My neurodiverse child uses 'they' pronouns for everyone

[Justrelax]

I just wanted to share this because I think it's interesting. My son is 16, autistic and very bright. We've noticed a really interesting phenomenon with him that he very often uses 'they' when he's talking about friends, especially new friends that he doesn't know that well. He uses 'they' really naturally (whereas I find it almost impossible to use if I know the sex of someone). He'll come home and say 'I saw Alice again today. They've got a new skateboard. They got the bus to the shop at the weekend and then they went to the park to have a go on their new board. I wish I'd seen them!' We've even started pointing it out to my son and teasing him about it and he just gets mildly irritated like it's irrelevant. It's nothing to do with gender ideology - the people involved never identify as trans or non binary and my son is not into gender at all. He doesn't believe people can change sex and just thinks it's all stupid - he's far from a tactful child, tbh! It happens very frequently though. I don't really have a point I just think it's interesting that autism is so over-represented in the trans community and that even my kid who is not interested in gender has some kind of brain quirk that's not quite computing gender in a normal way somehow.

It's far more common than people think.

I use they alot when discussing my partner when it doesn't feel right to disclose that we are a same sex couple. Some people immediately use they, but I surprising amount must auto correct they to he because are confident that I'm married to a man! I genuinely think people hear gendered pronouns when they recall the conversation, and that they isn't as jarring as people would have you believe

It always annoys me when people use that they doesnt make sense or is always plural as a starting argument when discussing pronouns because it genuinely happens pretty commonly

There was a woman on here who said both she, her husband, and both their children were autistic and they all mixed up pronouns, all the time.

So it's clearly a phenomenon,

On the other hand, it's become second nature for me to write they instead of he or she, because of all the censorship on here.

So it probably is something that people do more often. I wouldn't call it evolving particularly, rather than in need to avoid censure.

A friend of mine often uses she or her when talking about my son. Her first language is one without gendered pronouns and she only has daughters so I think she’s just used to using she/her for children. I never correct her obviously, it doesn’t bother me at all, I do find it linguistically interesting!

I find myself doing this too. Even older women that have been she all their life. I think it will be happeningva lot and will just be a natural change in language

I just don’t think this necessarily relates at all to either neurodiversity or gender issues. It’s just a really common everyday way of using grammar and it’s also regional, really common in some areas and not in others. ‘Oh I saw Mike the other day and they said that they were much better now’ - that’s a sentence my husband’s 75 year old mum from South Wales would use without a second thought.

My ds is autistic and can’t compute “they” used as a singular pronoun. He avoids pronouns altogether and will use the proper noun or not speak at all.

You’ve seen it’s now quite common don’t tease them for it. That would be unkind.

ASD son does this “because it’s easiest”.

When people use they in MN posts I’m always distracted by wondering if the person they’re talking about is nonbinary, or if they actually mean more than one person and I’ve misread it.

Then they’ll often slip up once or twice & put she or he.

See this is exactly the kind of overthinking and over-interpretation I’m thinking of. Using ‘they’ like this absolutely does not indicate any of these things, it’s a regionally common grammatical construction

I’ve seen this referred to on here before and remember it myself - during the April Jones investigation, there was some initial confusion in the press about the potential number of people in the van April got into, as the children who saw her get in referred to ‘they’ - ‘she got in the van with them’ ‘they said for her to get in’ or whatever. Of course they were referring to the single perpetrator. Normal spoken use in that area.

Language disorders are very common in the autistic community. Typically problems with pronouns and past and future tense. They’re usually firmly seated as a language deficit not as a “difference in the brain”. I’d be very interested to read the research and just what sort of “difference” they were suggesting.

Language use constantly evolves. It is natural to want to describe reasons but resist.

I hate the ideas suggested in this post. The hijacking of autism and promotion of these ideas to further the cause of “gender ideology” is vile

I'm autistic and I'm surprised at how many people in this thread are familiar with others using "they" (singular) in speech when they know the person's sex! It sounds very awkward to me. I've never had any difficulty using the correct pronoun but I was always a spelling and grammar fan. I find it impossible to use a person's preferred pronoun if it differs from the correct one.

I know someone with a business who frequently reposts his customers on Instagram, always using "they" to describe them. Many of them have their pronouns in their bios, often "he" or "she", so it just seems pathetically hypocritical to ignore their chosen pronouns so that he can virtue signal.

My autistic child finds “they” singular completely confusing and really struggles to understand what’s said. It is a barrier rather than a positive. I find it clumsy and unnecessary but tend to just say things how I want to and ignore.

Once again - it’s very normal speech. No biggie.

If I'm relating anecdotes on here about people I know in 'real life' I always describe them as 'they' and their oh as 'spouse' or 'partner' to increase the chances of all of us remaining anonymous. By describing their sex I would immediately half the suspect pool. I use it in the old sense of 'person whose sex I do not know' - or in this case 'do not intend you to know' - rather than in any sense that they are 'non-binary' whatever that is supposed to be.

Likewise I tend to say 'someone I know' rather than 'next door neighbour' 'old college chum' or 'first cousin once removed'.

Perhaps not relevant to OP’s son’s particular linguistic quirk but I suspect using ‘they’ for everyone is becoming more common due to widespread social media use?

eg if I have Instagram alerts turned on my phone spends all day telling me that Mary has added to their story or Peter has updated their profile* (regardless of whether Mary and Peter use the pronoun in bio feature or not).
If you read an M/F coded name and a they pronoun multiple times a day it will seep into your daily use eventually.

*not exact quotes of instagram notification phrases because I turned them off a while back, due to this insufferable phenomenon. Why ask for sex/gender/pronouns in settings and then call everyone ‘they’ anyway?

I hope this doesn't come across as rude as I'm genuinely interested and want to know but - did you use AI to write this reply? It reads like a Chat GPT response to me.

Sounds like standard low level communication difficulty common to neuro-divergent people. It's not a difficulty computing gender or sex, it's a difficulty getting the specific words out! Using "they" for everyone is a work-around.

I know middle-aged people with dyslexia who are red-hot on what sex people are, but who use "he" for everyone. It's part of the dyslexia.

My ND child (now adult) started using "they" for everyone at about 12 years old, after getting in trouble in school for persistently calling a boy with a feminine appearance and a gender-neutral name "she/her". The odd thing was that my DC didn't know he was doing it - we had a whole conversation where DC referrred to the other child as she/her and then when I asked if this was a boy or a girl DC looked at me as if I was mad and spat "a BOY of course".

I find "they" very difficult because (added to other ND communication issues) it's often impossible to figure out when DC is talking about an individual person or the whole group.

My DC had no interest in transition or being anything but a boy despite having another friend in secondary school who was gender questioning and on "watch and wait" and then desisted ... until well after DC reached university. DC is now on cross-sex hormones.

So I can't draw any simple conclusions.

I'm amazed and so interested that this is way way more common than I thought. I have never heard anyone else do this so I assumed it was related to his neurodiversity but maybe not.

I do know that he is definitely not doing it to try to be kind or inclusive as he doesn't believe in gender ideology and although he's got a good heart, he's very internally focused and just wouldn't think about talking in a way that would be inclusive or gender neutral or anything like that. It's clearly just what comes naturally to him.

Whereas for me I find it extremely jarring and difficult to try to refer to someone as either the opposite sex or as if I don't know their sex with they/them.

My son is autistic and has learning disabilities and often gets pronouns mixed up, or calls people "it" instead of he or she. I don't think he uses they/them though.

He also has trouble with you/I/we/me as well, so often talks about "you did something" when he means he did it. Obviously I know his speech patterns well enough to know what he's talking about but other people get confused.

I'm also autistic and I just can't lie about someone's sex. So I generally say nothing, or use they/them if I have to. I won't call a man she/her or woman he/him. Just can't do it.