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I just applied for a job that included this beautiful pronoun selection question (skipped it). Then further down the page there was another blank field to enter my pronouns (skipped it)!
I kind of want to know what the hell "Fae/Faer" is, but also kind of don't. Is that for people who identify as fairy folk? I can see that giving you an advantage on your job application!
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Can anyone steelman the case for any of the non-standard pronouns? Why hasn't the LGBT community settled on he/she/they, or even just exclusively using they?
Also curious what's the point of including the subject and object forms (e.g. he and him), seems redundant to me, unless someone is combining he/her or she/him? I've heard non-binary folks are doing similar that in languages where both the verbs and pronouns inflect based on gender and there isn't any neuter form (e.g. hebrew)
Because there isn't one single governing body that can make pronouncements like that. Non-standard pronouns have a long history; outside the special case of LGBT, there have been various ones used by SF writers, and before that people trying to invent neuter or neutral pronouns in English. Naturally, if there were sixteen different versions floating around, everyone who wanted those kind of non-standard pronouns picked the one they preferred, and then numbers seventeen to twenty were invented by "No, I don't like any of those".
I dislike singular "they" but at least that is standard English and seems to be becoming widely adopted. The xe/ze/e lot can go stand in a corner, as far as I'm concerned. Pick "they" or be "it" which is the neuter pronoun in English.
‘It’ is not a neuter pronoun, it is inanimate. ‘They’ is neuter, and generally plural, but has been commonly accepted as a referent to ‘unknown’ for centuries(eg, ‘they must have built a fire when they were here, whoever it was’). ‘He’ is also grammatically correct when referring to a generic person(eg, ‘the operator of this machine must follow safety precautions. He should wear steel toed boots.’ Does not imply that women cannot wear steel toed boots and operate this machine), but is often replaced by he/she or (s)he in some contacts. An Englishman from 1600 wouldn’t have much difficulty parsing a singular they, even if he would probably think it ridiculous, but would find the use of it to refer to a person as confusing.
It has been used to refer to animals, which are plenty animate, and as mentioned above, for children. Even if "it" is "inanimate", I'm fine with it being used for the people who can't decide if they're a boy or a girl or both or neither. Okay, you want to pretend you are not living in a body that has a definite sex? Great, let's all refer to you as a thing, so. If you're too special to be an ordinary human, you're too special to be referred to as a human.
I'm inclined to agree with you, just pointing out that using singular they is not actually unprecedented.
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