[antonfire]

> or a desire to dictate that others have to use certain language.

As far as I can tell, the content of your first comment in this thread was

> The site is the work of a guy, "him", and "his" work. We don't have to guess and say "them" and "their" work.

This, to me, indicates that you want the previous person to say "him" and "his" where they said "them" and "their". Even in this post you're displaying a negative opinion about the use of singular "they", and expressing that you want others to stop using singular "they" this way. Am I wrong?

Like, if you referred to Dominique McLean with "he", and someone said to you "We know that person prefers they/them pronouns, we don't have to guess based on appearances and say 'he'," would you not characterize them as dictating that you have to use certain language?

> I don't speak in vagaries when something is specific and known.

I hope you do. (And I'm pretty sure you do.) Omitting information that is specific, known, and irrelevant is a basic part of communicating well. Not every failure to bring up something that is specific and known constitutes "dumbing down of discourse".

[HexagonalKitten]

It's supposedly the assumption that matters. I read it that Kepler was bothered by the rudeness to most people, assuming neutered pronouns for everyone, for the hypothetical sake of the 1%. (Note, the 1% are not here asking for this of course, because they don't want to be associated with these behaviors.)

Rules for thee, and not me. That's bad enough, but when someone is speaking for an entire population and using language like hate and shame they aren't helping anyone.

[antonfire]

What set of rules are you actually picturing that you think echelon has that they're not applying to themselves?

As far as I can tell, the rules they're suggesting for singular "they" is that "they/them" can always refer to anybody in the singular, irrespective of their gender. (Maybe unless the person you're referring to indicates a preference otherwise.)

Like, maybe this is inconsistent with some set of standard SJW rules that you have in mind. But even if so, I don't see any reason in this conversation to assume that the person you're criticizing is attached to that standard set. (I also don't think there is a standard set at this point.)