Pronouns she/they - what does that mean?

@ArabellaScott Ursula Le Guin flirted briefly with U., but decided it was counterproductive if her achievements were being assumptively credited to the male sex and that she would prefer to be a visible example to other girls and women who might want to write speculative fiction. (I hope I'm remembering her essay reasonably accurately; I can't retrieve the book it's in without causing a bookshelf to collapse...)

I joined a subthread about whether pronouns being neutral would make them obsolete, in order to point out that neutral pronouns work fine in the languages that already have them.
You seem to think I'm making some sort of political demand. I am not.

I've a bit of sympathy towards the impulse to try and swerve ingrained sexism by hiding one's sex.

Sometimes I use just a first initial (no honourifics) on the understanding that the default male assumption will work in my favour and potentially achieve a better outcome.

However, I'm unsure if in the long term this is not solving sexism, just sort of kicking it down the road.

The only way to win is not to play.

I will never put pronouns in my signature but were I forced to I would be tempted to put "he/she/they/it/whatever"

As for remembering everyone's special beliefs, there is no chance of that happening when I meet hundreds of students and colleagues each year as part of my job and can't even remember their names and faces.

It means she is kinder and cooler than you....
I prefer she/kettle.

It means she’s a narcissist.

I don't think so. I think sex is irrelevant in many contexts - whether you should have a promotion, whether you should be expected to sort out the office dishwasher, whether you should be wolf-whistled etc.

Some (many) people consider someone's sex to be a discerning factor in these situations. By attempting to remove that factor - by saying it's ok to refer to you as "they" so a 3rd party doesn't disadvantage you due to your sex - that's in line with that aim.

But her explanation is the very opposite of what she is hoping to achieve.

Put them all together , & you get neutral "sheit".

Jeanette Winterson wrote a book eons ago with a protag whose sex was never revealed. It was weirdly opaque and confusing- whether because we constantly make judgements based on sex, or whether omitting references made the book laboured - or both - i dont know.

'Written on the body ' iirc

Well this is exactly the absurdity of all pronoun preferences.

I expect that I’m called you/she/they regularly. I don’t actually care if I’m called he either, but can’t imagine it comes up all too often. For the most part, I won’t even be there when I’m being referred to as most of these so I’m none the wiser anyway.

I’d actually like to start listing my preferred adjectives (funny, intelligent, beautiful) and become upset if any other adjective is used to describe me. I think it might catch on eventually…

But that's not the way English does work and we don't need to change our language to pander to a tiny minority.

True!

Pretending not to have a sex is rather self-dehumanising.

Right, and English would work just fine without gendered pronouns too.

"It" is rather dehumanising though, don't you think?

Right, but we speak English.

There are languages without gendered pronouns and they work just fine. And it doesn’t seem to affect or be affected by wider social mores: Turkish society is more sexist than our own, Finnish less so.

I wouldn’t choose to go by she/they, especially as it adds murkiness to the sex/gender identity hoopla but I don’t think it’s true that having a neutral pronoun would
make pronouns obsolete. Wouldnt it be used in the same way ie in place of names so you aren’t forever saying “Ken says Ken’s cake will be ready and Ken will bring it around after Ken has finished work”, when you don’t know the specific people you’re talking about etc

“It” is really more faithful to the intent of “non-binary” individuals, being the pronoun for lack of sex rather than unknown sex.

Perhaps one day pronoun specifications might indicate “sex/gender”, i.e. “she/they” would mean “I am female but if you wish to use pronouns to indicate gender rather than sex, then in such contexts I would prefer to be referred to neutrally”.

Unfortunately we are further away from this brave new world than we were in the 1970s.

"They" & "them" were plurals when I was at school.
If "he" and "she" are wrong, how about "it" ?

Singular “they” is confusing to us because we’re not accustomed to it (and where we do use it, it’s no problem: “would the owner of the car with registration number AB75 CDE please move their vehicle”).

Singular “you” is confusing to me but French people manage fine not only distinguishing it from plural but also between formal and informal. It’s all a matter of what one is used to.