What gendered pronoun would you use if the person you were trying to get the attention of did not consider themselves gender-indeterminate?
Think of it this way: “they” is already the correct English pronoun that you would use if you’re speaking about a singular person whose gender you don’t know.
I saw a tweet awhile back where the poster declared, without a trace.of irony, that they would never refer to someone by a gender-neutral pronoun “no matter what they want to be called”.
I live in Thailand where same-sex marriages have just become legal. LGBTQ people are plentiful, and very tolerated. If someone blunders in conversation, that’s very tolerated also. I doubt it matters much, but 3rd-person Thai-language pronouns express affection or status rather than gender, so that difficulty is avoided! I think some Americans just have anger issues.
Nitpick about OP: (Perhaps this has already been mentioned.) Having XY chromosomes is NOT a sure-fire indication of maleness. Some XY’s develop as females, e.g. Swyer syndrome.
Why do you want to get “their attention” if theres only one of them?
Yup. Just like you got used to “you are” as a singular, back when you were too little to remember.
You only now in 2025 have heard of the gender-neutral singular “they”? It’s only been common English usage for 250 years now. And has been trotted out by troll after troll here for the last 20 years in nearly every thread addressing gender identity in any form. So hundreds, if not thousands of posts. And you’re just now getting this?
Color me amazed. And not in a good way.
Moderating:
You can make your points without intimating that someone is a troll, especially when someone has already indicated a willingness to acclimate to the change. You’re in MPSIMS, not the Pit or even P&E.
Hey Cheesesteak, call for you!
Who is it?
I didn’t ask.
What do they want?
I didn’t ask that, either.
Tell them I’m busy and that I don’t have time for their call.
TBF, it can feel unnatural when you’re with the person because we’re used to automatically applying a gendered pronoun in that situation. But, in a situation where we expect to not know the gender of a person, using they/them/their is perfectly normal.
I work in a virtual call center. I have misgendered a caller twice.
The second time, the caller sounded very female. They gave a male name. I kept reminding myself to call them sir. I slipped up and used ma’am once. They corrected me immediately, loudly and with great emotion.
The firsf time I thought from the voice that the caller was a trans woman. She was. She had not changed her legal name yet. Seeing a male name in the system, I accidentally called her sir. I apologized at once. She said it was no big deal and was polite and pleasant for the rest of the call.
In my experience, the above is generally true. Cis men will be upset and angry if you misgender them. Trans folks and the non binary will politely correct you and then drop it.
Those aren’t actually the same usage. Singular indefinite “they” is an ancient feature of English. Singular definite “they” is much more recent.
But big deal. Language changes. Every generation in every culture in history has complained about the new generation talking differently from them.
Back when the need for a gender-nonspecific third person singular pronoun first started getting widely discussed, I personally preferred the idea of coming up with entirely new words. But language never develops a particular way just because someone says they want it to develop that way. It’s an organic process. And the way it happened to organically develop is that “they” became the gender-nonspecific third person singular pronoun.
Likely true, though I’ve been misgendered my whole life by random junk mailers, phone solicitors, and slightly surprised random office people. It’s because I share a first name with these dudes (being half-Serbian myself) and many Americans seem code that as female. I very, very long ago got used to it and just shrug when someone calls asking for “Ms. so-and-so”.
Hehehe, back when I lacked a bald spot, worked retail and had long dyed black hair people would sometimes walk up behind me and address me as “ma’am”. I found it hilarious, because as soon as they saw my face (square jaw and I should have been shaving twice a day since I was 13 or so) they’d immediately start apologizing.
Pretty sad (but not surprising) that so many Americans have obviously not heard of Nikola Tesla.
Umm, from what I’ve seen, almost all of them that have are conspiracy theory nutjobs.
To quote Homer Simpson on Edison “He was a shameless self promoter!” Edison did invent a few things. Mostly he lied, stole ideas and really knew how to manipulate the press
Before Elon Musk, there was Steve Jobs.
Before Steve Jobs, there was Thomas Edison.
The anti-pigeon bigots of Big Power are preventing the widespread adoption of cheap universal wireless transmission! Prove me wrong!!!
My daughter was engaged to a they-person. I ended up using their name much more often when I talked about them, because it was often unclear as to whether I meant just them or them+my daughter. I was so aware of how confusing it was to start with, but then I got used to it. Like if there are two men you are talking about and you might have to use their names to clarify who you are speaking about.
That situation comes up all the time with “you” and “we”. We’re just used to it for those pronouns.