Pronouns she/they - what does that mean?

[MagpiePi]

A woman at work has she/they has her email pronouns. It doesn't even work grammatically as 'she' and 'they' are both 3rd person pronouns.
Not sure what she is trying to express, other than being tiresomely right-on, or have I missed something?

I also can’t see any value in she/they… I just cannot fathom what purpose it serves.

I’ve said this before on threads, but if it was a social pressure, or pressure from employers to include pronouns… I would say I’m in inner turmoil about my identify and they are forcing me to out myself before I’m ready. I feel very marginalised 🙄🙄🤦‍♀️

Me too.

There is a set expectation on usage including which one to start with.

No, I don't think saying "it's ok if you call me they" is necessarily saying that.

@moderate I would actually prefer it if English didn’t have gendered pronouns, and the singular “they” seems like the most probable route to this.

I think there's an argument for the use of sexed pronouns, but that's for another time. Using 'they' as a singular pronoun is, however, an unequivocally bad idea. It is genuinely confusing.

I read a novel set in an imagined future world where that was exactly what happened and it was really difficult to follow because the plural pronouns made it difficult to know which character was being referred to. It was very much a speculative novel - an attempt to explore the consequences of studiously ignoring sex in public life, censoring certain expressions of religious belief - but I found it infuriating, because I disagreed with so much of the speculation - about historical processes, intelligence, psychology, sex, gender, technology etc. and the religious stuff simply irritated me. I just about made it to the end of vol. 1, but gave my copy away and didn't attempt the rest of the trilogy. I think it has a bit of a cult following.

There's enough ambiguity in English already without replacing sex-based pronouns with sex-neutral pronouns.

And I wish we could still say "one" instead of "you" without sounding ridiculous. Some social commentators can pull it off, but most of us can't.

Oh god, all these rules us mere mortals are supposed to learn!

I think this is true for a lot of women. They/Mx is the new Ms.

I just take issue with how irrelevant sex is really. But thats only because ive been thinking about it a lot in the last 10 years. If i were 20 now, id probably think differently.

In a lot of situations, I think there is a difference between not being prepared if someone is female or male.

I wouldn't worry about it...you would never refer to somebody in the third person in front of the ( very rude I think)

This just isn't true. I hear it a lot in these debates but in reality it's impossible to avoid using 3rd person pronouns in front of someone if you work with them a lot and there's more than the two of you.

"Hi new joiner, let me introduce Jane, she'll be working with you on X"
"I'm sure you'll all join me in thanking Greg for his work on Y"
"I agree with Anna's point when she said Z"

None of these examples is rude, they're just ordinary workplace interactions in a conversation with 3+ people.

When I work with a female she/they (quite a few of those at my workplace) I just ignore it and use she. As does pretty much everyone.

She’s not fussed if she’s called she, and she’s never specified to me or our other friends what we call her, let alone insist. I only know because she sent me her CV to look over and I noticed it on there and I’ve literally known her all my life so it’s definitely not a big deal, just a political preference. I don’t think she’d expect anyone to expend any energy or effort on it whatsoever.

I can’t see that it’s much different from me telling people I’m a Ms, not miss or Mrs.

ETA I agree that some people use it as a weapon to chastise others and demand other people centre them and their preferences at al times but the conversation I had with this friend made me see that it isn’t always narcissistic and burdensome to others

No, no pressure on anyone to put pronouns in their emails.
Thankfully, the company I work for has got rid of most of the gender identity crap, and all the DEI material refers primarily to the standard EA2010 protected characteristics. There is an alphabet version of the logo which sadly is the progressive pride flag colours rather than being the proper LGB rainbow, but it is personal choice whether to use it.

It means she is really very special. Not like us other ladies with candy floss for brains.

And I wish we could still say "one" instead of "you" without sounding ridiculous. Some social commentators can pull it off, but most of us can't.

I'm all for this! Far better than "you - not actually you but general you"

@EweSurname There are very few contexts in which one's marital status is relevant and they occur infrequently. The same is not true of sex.

Still makes no sense. If everyone uses the same neutral pronoun then they're obselete de facto. If she doesn't want sex to be a factor then she shouldn't use a sex signifying pronoun at all - just don't have any.

Singular “they” is confusing to us because we’re not accustomed to it (and where we do use it, it’s no problem: “would the owner of the car with registration number AB75 CDE please move their vehicle”).

Singular “you” is confusing to me but French people manage fine not only distinguishing it from plural but also between formal and informal. It’s all a matter of what one is used to.

"They" & "them" were plurals when I was at school.
If "he" and "she" are wrong, how about "it" ?

Perhaps one day pronoun specifications might indicate “sex/gender”, i.e. “she/they” would mean “I am female but if you wish to use pronouns to indicate gender rather than sex, then in such contexts I would prefer to be referred to neutrally”.

Unfortunately we are further away from this brave new world than we were in the 1970s.

“It” is really more faithful to the intent of “non-binary” individuals, being the pronoun for lack of sex rather than unknown sex.

I wouldn’t choose to go by she/they, especially as it adds murkiness to the sex/gender identity hoopla but I don’t think it’s true that having a neutral pronoun would
make pronouns obsolete. Wouldnt it be used in the same way ie in place of names so you aren’t forever saying “Ken says Ken’s cake will be ready and Ken will bring it around after Ken has finished work”, when you don’t know the specific people you’re talking about etc

There are languages without gendered pronouns and they work just fine. And it doesn’t seem to affect or be affected by wider social mores: Turkish society is more sexist than our own, Finnish less so.

Right, but we speak English.

"It" is rather dehumanising though, don't you think?

Right, and English would work just fine without gendered pronouns too.

Pretending not to have a sex is rather self-dehumanising.

True!