I know someone from the climbing gym. Her name is Laura but she goes by LB. She has a page boy haircut and usually wears pants but sometimes wears dresses. When I knew her she had a boyfriend who is now her husband.
She kind of gives off a unisex vibe. Several years ago I had never heard of "they" being used in this way. Another friend from that same gym who is a lesbian mentioned to me once that LP goes by "they". I asked her about that and she explained the usage.
No problem but this is why I can't help but feel it's a bit self-indulgent to expect others to know this and to care whether they use it or not. LP doesn't seem to be a woman trapped in a man's body. She appears to play the role of a woman, she has a male husband, sometimes she wears dresses but mostly dresses in a unisex manner.
Is this a "protected class" that has been abused for generations? She just doesn't feel as feminine all the time as society may make her feel that she should be feeling.
Taking your points in order:
1. Language and usage changes and evolves over time. Arguing that a usage or neologism is bad because you "never heard it" being used that way in your past is not very useful, other than if you're trying to establish conservative, stick-in-the-mud credentials or old-fogeyism.
2. You may think that people are being "self indulgent" when they ask to be addressed in a particular way. They may think
you're being self-indulgent if you think that
you know better than
them as to how
they should be addressed.
3. Being aware of how other people feel and what they care about is a mark of an empathic person. If you can't understand why anyone would want to respect another person's preferred pronouns, perhaps
you have the problem, not them.
4. You appear to want to put LP into a convenient box based on
your perception of them. So you say that, to you, they "appears to play the role of a woman..." etc. etc. The subtext there is that
you want to put them in the "woman" box in your head. Have you stopped to consider what
they want?
5. Yes, transgender and non-binary people are a "class" (or two classes, maybe) that have been abused for generations. Do you want to help perpetuate that abuse by refusing to respect their wishes?
6. You appear to see LP's non-binary orientation as something that society could "fix". The implication is that you regard non-binary people as having a "problem" that needs a fix, which is
precisely a perpetuation of the abuse, conscious or unconscious, that non-binary people have suffered for generations.
If she really does feel like a man trapped in a woman's body then ignore all of the above.
Bizarre. What difference would this make to you?
I don't care about the pronoun "they", that's fine. In her case at least, it just seems to be unnecessary to have a label for it or to have society need to adjust ....
It sounds like the "they" pronoun disturbs you at some level, just as it disturbs Michael and Yazata. I would venture that the reason you all think this is "stupid" is that you are unwilling to muster a level of respect for non-binary people. Instead, you all want to pigeon-hole them into the conservative, traditional categories that are in your historical comfort zone.
It's 2022. Maybe you should all consider progressing with the times. Try to have some empathy and a measure of respect for people who aren't exactly like you. If more people could do that, the world would be a happier, safer place for everybody.
