School referring to all pupils as 'they'

[newlife79]

Was just looking at my child's school Twitter feed and noticed that they are referring to all pupils as 'they' rather than he/she. For example, "Katie from Year 7 did well in a Drama competition, they said they really enjoyed taking part".

Is this a new thing? I suppose the person who runs the Twitter feed doesn't want to misgender the child. It seems a bit extreme.

Using ‘they’ obscures sex. I want to know if ‘they’ is a person who should be allowed to work in e.g. a rape crisis centre for vulnerable women. Of course, that doesn’t stop ‘she’ applying for the job and turning out to identify as a woman. That’s a whole other story though ...

Maybe a gender neutral pronoun would be better but I don't think "they" is the answer, it's confusing. The example reads as if the Drama competition organisers said the children taking part enjoyed it, not Katie said she enjoyed it.

@HopeClearwater

Using ‘they’ obscures sex. I want to know if ‘they’ is a person who should be allowed to work in e.g. a rape crisis centre for vulnerable women. Of course, that doesn’t stop ‘she’ applying for the job and turning out to identify as a woman. That’s a whole other story though ...

You want to know that whenever you read about somebody doing well in a drama competition?

@MargaritaPie

Forgive my judgment, but is this really an issue at all?

What was your judgement?

Forgive my judgment, but is this really an issue at all?

Is deciding to impose changes to language use for controversial ideological reasons with which many people do not agree an issue? I'd say so, yes.

Who's imposing anything?

The cis people

And the neo-pronoun people

The uterus-havers people

Bearded wokesters

Who's imposing anything?

Well, lots of people are trying to. And by the looks of the letter in the OP, some schools are deciding to impose gender-neutral pronouns, since I don't suppose they asked the girl whether she'd like to be referred to as 'they' rather than 'she'.

From a grammatical perspective, ‘they’ is a perfectly acceptable gender-neutral pronoun for referring to a single person. It has always been used to refer to a person whose gender is unknown (‘Someone left their umbrella here - they will probably return for it later’). It certainly isn’t illiterate, clunky or confusing.

No, I mean in this particular case, discussed on this thread.

What have the school imposed on anyone?

Have they told children or parents that they're not allowed to refer to people as he or she? No, they haven't.

Free speech is a funny beast. People tend to feel very strongly about it until someone uses it to say something in a way they don't like. And then, perversely, it becomes imperative to stop that person/organisation from exercising their own right to free speech, because their doing so is interpreted as an attempt to ban/limit/impose upon the freedom of others, even when it's nothing of the sort.

This thread is a good example. The suggestion that it's perfectly valid and positive for people to have the option of communicating within the English language with or without specifying gender, as somehow been turned into a perception that armies of beligerent bearded wokesters WANT TO ERASE OUR HONEST BRITISH PRONOUN HEROES FROM THE DICTIONARY, CRIMINALISE ALL SEX-SPECIFIC LANGUAGE, BRING BACK CAPITAL PUNISHMENT FOR OFFENDERS AND BAN YOUR DAUGHTERS FROM INVITING GIRLS TO THEIR BIRTHDAY PARTIES!!!

I understand there's a background to this but in this instance, people seem to be seeing things that just aren't there. So I ask again: What have the school that the OP referred to imposed upon anybody, or stopped anybody from doing?

Somebody behaving differently from yourself is not an imposition on yourself or a directive that you must change. That's a fundamental pillar of western liberalism.

... armies of beligerent bearded wokesters WANT TO ERASE OUR HONEST BRITISH PRONOUN HEROES FROM THE DICTIONARY, CRIMINALISE ALL SEX-SPECIFIC LANGUAGE, BRING BACK CAPITAL PUNISHMENT FOR OFFENDERS AND BAN YOUR DAUGHTERS FROM INVITING GIRLS TO THEIR BIRTHDAY PARTIES!!!...

Who made you hyperbole-officer for the day?

I agree that, as far as we know, the school in question has not sought to force students to use gender neutral pronouns.

I also agree that, in accordance with free speech, an individual is perfectly entitled to use gender neutral pronouns to refer to another individual, whether other people like it or not.

However, as far as I'm concerned, an institution introducing a policy whereby gender neutral pronouns are used is imposing it. So if it has become the school 'house style' in communications of this sort, then the school is imposing the use of it on any member of staff they expect to use it and any member of staff or student to whom they use it to refer. Unless, of course, this was an isolated example of free speech and an individual choice of words freely made by the person who wrote the communication. I doubt it though.

It has always been used to refer to a person whose gender is unknown

It's normally used to refer to a person whose sex is unknown. It seems unlikely that the school doesn't have a record of the sex of each of their pupils.

You can stick your gender neutral pronouns up your arse.

I'm a woman. If you can bear it, just refer to me as 'she'. That would be lovely. If not ... meh, call me what you will. Not a lot I can do about it, is there?

The world has gone absolutely mad!

Can't get wound up about it. It's obviously a template that works for 'insert name' did really well at 'activity' and they really enjoyed it.

No thought required, just insert name and activity, job done...

From a grammatical perspective, ‘they’ is a perfectly acceptable gender-neutral pronoun for referring to a single person. It has always been used to refer to a person whose gender is unknown (‘Someone left their umbrella here - they will probably return for it later’). It certainly isn’t illiterate, clunky or confusing

But isn’t that the point, it works when you don’t know the sex of the individual. If you said ‘Sarah left their umbrella here, they will probably return for it later’ then it sounds odd. I believe it IS correct, but it doesn’t sound right in the second example because our assumption is that Sarah is female, so it sounds clunky (whereas in your example it sounds fine as we don’t know who the person is). I think give it a few decades and ‘they’ will sound perfectly normal though.

It has always been used to refer to a person whose gender is unknown

It has indeed always been used to refer to a person whose sex is unknown. The question is, since when did we start assuming that everyone's sex is unknown? It almost never is unknown when you're referring to an actual specific person, as in the communication in the OP.

And the other question is - why is it apparently unconscionable to call someone 'she', on the basis that there's a very very slim chance that that particular person with a girl's name and physiology might consider themselves male, but it's absolutely fine to decide to call that female person 'they', when it's overwhelmingly likely that their sex matches their name and physiology and you have no earthly reason to assume that they wouldn't wish to be called 'she'? Why is a gender neutral pronoun automatically any less 'wrong' than an opposite gender pronoun, if it is not what the person wishes to be called?

OldCrone
It seems unlikely that the school doesn't have a record of the sex of each of their pupils.

Actually, schools in England are obliged to keep a record of pupils' gender, not their sex. This is what the DfE guidance says:

"We need this data for both on and off roll pupils.

The gender of the pupil in the format of ‘M’ (male) or ‘F’ (female).

Gender should be self-declared and recorded according to the wishes of the parent and / or pupil.

Individuals are free to change the way their gender is recorded. There is no requirement from the department for any legal change or gender recognition certificate and it remains open for the school to amend the gender of any pupil, within their own MIS, at any time."

@lazylinguist

I agree that, as far as we know, the school in question has not sought to force students to use gender neutral pronouns.

I also agree that, in accordance with free speech, an individual is perfectly entitled to use gender neutral pronouns to refer to another individual, whether other people like it or not.

However, as far as I'm concerned, an institution introducing a policy whereby gender neutral pronouns are used is imposing it. So if it has become the school 'house style' in communications of this sort, then the school is imposing the use of it on any member of staff they expect to use it and any member of staff or student to whom they use it to refer. Unless, of course, this was an isolated example of free speech and an individual choice of words freely made by the person who wrote the communication. I doubt it though.

That is a fair point, I'll admit.

However, it's normal or at least common for organisations to have established house styles for how they communicate that override the choices of individuals. We don't know in this case how that style was decided upon, whether it was collaborative or imposed, or how the individual writing the letter felt about it.

I don't think this is necessarily anything to do with awareness of gender identity. I think it's just a template, like the copy-and-paste paragraphs for school reports of "[name] has worked hard in science this term. They built a rocket and explored the properties of metals".