Why? Using non-gendered language avoids misgendering people, and even though there are people who are offended by not being gendered this seems like a great trade off.
But your argument boils down to "it's what I want, and even though there are people who don't want it, who cares?" Here is your argument, but adjusted to argue for my position. I didn't have to change much!
"Using gendered language avoids not gendering people, and even though there are people who are offended by being gendered this seems like a great trade off."
It's because, even though I'm a cis male that has never been misgendered, I can empathize much better with the pain of a misgendered trans person than with the pain of any person that was treated by as a "they". To be completely honest I can't even understand why someone would be offended by this. So yeah, I prefer to run the risk of offending by using gender neutral language. And this seems to be the consensus among most institutions that are actually thinking about this kind of things.
To some people, using non-gendered language is offensive. I recall a woman who got upset because someone else referred to her as "they". She was offended because her profile picture was very clear. She felt the other person was making it seem as if it was unclear whether she was a man or a woman.
I am all for trying to be as inclusive as it gets and to be honest, English’s gendered pronouns are just unnatural to me due to my native tongue not being gendered to begin with.
But other than the old “he/she” (annoying) repeated thing or perhaps “they”, some other constructs feel pretty forced. I feel that without starting a conversation where both sides partake, no consensus will ever happen. Or, probably the foremost should be the actual targeted demographic be consulted, because in plenty of cases these are not coming from them and they don’t even approve of these changes, making it the old feel-good changes for the sake of it.
"Using gendered language avoids not gendering people, and even though there are people who are offended by being gendered this seems like a great trade off."