[ralferoo]

Through most of my life, I have routinely used "they" when describing events to other people, even when I know the gender of the person concerned, because it's either not relevant to what I'm saying or I want to deliberately withhold that information.

For example, if someone mis-dialled and called our phone, the conversation after would always be something like "Who was that on the phone?" "Oh nobody, they got the wrong number."

When I was at university, whenever I talked to my mum on the phone about any of my friends, male or female, I'd pretty much always use "they" unless I'd already mentioned their name, because if I ever made the mistake of mentioning a female friend, it'd turn into an hour long interrogation.

[zahlman]

I avoid needlessly gendering others by just not using third-person pronouns. (To forestall the objections I always hear at this point: no, in my experience, it's much easier than people keep trying to tell me it is. I have also had people suggest to me that I can't possibly be doing it with any kind of consistency; I have tried auditing myself and found that my self-perception was indeed accurate.)

[mlyle]

Writing referring to a person repeatedly without using a third-person pronoun is often wordy and obfuscatory. Accepting "they/their" is a far lesser sin.

(Of course, having the tools in your toolbox that one would use to avoid pronouns sometimes lets you increase clarity; it's not a bad skill to have).