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’

You need to get out more. Or start drinking. Maybe take up a hobby?

That, and a damning indictment of the declining standards of British education.

And every person angrily saying it's incorrect will use they as a singular pronoun every day, because it is. This thread is astonishing!

I’ve no idea what the first paragraph and says you have no idea or know anything about me. I do not know the gender therefore it’s a surprise for me and my husband because we are happy with whatever gender they will be. If we wanted to know the gender so badly we would have found out. Please don’t try and read my mind and make assumptions

YABVU to object to your baby being refered to as (your/the) baby, unless it's because you prefer foetus.

Don’t tell me what I do and don’t know love. I’m significantly more educated on the use of the English language than you are evidently.

And that’s what this thread is about. You can try and make it about your beliefs around sex and gender all you want but this isn’t an idealogical thread about sex and gender, there’s other boards for that. This is a thread about language and the grammatically correct use of it.

Take your biology lectures elsewhere.

This !

In speech I very naturally refer to someone as they/them when I don't want/need to communicate the person's gender in the conversation, like, 'yes i'm going to help them out with that'. It absolutely is a correct way of speaking about a person, and not confusing at all to anyone with a good grasp of the english language who has the skills to understand words in their context. If I could have a baby I'd be going down your route I think, maybe even keeping it a surprise to myself! My sister was having a girl and told only me, and I of course put my foot in it saying 'she' to our parents... eek! Congrats on the baby :)

Oh you personally know the OP so intimately do you? That you understand their intentions so well. Wow that’s such a coincidence.

Nothing like a gender bait to get mumsnet up in arms

Why would they? THEY!? 😂

This is bat shit crazy (but then again, so are most of the posts on this thread).

OP has said she doesn't know the sex of the baby, so how can she be disappointed?

"They" is a perfectly appropriate singular pronoun when the sex of the subject is not known, and far predates the use by people who identify as non binary.

For those advocating for "it", that's rising in popularity as a "neo pronoun" for some people who identify as non binary, so your argument is void.

@Irish24 Genuinely now, why do you keep saying 'gender' when you mean sex?

It is normal though.

Some sections of society may like to think it's for their use only, but its a recent phenomenon.

Clearly you are not "significantly more educated on the use of the English language" than I, or else you would know that saying 'gender' is grammatically INCORRECT, "love".

"When the baby is born, I'll take him or her to see his or her aunt in Devon - she'll be made up to meet him or her!"

Vs

"When the baby is born, I'll take them to see their aunt in Devon - she'll be made up to meet them!"

Genuinely. If you look up in the dictionary, they both have the same meaning

this...

It’s not grammatically incorrect at all, you may well feel that socially it’s incorrect, you may well feel that it’s morally incorrect, you may well feel that it’s philosophically incorrect, you way well feel that it’s biologically incorrect.

It is not grammatically incorrect.

If someone referred to their unborn baby as 'them' my first thought would be that they were a TWAW type of the sort who shout 'Just let them pee' when the debate about men in women's loos comes up.
I don't have any other objection to it though; it's perfectly logical and comprehensible. And I loathe the use of 'baby' without a preceding article – it's so twee – so for me it's definitely better than that.

It has always been used as a singular pronoun where the sex of the person is unknown. You just haven’t noticed it because people weren’t making an issue about it before.

It's the sex of the baby you're keeping secret, not 'gender'. You say they/them are just words, well so are 'baby' and 'it' just words.

'They' is plural, not singular, and the only time (until the last few years when gender identity idiocy became a thing) it was used for an individual was when the person was unknown, it wasn't used for those we know. I had babies before disclosing of the sex was possible, I have no idea what I said: probably 'it'.

By all means continue to refer to your child in this way but you must accept that others might find it odd or confusing. If I heard it, I'd probably think you were having twins.

How about 'he or she' when referring to the baby if you want to avoid it. That what anyone I know said when they didn't know the sex, including me. It's really not a big deal, no one cares really.

The use of they can be confusing unless you clarify it's a single. I used they/them on my second pg because it was twins and I didn't know the sex. If everyone was saying that as a reference to a single it wouldn't make much sense with multiples

All that said you're having a baby and should be looking forward to your new life and not nitpicking over such trivial stuff.

KrisA,yes, sorry about that, the phone altered my wording! Virginia Wolfe of course was the epitome of gender fluid,so I wouldn't tend to put any score by what "they" said 🤭.

And OP:

"What do we mean by sex and gender? Aren't these terms interchangeable? They are not, and this is why.

The committee advised that scientists use these definitions in the following ways:

• In the study of human subjects, the term sex should be used as a classification, generally as male or female, according to the reproductive organs and functions that derive from the chromosomal complement [generally XX for female and XY for male].
• In the study of human subjects, the term gender should be used to refer to a person's self-representation as male or female, or how that person is responded to by social institutions on the basis of the individual's gender presentation.

"

https://medicine.yale.edu/news-article/what-do-we-mean-by-sex-and-gender/

Saying gender instead of sex is not just grammatically, but is scientifically, incorrect.