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In the New Yorker...

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Jeff Wrangler:

--- Quote from: serious crayons on March 04, 2018, 06:11:33 pm ---But changing language (especially a pronoun!) is neither inherently better nor worse. After all, you have to change words all the time when you go from one country to the next -- even between regions or communities or professions in the same country. Language is not set in stone, there's no intrinsic moral superiority to one set of rules versus the other. The English language could easily have evolved to use "they" or "it" instead of "he" centuries ago and you probably wouldn't wishing it would become gender-specific because that's "better." The reason male pronouns became "standard" (though frankly they look extremely dated at this point, in almost any context) is because sexism has existed as long as the English language has.
--- End quote ---

Well, then, why don't we go with it? It's gender neutral as well as singular.

I can just imagine how mightily offended an individual who wants to be referred to in the plural would be to be referred to as it.


--- Quote ---In this case "they" serves a useful function and merely echoes a change the language has already undergone in most people's speech. When someone is talking, they usually say "they."  :laugh: ;D
--- End quote ---

Yes, they do, but it still isn't standard English.


--- Quote ---I probably missed yours. I didn't understand why you were listing that jumble of things, some of which didn't seem to have anything to do with doctors.
--- End quote ---

I don't see what was jumbled.


--- Quote ---Why in the future as opposed to now?
--- End quote ---

Indeed, why not? But my perspective is from working in an organization involved with training future physicians. Current physicians have to shift for themselves.


--- Quote ---Also, I have been treated by countless physicians who had no idea whether I was bisexual or asexual or gay. Why would they need to? On the other hand, whether the patient is transgender is hugely important in treating some conditions.
--- End quote ---

That's it right there. It might be relevant to the condition or it's treatment.


--- Quote ---Well, I guess the one area I can think of where it would matter is in bedside manner. Like, a doctor shouldn't automatically assume that if a patient is married, their  ;) spouse is of the opposite sex.
--- End quote ---

That's exactly the point.


--- Quote ---BTW, according to GLAAD, transsexual is the old-fashioned term for transgender and is usually considered dated. But sometimes people use it to distinguish people who've had gender-transition surgery.
--- End quote ---

Yes. And that distinction is still relevant in medicine. Gender is a social construct. A physician might have to treat a patient who self-identifies as a woman and lives and dresses as a woman and uses a female name, but has not had sex-reassignment surgery. And this can make a difference in diagnosis and treatment.

serious crayons:

--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on March 04, 2018, 09:17:32 pm ---Well, then, why don't we go with it? It's gender neutral as well as singular.
--- End quote ---

Because, as I believe I've said in every post on this topic so far, people don't use that and it would sound weird and unnatural. People already do use they, and while you might notice it in writing I bet you don't always notice it when someone's speaking.


--- Quote ---Well, then, why don't we go with it? It's gender neutral as well as singular.
--- End quote ---

OK, first of all, maybe we're talking about two different things. I admitted at the outset that I hadn't read the article that sparked this conversation. So is he talking about "they" to refer to people who don't identify with one gender or another? Or is he talking about using "they" in reference to an unspecified person, like "your doctor" or "a student"?

I thought it was the latter. But I'm in favor of the former, too, and so is the AP. I'm in favor of calling people whatever they want to be called.


--- Quote ---I can just imagine how mightily offended an individual who wants to be referred to in the plural would be to be referred to as it.
--- End quote ---

Of course they'd be offended. That's why we don't do that. (Side note: I'm less in favor of newly coined pronouns, but whatever. I guess we can get used to those, too. After all, nobody thinks twice about "Ms" now, and when it was introduced everybody thought it was too weird to use.)

But why are you even asking this? I'm saying that if English had developed with a gender-neutral singular pronoun we wouldn't be having this conversation. It might have been "it," it might have been "poop" -- it could have been anything. If English speakers had been using it for centuries or millennia nobody would mind a bit.


--- Quote ---Yes, they do, but it still isn't standard English.
--- End quote ---

But, as I keep saying, standard English changes, and you're looking at it happening now. Don't you ever read those articles every year about the news words the dictionary is including, often because people already use them? You still haven't weighed in with your feelings about the switch from thee and thy to you and your. Do you still call developmentally challenged people morons, as was once an official scientific term as well as standard English?


--- Quote ---I don't see what was jumbled.
--- End quote ---

You mixed terms involving gender identity with terms involving sexual orientation, which are completely different things (despite being lumped together as "sexual minorities" or as members of the LGBTQ community -- both situations having more to do with politics than biology).

Gender identity would be crucially important in a medical setting. Sexual orientation would be almost a non-issue. That's why I was confused by the mix of terms. I cannot thing of any exchange I've ever had with any doctor anywhere when my sexual orientation was relevant or mentioned. Yes, doctors should be told not to make assumptions and say, "So how's the wife?" as small talk. But explaining that issue is not complicated. Gender identity is.


--- Quote ---Yes. And that distinction is still relevant in medicine. Gender is a social construct. A physician might have to treat a patient who self-identifies as a woman and lives and dresses as a woman and uses a female name, but has not had sex-reassignment surgery. And this can make a difference in diagnosis and treatment.
--- End quote ---

Gender is a social construct??  ???  I think a lot of things are social constructs, but gender isn't one of them, IMO.

As for the rest of the paragraph, obviously gender identity is relevant. It's relevant whether the person has had sex-reassignment surgery or not. Biological men and women have different health issues and needs. Even if they've had surgery, many of those needs would be related to their pre-surgical bodies. And if they haven't had surgery, hormone treatments would also be a factor in their health.

Jeff Wrangler:

--- Quote from: serious crayons on March 05, 2018, 11:23:31 am ---Gender is a social construct??  ???  I think a lot of things are social constructs, but gender isn't one of them, IMO.
--- End quote ---

Perhaps I should have said cultural rather than social. Chalk that up to my word-finding difficulty.

serious crayons:

--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on March 05, 2018, 12:12:48 pm ---Perhaps I should have said cultural rather than social. Chalk that up to my word-finding difficulty.
--- End quote ---

That's fine. You got your point across. I still disagree, though, unless I'm missing some larger meaning. Are you saying the differences between men and women (not the biological differences, but everything else) are entirely due to cultural influence? That in a different culture, men and women might just as easily behave like their opposite genders in this one? That transgender people don't have any deep identification with the gender that differs from their biological form -- they just like how it is performed in their culture?

 ???

I mean, if you're saying culture influences the way men and women behave, I'm totally with you. I agree with that and write about it.

But if you're saying all gender differences are entirely created by culture, I'd have to bail. What makes you say that?

serious crayons:
I finally got around to reading the Jordan Peterson article. At first I just skimmed because I couldn't see what was interesting enough about the guy to warrant 4 1/2 pages. He's conservative. And Canadian. And apparently rigid and outspoken. OK. So? But then I saw that his book is an international blockbuster and he's one of the most influential public intellectuals in the English-speaking world. So I decided I'd better know a bit more about him.

So I see that one of his issues is pronouns for nonbinary people (he doesn't get into the plural pronouns for indeterminate individuals, like "your doctor," we were discussing above). But oddly enough, I find he sounds a bit less conservative on that issue than you are, Jeff.


--- Quote ---One of his foundational beliefs is that cultures evolve, which suggests that nonstandard pronouns could become standard. In a debate about gender on Canadian television, in 2016, he tried to find some middle ground. “If our society comes to some sort of consensus over the next while about how we’ll solve the pronoun problem,” he said, “and that becomes part of popular parlance, and it seems to solve the problem properly, without sacrificing the distinction between singular and plural ... I would be willing to reconsider my position."


--- End quote ---

Although he hasn't yet reconsidered his position, his views are actually similar to mine (on this one issue). The difference is, I think our society is partly there already and the rest had better get there quickly. Most people had never heard of nonbinary gender 10 years ago. Now we have and there are lots of people who have come out as non-binary, which presents the problem of pronouns. But luckily there's a relatively easy solution and many people are already doing to refer to non-binary people. And many people had already using plural pronouns in the "your doctor" cases. So it's not a huge leap.

Whereas you sound like you think standard English is standard English, and that's the end of that that. You never did address my thy/your question, but I assume what you consider "standard English" is something like, maybe, AP style in 2016 -- before it changed the pronoun rule.

A guy I work with is the father of a non-binary person who looks to be in their late teens/early 20s. He calls them "them." He has posted photos of them on Facebook and it's hard to tell what biological gender they originally were/are. I kind of think female, but I'm not certain.

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