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Words matter.
You aren't writing an academic paper. Always use simple direct language.
- Help the poor
- Healthcare for everyone
- Good treatment at work.
Don't use complex words.
this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2025
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Language reflects the culture in which it is used. In these times, there's more acceptance (though not universal) of the premises that a) sex and gender identity are separate concepts, and b) a person can have a gender identity that does not map onto a 'male/man-female/woman' scheme.
Given this, singular they/them makes sense - on discovering the identity of individual who, while almost certainly male or female (though intersex exceptions exist), does not neatly fit into the category of man or woman, they can remain a 'they' where someone who is distinctly a man or woman doesn't. This assumes they do not use other pronouns (some do, but neopronouns get a lot of flack).
I'll be candid and say I don't get why this throws people off, and I've had to fight prescriptivist English profs about it before. It only makes sense to me if we discard the premises noted at the beginning, and that doesn't make sense to me. To my fellow men - how many times have you been told you are/are not a man on the basis of factors beyond having an Y chromosome, a dick and male secondary sexual characteristics? And you're still certain that gender identity is inherent on the basis of biological sex alone, rather than related but distinct social constructions?
What defines the category of man?
Great question, and one that's pretty fraught at the moment. I don't have an answer beyond a tautology - a man is someone who identifies as a man - and the knowledge that some cultures assign adherence to certain behavioural norms to that (ex. A man acts as breadwinner, is competitive, has a certain type of physicality distinct from women, etc.), most of which crumble with any hard look at them.
To be frank, I don't really care about what a man or woman is. If identifying as a man if female, or a woman if male, makes it so someone doesn't want to blow their brains out, then that's a cool and good thing. But note the distinction - man != male and woman != female in my statement.
Isn't that sexism, something we should be fighting by saying "women can do that too?"
It is, though noting the term sexism itself hasn't been replaced with another that captures the distinction between biological sex and gender, at least one I know of. Gendered prejudice could be one, I guess.
We should be fighting it in a few directions:
"Women can do that too"
"Men can do that too"
"Women don't necessarily need to do that"
"Men don't necessarily need to do that"
"People who do not consider themselves men or women can do that too, and/or not do that."
It seems to me that saying that someone does not neatly fit into the category of man or woman is accepting that "category of man" and "category of woman" are valid categories. Rather than fighting sexism, it's reinforcing sexism. If someone truly believed that cultural norms about what's male and what's female was sexist BS, there would be no need for a "they" pronoun.