Gov. Sanders cites an example from a Department of Health memo and claims other uses of what she calls “nonsense terms” have been reported to her office.
Excellent. The sooner this stupidity ends, the better. You’re not a “they.” You’re a man or a woman and if you struggle to accept your body then you should see a therapist.
Examples of the singular "they" being used to describe someone features as early as 1386 in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales and also in famous literary works like Shakespeare's Hamlet in 1599.
"They" and "them" were still being used by literary authors to describe people in the 17th Century too - including by Jane Austin in her 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice.
Did you notice that you have no problem using the gender-neutral pronoun "you" in this comment?
It's almost like this isn't something you actually care about, but just see as something to justify irrational hatred of people. That's kinda weird, lady.
Trans and nonbinary people have existed for as long as humanity has. Your perception of this "stupidity" as new is the result of people finally overcoming hundreds of years of religious programming; bigotry that has been passed down for generations as superstitious fear anyone presenting in an unfamiliar way, and people are now more willing to express themselves as they actually feel, rather than as they feel they must in order to protect themselves.
Here's a short piece of a lecture by a Stanford professor explaining how wrong you are. https://youtu.be/8QScpDGqwsQ
I don’t know what your gender is a a comment or, so I’m very happy to refer to you in a gender neutral way, as should be.
As an ex journalist I’ve been using a gender neutral ‘they’ to refer to hypothetical people eg: ‘the applicant should attach their passport photo’ since the 1980s. It better than the ugly ‘his/her’.
Keep in mind that yes, some non-binary people or trans folk do go to see a therapist - and the result is they come out being happy as non-binary or trans.
Really, this isn’t the most important thing in the world. It’s just courteous to refer to people im the way that they like to be referred. Courtesy is good, yes?
Because they’re totally different uses of gender-neutral language
OK, let's go with that. Can you please help me understand what problem is created for you by someone being non-binary and wishing to be referred to as they?
I understand that problem #1 is you are being asked to be respectful to someone you disagree with, but if we can get past that...?
(You are of course, welcome to think whatever you want. I'd be in big trouble every time I was behind someone with a Trump sticker on their car if this wasn't the case.)
No problem that merits legislating against it (looks at title of OP) and certainly no problem that merits it being such a focus of the right-wing culture wars.
No problem if you don't feel like being rightfully labeled a bigot is a problem.
I say as I've said repeatedly - no problem you or anyone else has is caused by someone wanting to be called they. The only problem that exists is the inability of the right to live and let live. (As is true of many other topics.)
Bro this and that has literally nothing to do with each other. "They" has been used for when you don't know the person's gender since the 15th century.
America is probably the most “gender-neutral” obsessed country in the entire globe
No it isn't. It only appears that way to you because you're biased and can't recognize it's the nation with the biggest movement for trans recognition. Of course that movement is also going to result in the largest criticism.