar usage and not intentional pronouns. I used to write they/their as singular and it wasn't until university that it was pointed out as incorrect.

"They" can be singular when you are referring to one person but don't know who they are specifically or don't know their sex.

So you can say "I need an appointment with a GP, I hope they will be able to diagnose what's wrong with me".

You could also say "I have an appointment with Dr Williams, what room are they in?" if you've never met them and don't know their sex.

It's a bit odd to say, "I saw Claire yesterday, they looked amazing!", when you know Claire and know she is female.

I'm a pain in the arse with this one. If people want to play pronoun games I insist on it/it.

Completely correct from a purist perspective because "it" is a pronoun and utterly correct in how I feel most of the time...but most people struggle to call me "it". Make me feel uncomfortable with pronoun politics and I'm in the game to do the same.

They has been used in singular form since Shakespeare times

So some people don't like that and tried to codify they mean plural ingrammar laws but language doesn't work like that

They/them is grammatically incorrect to describe one person.

Maybe reply saying, “apologies, I was under the impression I was undertaking the task alone. Please can you let me know who else you I am to work with when you reference ‘they’. Many thanks, Miss/Ms/Mrs presumably female name”

If you are a quiet person, perhaps there is a small chance that objecting will be taken seriously. 'Please refer to me by name in future' could be a response.

i would have sent a very similar email. It’s just how I speak, nothing to do with gendered pronouns.

I propose that the change to using ‘they’ as the default pronoun is the natural response to pressure from the gender identity movement to normalise compelled speech. I don’t think they will succeed in compelling speech and my observation is that partly as a result businesses, services and people more generally are defaulting to ‘they’ so as to avoid he/she and all the myriad made up new pronouns.

The reasons for this is in my opinion

the cognitive load of remembering individual pronouns is too great, with the sex based system we didn’t need to think about it as we are, for the most part, excellent at recognising sex without conscious consideration.

most people are averse to offending others and would rather avoid unnecessary conflict using ‘they’ appears less offensive than drawing attention to someone’s sex in the current political/social climate.

when creating online systems it is easier to apply they/them to all users than to ask for and apply the pronouns of individuals

I see and hear people, even gender critical people using they/them when he or she would have been used in the past.

I think we default to whatever creates the least resistance and using they/them for everyone appears to be that at the moment.

I notice and applaud it when I see “he or she” used in writing instead of “they” nowadays but I do now think that we are losing the sexed third person singular pronouns in English and sadly I suspect that 50 years from now they might be regarded as archaic.

This is occurring naturally in my opinion in as much as people are doing it unconsciously but of course it has been precipitated by the issues brought about by the forced pushing of gender identity and queer theory on society through. institutions.

The other thing is that if women were the ones asking for this change because we wanted to avoid she/her and 'outing' ourselves as female we'd be ignored and laughed at (as we were in the 80s when the idea of non-sexed pronouns was briefly mooted). It's only because some of those asking have dicks between their legs and the Y chromosome that this is being taken seriously.

This is standard in my workplace but I ignore it. If anyone calls me they/them (so far I haven't noticed this happening) I'll simply say that although I do the work of three people there is only one of me.

This change is coming naturally is it? Or is it being compelled?

...a decreasing recognition of biological sex as a real category with importance.

Biological sex has no importance?

Dasiesandbuttercups

I think your analysis is correct, this is a change that is naturally coming out of the push to get rid of or make references to sex in speech unrelated to biological sex.

And I also agree that what it will come down to is a decreasing recognition of biological sex as a real category with importance.

I've found my EAL colleagues do this as they don't find determining sex by names easy.

It's not grammatically incorrect or rude and can think of many reasons why someone would do it so couldn't get het up by it in the slightest.

I quite like Beanie 😁
I very much doubt that amount of thought has gone into the decision to use 'they' as a default...

Sorry, that was to beamur! Autocarrot.

Beanie, but that makes no sense. People who want to be they/them are a small minority and usually go out of their way to tell you so. So chance of someone being a they/them if no specified pronouns is next to nothing. Whereas most people use sex based pronouns, and a high proportion of those will think it doesn't need saying or be politically opposed to saying.
If they wanted to not offend the max number of people they'd default to sex based.
Which leaves possibility that they do want to offend. Or are deliberately trying to goad people into the political stance that is pronoun stating.

I’d respond with “Who’s they, the cat’s birthing parent?”. What could possibly go wrong?

Presumably this is something that HR have decided to use as a default?
I can see both sides here. HR use neutral as default (offends some people) or assume pronouns (offends some people).
If you would prefer to be addressed as she, then tell them. Personally I don't really want to be in a position to have to state my pronouns, but in this case I would offer clarity.

Except it wouldn't be "they asks for clarity" would it? It would be they are asking for clarity. Why does your knowledge of grammar go out of the window when trying to make a quite frankly ridiculous point.

Honestly I love the FWR board here, people speak a lot of sense, but this is bordering in stupidity. And to the people who say they have never heard people using they/them in normal speech, I say get out more. I use it all of the time for no other reason that it's how we use it where I'm from. Tbf though I'm from "the north" and obviously we don't speak properly there do we? You utter loons. You're giving this part of mumsnet a bad name.

My god, what is your life like that this upsets you.

You could put it down as a good learning experience of how it feels to be misgenered. Experiences like this are helpful for increasing our empathy.