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by vdqtp3 80 days ago
> If I'm writing an email or a chat message, I will typically have to use a pronoun.

It's not that hard to just avoid it. I send emails to a lot of people I haven't spoken to and don't know their gender, so I write gender-neutral emails.
1 comments
array_key_first 80 days ago
Sure, but why would I go out of my way to use gender neutral pronouns like "they" when they can just tell me their preferred pronouns?
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defrost 80 days ago
It's only "out of your way" if you never learned to write gender neutral from the ground up.

In the 1970s and 1980s it was the default in many Commonwealth locales to not assume that (say) Rob Owens writing mathematics and engineering papers was male (as it turns out, she isn't, the Rob is short for Robyn).

So much correspondence was with people who had Initial Surname or abstract handles that didn't broadcast gender.

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array_key_first 80 days ago
But if someone has the ability to broadcast their preferred pronouns and we built that in, and it costs nothing, then what's the problem?

I guess I'm just not really understanding people getting upset at what I perceive to be completely made up problems. We have technology, we no longer have to assume gender neutral pronouns for everyone. They can just tell us the pronouns they want.

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defrost 80 days ago
I cannot see the need for anything other than neutral pronouns when discussing permutations with either G.Egan or C.Praeger.
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array_key_first 76 days ago
I cannot see the harm in using a different pronoun or opening up the ability for that - it feels like a fake or imaginary problem that we are creating such that we have something to complain about to make ourselves feel better. If we want to feel better, we should just smoke or something.
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vdqtp3 77 days ago
How are you going to know the appropriate pronoun on your first email to "jsmith@company.com" or "ppatel@company.com"? Are you going to send an email to ask their pronouns before you send the actual email?
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array_key_first 76 days ago
No, I'll probably just use gender neutral pronouns.

But if they reply back and their email footer has "he/him", I'm probably just gonna use he/him and not think twice about it, because I'm a well-adjusted adult.

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