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.

I would never ever state a pronoun. Not only because it would draw attention to the fact I am a woman to sexists but for personal safety. For many years my job involved me travelling for business often alone into areas of the world that were dangerous for women. As much as possible I would hide the fact I was female: if bookings for hotels snd airport transfers could be made in the firm name they were, or I used initials only with no Mrs. Although I was single I used Mrs where possible to give the impression I could be travelling with a husband. I often wore a wedding ring. I have a name that is not obviously female if English is your second language which helps. Working internationally I used to face the issue of e mailing people and not always being able to work out whether to address them as Mr or Ms so where I couldn’t work it out from other sources in the days before corporate websites and linked in , would politely ask the question . I never found anyone offended by this, which just used to be thought good manners.