Friend wants to be known as 'they'

[namechangeindiana]

I know there's a lot of discussion about this going on at the moment, but I read the threads and don't understand a lot of the terminology. I haven't done a huge amount of reading about it, but I know that I feel uncomfortable with it and don't really 'get' it.

I keep forgetting and calling my friend 'she' or 'her'. This then ends in a minor heated discussion and me trying to defend the fact that it takes time for me to change the language I am used to using. I try, I really do. We have been friends for 24 years.

Has 'they/them' always been a thing? Am I completely awful for thinking it's strange and not being entirely comfortable with it?

Sorry if I sound naive or am posting something that has been done a million times. I've not thought about it much until now. Willing to learn and hear other people's views...

Preparing to be flamed...

@Branleuse You clearly have very few, if any, married, female friends...

I’m saying that intersex people, although a minority, indicate that not all humans fall nearly into a gender binary.

Ah, I see that you don’t understand the difference between sex and gender.

@Thisismytimetoshine apologies, that should have said ‘sex binary’ not ‘gender binary’. The previous poster was talking about sex specifically.

Sounds like hard work.
I wouldn't really have the mental energy to jump through these hoops...
Agree with others who siggested get a new friend

You could try 'it'.

@SadSisters

If my pronouns were 'your royal highness', would you use them? Or would you just say 'fuck off you narcissist'?

Since when has ‘your royal highness’ been a pronoun...?

When has ze or zi or zee or any of those ridiculous z ones? Answer: When someone insisted said it was.

At least you're trying. Your friend is being a twat if they don't appreciate your efforts.

Ok @Hotcuppatea

I gave my opinion, which I'm entitled to do.

No problem, equally, for you to reject it, including in a nasty way.

If your friend can't accept that it may take time to adjust long-established habits (especially when you find it strange and uncomfortable), I'd say you're not the one being unreasonable. A real friend should appreciate that you're making an effort.

Honestly, I'd probably take this as a sign that the friendship is nearing its end, because the kind of person who expects everyone else to use special pronouns for them is likely to clash with me in so many other ways that we're no longer compatible as friends.

[quote SadSisters]@Thisismytimetoshine apologies, that should have said ‘sex binary’ not ‘gender binary’. The previous poster was talking about sex specifically.[/quote]
Sex is binary. A genetic anomaly does not create a third sex.

Sod that for a game of soldiers. If I had such a narcissist friend, they wouldn't be a friend for much longer. Thankfully I don't imagine many people I know will go down this route, so fingers crossed it won't be something I have to deal with.

What on earth is "gender neutral" supposed to mean? If your friend enters a room where your friend is not known, I'm sure some people will make an instant judgement of your friend's sex. They may be right or they may be wrong. They may well treat your friend differently if they believe your friend to be male than if they believed your friend to be female. That's sexism. Just because someone wants to be gender neutral doesn't mean that person escapes the effects of people's perceptions.

See, I would just use your friend's name constantly to avoid being that sense of being controlled. But from what I've wrote so far, it's clear that it would be clunky and very obvious. And I'd probably lose the will to keep talking like that and exit the situation. Like I'm probably going to do with this thread now!

that might help explain why you don’t understand that grammar is a skill a person can be good or bad at.

@SadSisters 'in which a person can be good or bad.'

When has ze or zi or zee or any of those ridiculous z ones?

People’s unwillingness to accept these is why people now use ‘they’ (an existing singular person pronoun), but even that isn’t acceptable to those who insist that only they have the right to determine the acceptable words for referring to a person.

It’s a straw man argument to make up a fanciful title like ‘your royal highness’ and try and suggest that it’s comparable to ‘they’. You know yourself why they’re not the same. So why not engage with what people are actually asking for instead of making up an imaginary scenario and getting cross about it?

People are saying we use 'they' all the time when we say things like 'you went to the doctor? What did they say?'.

But as they say themselves, we use 'they' when we don't know if the doctor was female or male. When we do know someone's sex, we don't use 'they'.

If someone insists on being called 'they', they should be asked what it is they think the pronoun 'he' or 'she' says about them. To me, all it says is that someone is female or male. Says nothing about their appearance, behaviour or any part of their identity. Why does this person think that 'he' or 'she' tells us any more than that?

Intersex has fuck all to do with gender and intersex people have asked repeatedly not to be used as a gotcha.
Anyhoo.
If I’d been friends with Dolly here for 24 years and she’d just said ‘look, dog, I’m changing my pronouns to they/them’ I’d have said ‘why?’
Presumably there would have ensued some variation on ‘I’m not cis. I don’t want to be gendered.’ Blah blah.
And then I would have had the ‘how bloody insulting. How narcissistic do you have to be to think that everyone agrees with ‘gender’? Gender is a big pile of bollocks, love, you should be actively dismantling it, not propping up your belief in it by claiming to be special enough that it doesn’t apply to you. Doesn’t apply to the vast majority of people! I thought you were more sensible than that!’
I had a variation of this with child 3. I pointed out that opting out of biology was impossible, but that seeing as how ‘gender’ was bollocks she could still dress and act however she pleases.
Narcissism of the highest order and a complete lack of critical thinking.
As long as they were happy for me to be honest about how run of the mill their thinking is, and grasp that most bloody women aren’t thrilled about gender stereotyping, it’d be fine. But any suggestion that they were somehow under the mistaken belief that I’m some sort of cis-bot pre-programmed to just luuuuuurve being pink-washed and trodden on, then I’d be all ‘so long and thanks for all the fish’.

@FamilyOfAliens I see you still don’t have a response to my earlier query. How surprising.

They have a non-traditional relationship anyway in the sense that they also have a boyfriend.

😂 of course they do! Jesus wept

It’s a silly affectation and it’ll pass. If this friend is important to you, do as requested until it does.

I have a couple of trans colleagues and it's hard to get into the habit initially, but it does get easier over time.

What I think is really difficult is when you're referring to an event that occurred prior to their transition. If they were him/her when something happened, it feels really weird referring to them as "they" when you talk about it.

A friend, who is also a colleague, got a written warning for doing that.
Their manager is a complete arse though, and terrified of contravening any bits of any policy, so interprets them all very stringently.

Since when has ‘your royal highness’ been a pronoun...?

Since forever?

en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Your_Highness#Pronoun

'Would your Royal Highness like some English lessons'?

'You' is a pronoun. So is 'Your Royal Highness'. Both are second-person neutral pronouns. 'Ma'am' and 'Sir' can be second-person pronouns as well, but they are specific to women and men respectively.

What Blackdog said ^^^

Excellent post Black

OP YANU being unreasonable! I would not entertain this attention seeking nonsense. There are some really ridiculous views on this thread! If a person chooses to have a sex change and become a male then that’s one thing but biologically you’re either male or female. There is no third sex and I would not have time for such bullshit either. Most people would agree so ignore the dramatic attention seekers on here who want to ‘educate you’

I have a female to male transgender nephew.
I found the whole "they" business hard. Much easier now it is he.