I've been out of school for a couple decades and am wondering what is being taught now. Are "they" and "them" in place of "she" for a person identifying as neither male or female currently correct English?
The Nikki Hiltz thread got me thinking about this. Is she requesting that announcers identify her as a they/them? How does that work?
Most people I know across all age groups are pretty friendly and accommodating but scoff any time this pronoun thing is brought up (which is not too often).
Granted I don't know any gender dysphorics but what am I missing here?
Were you a bad English teacher? Good English teachers with a foundation in gramatical theory and literature have always excepted and encouraged singular "they/them." There has been a few weird movements by uninformed people in the mid 20th century to try to claim they/them was ungramatical, but they pretty much failed. Steven Pinker on the topic below
This use of "they", "them" and "their" has a long history of use, even in written English. William Caxton, the first printer in England, writes in 1470, "Each of them should make themself ready"; William Shakespeare prays that "God send everyone their heart's desire." It was only in the 18th century that grammarians labelled "they" as ungrammatical, on the grounds that the pronoun should be singular if it corresponded to a singular noun. (These grammarians were less worried about gender: their solution was to use "he" and pretend it included females.) But a living language is stronger than grammarians: singular "they" has resisted two centuries of attempts to regulate it out of English. In the 1970s feminists drew attention to how grammar rules in books were at odds with common usage, and how the rules also discriminated against women. There were some attempts at compromise: newly invented sex-inclusive forms, among them "tey", "co", "per" and "E", were put forward, but none of them caught on. Why should they? A solution already existed. Major British grammar and usage books now consider this "they" as acceptable. They are doing their job: recording what many educated speakers of the language say and write. - Catherine Walter, Chilton, Oxon.
I never was an English teacher nor did I say that I was. I was a B English student so pretty non advanced understanding of many concepts. I do appreciate the history lesson though.
a word that can function by itself as a noun phrase and that refers either to the participants in the discourse (e.g., I, you ) or to someone or something mentioned elsewhere in the discourse (e.g., she, it, this ).
a third-person pronoun by which an individual wishes to be referred to in order to indicate their gender identity.
Anyone using plurals for singular has no appreciation for language or culture and is at risk of loosing the benefits of both. Pronouns aren't about personal expression or feelings. They're shorthand for navigating the world -- passed on by our ancestors, tried and true. We don't pick our sex, gender, or pronouns. We dovetail as elegantly as possible into systems of meaning that have been developed over millennia and only change them if we have sorted out something demonstrably better for the vast majority of people.
I can't be a 'she' or a 'they' any more than the table I'm sitting at can be a 'car'. Those words mean different things and if we use all of these words interchangeably then they all cease to have meaning.
Take my table, for instance: It has legs and a top and it is used for resting things on. Those factors make it a table regardless of what makes me comfortable or what I wish it to be. I can call it a car, but it doesn't have wheels or doors and it doesn't drive and has never driven. I could strap some wheels on it and glue a steering wheel on the top -- might fool some myopic types, but still it wouldn't be a car and calling it one would be about as looney as calling a random guy named Steve 'they' -- which is precisely what you see when looking up mentally ill people on Wikipedia these days. And if Wikipedia doesn't understand the importance of a functional language than we're really in trouble...
Folks shouldn't mess with things they don't understand. It isn't cute. It isn't smart.
a word that can function by itself as a noun phrase and that refers either to the participants in the discourse (e.g., I, you ) or to someone or something mentioned elsewhere in the discourse (e.g., she, it, this ).
a third-person pronoun by which an individual wishes to be referred to in order to indicate their gender identity.
Wherever you got this is a dictionary that has no respect for language and ought not to be used as a reference. Do better.
LOL. As a current HS English teacher, I can confirm that very little focus is put on grammar anymore, especially at the middle school level since our HSers come in with essentially no grammatical knowledge.
Respect people's pronouns, it really isn't that hard. Agree or disagree with it, count your bullets and fight fights that are actually worth it.
People don't have pronouns. Society does. Pronouns aren't there for personal use. Never were. And if you dont think the fight between singular and plural is 'worth it' then perhaps consider a different career. You're in no position to teach language.
"The diagnostic label gender identity disorder (GID) was used until 2013 with the release of the diagnostic manual DSM-5. The condition was renamed to remove the stigma associated with the term disorder. People with gender dysphoria commonly identify as transgender."
- the above, from Wikipedia
NiceGyseLast, don't be too sure that you don't know any transgender people. Not every trans person shares their gender identity with the world, or with a wide group of people.
There is no blanket approach to how educators deal with pronouns for transgender students.
There exists no agenda for recruiting anyone to be LGBTQ.
A sentence like 'Not every trans person shares their gender identity with the world' is pure nonsense. It assumes that identity is construed by labels like 'trans' when certainly identity is construed simply by simple existence. The label 'trans' is something appended later based on some kind of complex classification system that is learned differently by different people. That's like saying 'not every republican person shares his identity with the world' as if 'republican' is something elemental to a person, when different people mean different things by 'republican' and in any event people can exist just as well without knowing what it means at all. 'Trans' people don't exist any more than 'Republicans' do. These are just labels that are used to divide people for political purposes. And when folks start thinking of themselves as such, they're in real trouble regardless of whether or not they 'share it with the world, or with a wide group of people'.
Take me, for example. I trust that I'm a man simply because everyone says so. I seem to tick all of the boxes. Penis, testicles, hairy face, hairy chest, height and strength superior to most of the folks that are called women. Still I have no evidence that other men (or women) think as I do or feel as I do. But I don't 'identify' as a man. I let the world identify me as such and I participate in identifying others using the same rubric that has been used for millennia. Do I 'identify' as anything? No. Not really. I identify as someone who works at x company and ate y for breakfast, but I don't run around applying silly, vague labels that other people invented on myself. That is a massive con and it is probably not healthy.
The "they" pronoun is now being taught as appropriate for those who identify as trans or non-binary. This is a bit of an evolution, as educators were slow to be okay with making a plural pronoun singular. But the English language is an ever-evolving thing, becoming more complex, while trying to be as user-friendly as possible. Adapting the they/them pronoun in this way is a great example of that.
It should only evolve if the evolution is an improvement. How is it an improvement for most users? How does it not cause more confusion than benefit? The point of pronouns is that you can use them without consulting people first about personal preferences which, in this case are influenced by diagnosable mental illness. Are we to consult all mentally ill (or even temporarily confused) people about how to use language before using it? How frequently must we do this to stay current? I understand changes in slang, but singular versus plural and male versus female is foundational stuff.
Anyway, where is the evidence that this change is a net benefit or any more 'user-friendly'?
As a teacher my top priority is making my kids feel safe in the classroom. Learning comes 2nd. Can’t learn if you’re not feeling safe. So it’s pretty easy- you use each students pronouns that they request. If their parents don’t like it, I don’t really care, because my job is to make my students feel safe and cared for. We talk about using somebody’s name in place of pronouns if you ever are confused. If somebody scoffs at the issue and treats it as an actual problem, they are probably not very accommodating at all, just accommodating when it is convenient to them
How would a child feel 'unsafe' if you don't give in to the demand to be referred to as 'zhu'?
Would it suddenly be an issue if this 'safety' problem struck every child or even everyone you knew? Why limit your adherence to their wishes to pronouns? What if they felt 'unsafe' with you using other words of their choosing? Why not let children replace your whole vocabulary with nonsense? Safety first!
And what if the children have safety demands that don't relate to language? If they feel safer eating during the lesson or pissing during the lesson why should that not be accommodated too? The cost is trivial enough. What if they feel safer singing or shouting when others are talking? Or perhaps they feel safer learning in the nude? I'm sure some of them do, but that urge is usually trained out of them in preschool. They may feel a very irrational sense of insecurity in the process, but that is normal and the alternative is not attractive.
If you can't teach kids that there is nothing unsafe about being called 'him' or 'her' then you probably have no business being a teacher. Real care looks like helping confused young people overcome paranoid feelings of insecurity and teaching them how to elegantly make their way in the world. Indulging their newfangled language demands does precisely the opposite and encourages them to remain confused and obstinate. You do them a massive disservice in the name of safety.
I've been out of school for a couple decades and am wondering what is being taught now. Are "they" and "them" in place of "she" for a person identifying as neither male or female currently correct English?
The Nikki Hiltz thread got me thinking about this. Is she requesting that announcers identify her as a they/them? How does that work?
Most people I know across all age groups are pretty friendly and accommodating but scoff any time this pronoun thing is brought up (which is not too often).
Granted I don't know any gender dysphorics but what am I missing here?
Forget pronouns and call them by their legal names. I’m not lying to them just because they lie to themselves. Boys are born with penises and girls are born with vaginas. Trust the science.