Thank you hallouminatus and EyesOpening ! That helps.
GoingThruTheMotions Yes, a dog probably does know that it is male or female, but I don't think any male dog is going to be offended if it hears itself being called "she" and vice versa for female dogs.
GreyhoundG1rl
No. There is zero "sense" relating to insisting your dog should not be referred to as male or female because they don't have a gender identity.
I said IF you think pronouns should represent gender identity- I didn't say I agreed!
Ze seems like a really nice, thoughtful person
Not from what you've said, actually. Imposing that on online friends is the very opposite of "thoughtful".
How often do you have to refer to this person without using the person's actual name (sorry, I refuse to do the ze shite) online anyway?
I'm struggling to imagine.
Sorry, I've probably given the wrong impression. I've never seen the person insist that others use ze/zir pronouns for them, or for their dog. I joined the forum after they did (I think it was years after they joined) and noticed after a while that if anyone talked about the person, they would say "I used Alex's recipe- ze bakes the best cakes" or whatever. I've never seen anyone refer to the person as "he" or "she." This is an online forum like Mumsnet so you can't see the person to have an automatic sense of which pronouns come naturally, the way you would in real life. (Maybe that is how some people get away with emoticon pronouns like the pawprints? I suspect that is very niche and mostly used by teenagers who will grow out of it though.)
The person has recently got a dog and will occasionally talk about "zir" but hasn't revealed its sex, or shared a photo which shows the dog's genitals, so if anyone was going to talk about the dog they could only call it by its name, or say "it," "they," or "ze."
It really doesn't come up very often at all though. Usually if someone is going to talk to or about the person, they just use their name. I haven't seen them in real life to see how they deal with pronouns in person.
When I say they seem like a nice, thoughtful person- the vast majority of what I've seen is them giving (what usually seems like good) advice to friends; making kind, supportive comments when someone has had a bad day; remembering people's birthdays; sharing a photo of a cool object because they know another person's child loves that type of thing; or neutral things like sharing recipes or recommendations for where to find allergy-friendly restaurants etc. I have never seen them directly ask someone to use their preferred pronouns, or say anything rude or aggressive or sarcastic about gender. The topic rarely comes up.
Obviously, like any stranger on the internet, I don't know what sort of person they really are.
But it is interesting to me because I came across them when I was an impressionable teenager, so I have always had the idea that it was ok to use "gender neutral" pronouns. (Yes I see now that all pronouns should be gender neutral; they should refer only to sex.) Also I only had to learn one set, so it seemed much more manageable than it would now with multiple options.
It is only in the last year or so that I have been lurking on Mumsnet that I have started to see the problems with this. (and ok, now looking back I can see where it did cause me problems but I was determined not to see it as I thought it was more important to be kind.)
Recently I have felt a bit annoyed when the cute, innocent dog (and zir collar, zir favourite frisbee etc) has been mentioned because it makes me think of other problems with gender-based pronouns. But others in the group are still very supportive. It makes me wonder how they would react if someone started using "fae" or "treeself" or unpronouncable emoticon pronouns.
*Alex is not the person's name!