Calling my unborn baby they/them

[Irish24]

I am keeping the gender a surprise and the amount of people that are confused when I refer to the baby as they/them’ is starting to aggravate me. I don’t like referring to them as ‘it’ or just ‘baby’. They/them is a word and has been going around for centuries. It also is a singular pronoun and does not always mean multiple. My friends say they can’t get their head around it. I don’t understand. I know they/them is a controversial topic these days and more people are perhaps finding out the gender. I still don’t find it confusing at all and it never even occurred to me that it would be. Anyone else experienced this or am I being over dramatic here? It’s just tiresome having to constantly explain to people, I don’t know the gender so that’s why I’m calling the baby ‘them/they’

So everyone else is wrong and you’re correct. Sure.

Use whatever term you want but YABU to get annoyed at other people when they react to you. Why spend your pregnancy annoyed? You aren’t going to get all society to change just because you decided to use they/them. People are probably assuming you are going to raise a theyby or some such wankery.

None of these examples refer to a specific person. The OPs baby is one specific person. The fact the baby is currently in utero does not change that.

Exactly! They are sex reveals, not gender reveals. Although why the fuss over ‘revealing’ I honestly don’t know.

I think they/them is fine. Apart from the historic usage question it is now quite often used as a neutral singular. When I was pregnant with my five year old it wasn’t so familiar as a singular option or I’d have used it I expect. I didn’t like ‘it’ - too much of a ‘thing’ pronoun.

As a fierce anti-trans ideology supporter, I'm afraid they does mean singular when you don't know the gender of a person. But I'm guessing as this thread is hundreds of comments long you've already been told that 😆

"I went to he doctor about my back"
"Oh yeah, what did they say?"

The OED has an article about singular "they" - I won't link to it, to stop a massive preview appearing, anyone who cares can simply search for "A brief history of singular they". It ends as follows: Highlighting is mine.

"Even people who object to singular they as a grammatical error use it themselves when they’re not looking, a sure sign that anyone who objects to singular they is, if not a fool or an idiot, at least hopelessly out of date."

That sounds about right to me.

Sorry, NRTWT but aren't unborn babies whose sex is not known usually referred to as 'it'?

That's much clearer than they. I'd definitely assume you're having twins.

So many people telling you what to think and do and say. I tended to call them baby or bump though - perhaps it’s the “cats mother “ aspect that irrates ?

No it is not appropriates for a small human being - they as a singular is standard bloody English that sexists and genderists have tried to eliminate from normal usage

You clearly don't know that sex and gender are not the same thing. You can't reveal a baby's 'gender' as it doesn't know itself until it is older to work out whether it identifies as boy or girl or non-binary.

In all seriousness; 'gender' is simply about sex-performing stereotypes which is why it isn't 'grammatically correct', so to speak - as it is really the sex of the baby (boy/girl/male/female) and not a stereotype of that sex (gender).

When one of my best friends had her first scan and was telling me "they're due in June" and "they will need the bigger middle bedroom" it took me a good few minutes to clock that she was indeed having twins.

So in my opinion YABU. Just say "the baby".

I do understand that "it" sounds kind of harsh.

We went with "our baby".

To PP's telling OP to just say "the baby" - you do understand that would get clunky very quickly? You wouldn't naturally repeat "the baby" multiple times in a short span. This really isn't complicated.

For example: "When the baby is born the baby will sleep in our room" Vs "When the baby is born they'll sleep in our room".

Afraid not. Pedantic is an adjective. You're either a proud pedant, or proudly pedantic.
/pedantic grammar lesson 😉

It took you a while to clock it, because ‘they’ is so commonly used to refer to a singular person. So OP is NBU.

The OP is literally making a song and dance by starting this thread.

And just because someone says they haven't found out it doesn't mean they haven't. The fact they are wanting to make a song and dance about it and "make an announcement" doesn't mean I necessarily believe everything they are saying.

They want a 'big reveal' moment. That's the other part of the problem. So they arent just telling people what they are having at 20 weeks in normal conversation which is the norm now, it's also going 'and we are going to reveal' and being petty about grammatical use of pronouns and not wishing to call the baby 'it'.

It's the whole centre of the known universe vibe that goes with the circus.

It does change it because the OP doesn’t know if their baby is a he or a she. It’s grammatically correct. It’s fine to use it.

If you needed help from someone, a specific person, but you couldn’t quite tell if they were male or female you wouldn’t say “I’ll go and ask him/her” it would be “I’ll go ask and them”

People get their knickers in a twist because of the whole trans thing but, in this case, that’s irrelevant. The OP is referring to someone whose sex is unknown, therefore ‘they’ is perfectly acceptable.

It’s not attention seeking to say them/they.

It is attention seeking to try and police people saying it or baby, which are very common words to use.

Even getting bloody judged for when she posted, how dare they* post in the middle of the night!

*She for the batshit pronoun police if you prefer

Do you also hate the use of “googling”?

I had a whole comment typed out, looked up and read the last comment and this is exactly what I was saying! 😅 I used a mix of baby and they because only using "baby" doesn't flow when having a conversation!

and we will get a post when they/them are born and you will have decided to call baby they/them and let they/them decide when they/them are older what sex/gendar they/them want to be.

i understanding not wanting to call baby 'it'.. but you could pick a nickname.. i think you are doing this intentially, and i wonder if you are disappointed in their sex/gendar and are holding on to your bubble as long as possible

Ah yes. You're right. Duh!

@Irish24 I am starting to wonder if people think you are actually saying "they/ them" together rather than just using one of the words in the correct sentence.
Maybe that's why people are saying it's attention seeking/ sounds ridiculous.

They think that you are saying

"Wow, this baby is giving me grief today. They/them keep kicking right on my bladder."

Rather than

"Wow, this baby is giving me grief today. They keep kicking right on my bladder."

That's the only explanation I can think of for the outrage. 🤷🏻‍♀️