Linning, upthread you said something about how non binary people don’t have privilege, and for me this goes to the heart of the problem.
“Non binary people” includes biologically male people as well as biologically female people. And biologically male non binary people most certainly do have male privilege, however they identify.
Given the historical and ongoing oppression of female people by male people the world over, and the relatively recent partial successes of female people in some parts of the world to address this oppression, what happens when you erase female people as a discrete class? Who stands to gain from this? Who stands to gain if an ideology takes hold that says that how you identify trumps the material reality of sex?
Hint: it isn’t the sex that has always been oppressed, that is still very much the second sex - that can no longer recognise the exact nature of sex-based oppression or organise in a coherent way along the lines of biological sex because the clear, immutable and very materially real and obvious distinction between the two sexes has been deliberately blurred and confused.
You see something wonderfully “queer” and progressive about this development, as if it means that traditional gender roles are being messed around and broken down.
I just see a very cunning way to attack the roots of feminism and make it include and even centre biologically male people: patriarchy reinventing itself for the 21st century in a suitably woke disguise.
The cult of genderism, which includes “non binary identities” and they/them pronouns, doesn’t do away with stereotypical, regressive gender roles: it absolutely depends on them for its existence and therefore reinforces them. Without gender roles there can be no transgender, no non binary. Without gender roles there would be nothing to transition to or from; no system to declare you don’t fit into.
By supposedly “queering” gender roles, you are in fact merely propping them up, IMO. Propping up the the traditional, existing regime: that of male dominance. It’s not the radical act you think it is at all. And it is definitely not kind to women and girls, it’s definitely not true that it “doesn’t cost us anything”.
So please don’t assume that if people don’t want to use pronouns that don’t accurately reflect material reality it’s because they don’t care about people’s feelings, they are resisting progress, they just don’t understand why it’s so important.
It could well be precisely because they have thought in depth about it, and have decided they don’t want to collude in what they see as their own oppression. Because they do care about people - especially female people, including themselves and their own rights. As women should be able to do without being called selfish or mean, if feminism is to count for anything.
Aside from all that, as a pretty nifty linguist myself I just have to acknowledge your exceptional command of what you say is your fifth language. That is a true gift.