Help me understand They/Them

[Kopatropa]

If you identify as They/Them, I'd like to know why. The whole concept of non-binary and such is still a bit blurry to me and people were getting angry on Pronouns Day on the 16th because of the anti-LGBT and their "There are only two genders" claim, assumptions, etc.

So how does this sort of identification work? What conspires it?

 

[Stray Cat Terry]

As long as Terry's got the right info...

Biologically, and typically(I don't use the term 'normally' here), everyone is born as either 'he' or 'she'. But: 1) special occasions happen, and if it's too hard to specify oneself as any of the two typical gender, one may use 'they' as one's pronoun. Or 2) regardless of one's biological gender, one can have confusion on one's gender(which is totally fine unlike the typical public say), one may also use the pronoun 'them' to express oneself.

 

[Kopatropa]

As long as Terry's got the right info...

Biologically, and typically(I don't use the term 'normally' here), everyone is born as either 'he' or 'she'. But: 1) special occasions happen, and if it's too hard to specify oneself as any of the two typical gender, one may use 'they' as one's pronoun. Or 2) regardless of one's biological gender, one can have confusion on one's gender(which is totally fine unlike the typical public say), one may also use the pronoun 'them' to express oneself.

I'm not sure I understand your second point. And why the avoidance of 'normally'?

 

[Peach's]

Do you understand Bisexuality? There are homosexuals and heterosexuals, bisexuals lie in the middle somewhere.

Ok, if you got that, well, there are also transgender people and cisgender people (not transgender), non-binary people lie somewhere in the middle.

Non-binary people are the bisexuals of gender.

 

[TrishaCat]

They/them is used by people who are unsure of their own gender typically, opting to use them as they/them has a very neutral gender usage.
Its also used by people who might be gender fluid, or basically feel like a girl one day and a boy another. Or, perhaps its a rejection of gender altogether, that one feels like "male" nor "female" really represents their feelings or how they want to express themselves. Its things like that.

The concept of gender is a bit weird to me and I don't entirely understand it, but basically some people might "feel" differently from their biological sex and thus express themselves differently.

 

[Fallowfox]

In British English the singular use of 'they' has been around for hundreds of years, so its specific use as a non-binary pronoun in the US is much less a novelty.
So if you're speaking to a British person and they use this pronoun it doesn't tell you that the subject is non-binary. It simply gives you no information at all about their sex or gender.

Anyway, some people prefer 'they' to 'he' or 'she' because they may
-be born inter-sex (Intersex - Wikipedia )
-have been born a male or female, but feel as though they are somewhere between, or that their identity is fluid.
-be in the process of transitioning from one gender to another and find an ambiguous pronoun easier to identify with during that process.

The British comedian Eddie Izzard, the British Artist Grayson Perry and Austrian Singer Thomas Neuwirth are probably good examples of people who don't always fit neatly into one gender or another, and which might find themselves being described as androgynous or non-binary.

Eddie Izzard - Wikipedia

 

[The Grey]

Interesting, I can only speak from personal experience here.

I tend to refer to myself as they because the neutrality of the term is quite helpful. I'm trans but I'm early in the stages of transitioning and if anyone on the street saw me they'd assume I was male. When I look in the mirror I don't see a man in anything more than an inescapably biological sense, but as I haven't begun hrt and currently lack the means, and perhaps the courage, to present as female/feminine in public I don't feel I've yet earned the right to refer to myself as she in a proper sense. Maybe I never will, so the ambiguity of they allows me to acknowledge where I feel I currently fit in regards to my sense of self.

It's an entirely subjective way to orient your sense of self when faced with transgender realities, in essence.

 

[Telnac]

As @Fallowfox pointed out, it's because English doesn’t have a good gender neutral pronoun and calling yourself an "it" implies that you're not a person so "they" is the closest thing to an acceptable gender neutral pronoun you'll find, even though it's ambiguous as to whether you're referring to a singular or plural "they" so you have to be careful to give the proper context.

Though I disagree with the strangeness in the US. I've been using "they/them" to refer to a person who's gender I'm unsure of for my entire life.

"Ze" has been proposed as a gender neutral pronoun but that hasn't really taken off, partially because of its newness (language generally changes slowly over time) and partially because it's been suggested that we use "Ze" to mean anyone of any gender, rather than exclusively someone who identifies as non-binary.

 

[rekcerW]

This was totally the thing that kind of caught me off-guard when I was growing up. Well, it's inconsiderate to not say him or hers in certain circumstances without giving our appreciation to a topic, and we may be or maybe not be defined by gender or a disassociation to elaborate where we stand from in our own biology. "She was a good ship," that's where our history derives from simple nuances that should be forgotten. On the other side 0f the coin, the Iowa class battleships basically burnt the wax out of the candle to create the world we live in today. They were all she's.

But it remains true, you cannot simply be who the world says you are. That's completely fair, the thing that drives me up the wall, is the fact that we're caught up debating who is more eligible to provide a fucking service to the world in consideration of ethics and morality over fucking applicability and fucking eligibility.

Sorry.

 

[Deleted member 82554]

Wait, there's a day dedicated to pronouns? What idiot made that up?

 

[Stray Cat Terry]

I'm not sure I understand your second point. And why the avoidance of 'normally'?

A1:
For instance, if one is born with 'abnormal' body, one may have ambiguous gender, or no gender at all! So, in this case, it goes along the first point.

A2:
Because, when you say something is 'normal', it has chances to interpret to that anything unlike this is 'abnormal'. This may lead to (unintentional) discrimination in some cases.

Terry hate discrimination! Meow! >:3

 

[Filter]

So if you're speaking to a British person and they use this pronoun it doesn't tell you that the subject is non-binary. It simply gives you no information at all about their sex or gender.

Saying "they" or "them" is also common in the US. It's a bit like saying "person", rather than "man" or "woman". I think most of the confusion comes from using those words in relation to a gender identity. "Person" isn't associated with gender, for instance, so it might seem odd for it to imply non-binary.

That said, if somebody asked me to call them they or them, I would simply refrain from using gender-specific terminology when referring to that person.

 

[quoting_mungo]

I don't personally use they/them for myself, though I identify as non-binary (genderqueer). For me, she/her is fine because I accept "female" as my sex, while I perceive gender on a more spiritual level, for myself. So I can't speak for how/why people might prefer neutral pronouns.

Just want to note that while "spectrum" is often a decent abstraction of gender identity, not all non-binary people will fall "between" male and female, but may rather land somewhere entirely separate from that scale. I wouldn't characterize that as confusion, though; it's simply where someone feels most at home. I spent over thirty years as female-by-default before the mental puzzle pieces fell into place and I accepted that it was okay for me to say "no, I don't feel 'female' adequately describes my experience of gender."

 

[Axel_is_Crafty]

Why do people care about pronouns so much anyway? Does it really matter?

 

[Sugarbomb]

I'm like.. half-way to they/them. I'm not going to run around asking for gender neutral pronouns, but I'm definitely uncomfortable with anyone using the word "man" to define me (not that I've ever said it to anyone).

It's hard to explain. Frankly, I'd prefer nobody use *any* third party pronoun for me, outside of my name, but since that's unwieldy and unnatural, people in my situation that are a little more comfortable with asking others to accommodate their feelings now have a socially acceptable outlet in the form of "they/them".

As for WHY I'd rather not have someone call me by the pronoun that obviously defines me, that's not something I even understand myself, let alone explain to someone else. Maybe I'd rather have been born a female? Maybe I don't have any interest in a romantic relationship and don't understand why others do? I don't know the why, only the whether.

 

[Gift]

I think the English language would be much better off without gendered pronouns anyway. It's just pointless to me. Why can't we do it like the Chinese? One pronoun for all genders/lack of genders.

 

[SwiftDog]

I think people should be grateful English isn't one of those languages like French where every noun has a different gender that results in completely different sentence structures. Like really. It's not a big deal. 1st world problems amiright.