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’

Haven't RTFT, but back when I was expecting, and didn't want to gender reveal, I invented pronouns:

Squee (he/she/they)
Squig (him/her/them)
Squigs (his/hers/theirs)

You're welcome. 🥰😁
(Edit: spelling)

mother of God

🙄"anti trans", @OneWaryCat ? Or maybe just pro womens rights.

What is "team green", @housethatbuiltme ?

It's hilarious because you have stated multiple incorrect things as facts and said OP is making herself look silly, when infact it's you making yourself look silly. It's embarrassing for you, but funny for us!

You can go along with gender-woo if you like but you just sound silly and that's what most people are going to think. You don't get to re-interpret language. No-one is making it complicated except you. You're a parent now. Wise up.

You clearly have a problem with non gender conforming people which is obvious by using the term gender woo, then show you don't understand how the English language works because them has been appropriate word for a single person since it was invented and put in the dictionary. No one is making it complicated except people who don't understand grammar well or people that have a problem with genderwoo. i hope you're not a parent yet because you have plenty of wising up to do!

Yep. Women's rights have never been more under attack than when it comes to the singular use of they as a pronoun.

In this case, obviously that's not true, but it is connected to the wider issue of large public bodies and companies using terms like 'people who menstruate' and 'birthing parent', and in that kind of context language is hugely important.

At one time baby would referred to as he to distinguish from the mother who at that time was always a she.

YANBU. I'm very, very anti gender nonsense, but lots of posters are simply wrong about this one, I'm afraid. They, them and their have been used for a very, very long time to refer to a person of unknown (not ambiguous) sex. For example 'If your child is going on the school trip, could they please hand in their permission slip asap'. This is totally and utterly normal English usage and seems completely logical when referring to a baby whose sex is as yet unknown.

I can’t believe someone would force their unborn child to be non-binary. 😃🤣🤣

So if you didn't know the sex of say, a new work colleague, you wouldn't say along the lines of 'when they start' or 'they're starting x date', you'd call them it? You would think it meant two people were joining your workforce?

You invented words to replace the already existing perfectly acceptable words that you put in the brackets.

This all makes my head spin

That’s right, it’s set in stone and that’s why new words are never added to the dictionary, words never change meaning, we never had a great vowel shift or two, there’s no dialect, we’ve never borrowed from any other languages, slang doesn’t exist and no one uses emojis or l33t.

I’ve never heard anyone say that ! People say ‘ I can’t wait to see what it will look like; it’s face; hear it’s voice’ etc

Non gender conforming people have always been either he or she. No-one calls David Bowie or Boy George or Annie Lennox a they/them.

And I would never and have never called a baby born or unborn ‘it’. In over 45 years of existence. They works. Has always worked and is grammatically correct.
There is nothing ‘wrong’ with what OP said. Just because you’ve not heard it doesn’t mean it’s incorrect.

People who don’t dress their babies in pink or blue

Sorry that just sounds completely ignorant. No-one talks like that unless they are bonkers.

Lots of people talk like that. Much better than the model that continually avoids pronouns!

Call your baby by a nickname. Something like Peanut is unisex.

They/them has been common usage for this for centuries.

The use of they here has nothing to do with what person does or doesn’t think about gender or indeed sex. It’s a way to refer to a human who you don’t have that information about! It has been for a long time.

I wouldn’t hire someone who wrote all over a thread about something and ignored all proof that on this occasion they were wrong.

I said they with my pregnancies and no one batted an eye. It was before all the hate around trans/non binary was popular. I think people have now forgot it's a pretty common term to replace he/she when you're not sure of gender.

You can't be serious? That's how everyone I know speaks, today and 18 years ago when I was pregnant with DC1.

"I wouldn’t hire someone who wrote all over a thread about something and ignored all proof that on this occasion they were wrong."

Pretty sure your applicant wouldn't actually be called Yesweknow tbf