I just hugely enjoyed, for all of its faults, another glorious Eurovision final - it's the highlight of the TV year for my family.
However, I couldn't help noticing in the TV commentary that Graham Norton - himself obviously no stranger to the 'LGBT community' - automatically used sex-based pronouns for the two 'non-binary-identifying' finalists who both make it known that they prefer to use 'they' - in English, at least (I presume that Nemo must have seen the obvious drawback in German, where the same word 'sie' is used for 'she' and for 'they', with the context sometimes only being clear from the correct use of the singular or plural form of the verb).
Once, Graham referred to Bambie Thug as 'she' (but other times used 'they'); and I counted at least three times when he referred to Nemo as 'he', in the midst of all the other uses of 'they'. This included Graham's loud exclamation at the end that "HE'S DONE IT!", which you would normally expect the BBC news afterwards to automatically replay as the defining moment when reporting on the victory. Oddly enough, this moment was notable in its absence, which seemed rather strange.
Unless I'm very much misinformed, all of the other 23 singers in the final use sex-based pronouns, in accordance with biology, and Graham never once failed to use these correct pronouns for the other 92% of performers - even if the potential effects of alcohol consumption are taken into account. Interestingly, he also never accidentally called Bambie 'he' or Nemo 'she'.
My main point in highlighting this is that being expected to refer to a single known individual as 'they' is most obviously not something that comes naturally to most of us, and thus, even if we do willingly (or feel forced to) comply, it presents a real barrier to our normal use of language, as we have to remember to stop and think every time what needs to be changed when dealing with particular people. I'm sure not one of us has ever had to stop and remember to refer to our mum as 'she' or our brother as 'he'.
It feels to me like a round on Richard Osman's House of Games - where the object is to think hard whilst playing and not to forget that every correct number in an answer first has to be doubled or every 'E' has to be changed to an 'O' or whatever. The whole idea of these games is that they're deliberately designed to catch you out if you aren't on high alert at all times. Fun for a half-hour light-hearted brain-teaser, but extremely tiresome to have to follow 24/7 in real life.
If humans being 'non-binary' - and thus 'they' - is indeed, as we are told, a perfectly natural state of affairs, why do our brains have to be temporarily re-wired and constantly on edge every single time we have to address or talk about somebody who demands to be referred to as 'they'? Why must we walk on eggshells and deliberately deny the common-sense reality in language that our brains automatically go to?
How come one person can dictate to countless others that they are not allowed to fully use the natural fluency that they have long had in their own (mutual) native language in order to validate somebody else's (minority) personal beliefs - and in so doing confirm that they must necessarily share these beliefs and are therefore not allowed to hold different ones themselves? It's widely viewed as bigotry/nastiness/phobia not to call a self-proclaimed 'NB' person 'they' - but however much you try to deny it, it simply is not ever instinctive or natural to the vast majority (if not all) of us.