Dad had his first email with pronouns stated...

[Sittinginthesand]

We’ve never discussed the issues before, he brought it up, it was an email from a charity he does stuff with from a woman he doesn’t know with a clearly female name. In his reply he said that he was interested to read her pronouns and wondered what the form would be for the Queen as she uses the third person, he is imagining we/us 🤣. He is thought it was very silly and knew all about what is happening in Scotland to civil servants. Gave me hope that the more it’s pushed the more people will be aware and push back (or just laugh and puncture the pomposity of it like my 70+ Dad).

Oh and I shall continue to avoid anyone who uses:

himself/herself/themselves

Oh @Sittinginthesand your dad is fabulous. So many people seem to be lacking a sense of humour. I love it!

Twit/twoo

In fact:

You/who?
YouHoo!
YouWhose?

Hours of fun.

There must be a memory game based on this. The type where you have to go around a circle, remember the list of things said already and add one each time. No repetitions.

I read a non binary biog the other day and every two lines I kept on wondering who the other people were and then having to remind myself that 'they' was* just one person.

*Were??

Re verb agreement, I take a strong line that I will use “they” if demanded (let’s be honest, this is always a demand, not some kind of polite request) but I will not change my verb usage. It’s they is or they was from me.

And if that sounds silly to some people then let the gender police start insisting we change our verb agreement too.

My dad is great on all this stuff, too! He's in his seventies. He didn't take any of it seriously at first, but yesterday we were chatting and he told me he'd written an essay called 'Eddie Izzard, you are not a woman' :)

Your Dad rocks!

Is 'us' used as a pronoun? If 'they' can be used then presumably this is fine too? Or does that suddenly make people question the alternate reality you've constructed for yourself rather than go along with it?