Ok so i learned about a person coming out as non binary recently and this reminded me of my confusion about (i think they’re called rolling pronouns) she/they and he/they specifically.
I have looked around at some sites speaking to it but none of them have made it clear to me whether use of “her” or “him” instead of “theirs” in the case of someone who wishes for (s)he/they is misgendering.
I had (mis)understood before that (s)he/they meant they were fine with either their gendered pronoun AND the gender free option, but am i way off base? Is the “they” not an option?
Apologies if this is breaking rules or has been answered, i didn’t see anything on the sidebar so here goes nothin…
Asking for someone to swap a word like “she” for a word like “they” is a completely reasonable accommodation because both of those words are the same difficulty. Asking for someone to swap a word like “she” for any of a set of options that is governed by a rule that requires memorization and real-time alternation is not only much more difficult, but is kind of an ableist demand to make of those with speech impediments, cognitive disabilities, and/or non-native English speakers.
i meant that it makes sequential sentences harder to understand when reading or listening. like the occasional singular-plural ambiguity with “they” but much more severe since you’re using multiple different pronouns to refer to the same subject when normally (and unlike they, where we had an informal singular all along), changing pronouns heavily implies changing subject. Someone who feels really strongly about being referred to with rolling pronouns like that should write a book or long poem using several of them that seems like it’s about multiple people but is actually about one. “art” heads would eat that shit up.
also, i’m not so sure that conjugation is the same mental process as word substitution, but that field isn’t my expertise.