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[jigglet]

Firstly if this is considered political I apologize and mods please delete this.

Anyway I just want to stress I am not here to debate gender issues. It's been done to death and I don't think I have much to contribute to that discussion today. What I want to talk about is how confusing and potentially dangerous it is (outside of a social context)

So I was on Resetera yesterday and read this post about Jim Sterling and made all sorts of very confusing references to "they" - what made it particularly confusing was the youtube thumbnail actually contained two people - was the poster referring to a partner? Co-host? A show guest? Who is that other person? Or was it Jim Sterling himself?

Here's the original post:

Ever since Jim (and they are happy to still be referred to as Jim) came out as Non-Binary in late January, their channel has seen a somewhat dramatic loss in subscribers. Before they made this life choice public, they were pushing the 1 million barrier. Now, over the course of the past 4 months, they have seen their numbers bleed as far back as 895k and still falling. It has become such an obvious issue for them, they made a video about the subject:

(don't need to watch the video, I just posted it here so you can see that second person in the thumbnail)



I figured it out easily enough. However it got me wondering - isn't this potentially dangerous in some contexts? If a police report makes ambigious reference to "they" and is confused with plural "they"? Legal documents where lots of money is at stake making vague references to they owing they? Scientific research about studies where it really matters if it's one test subject or many?

Again putting aside all the debates about genders and so forth, it does make me wonder if this isn't going to cause some real problems one day (unrelated to social inequality or whatever the supporters advocate). Precision in language is important. And in some contexts (law, science, medicine) it's absolutely essential.

 

[Bernd Lauert]

It's deluded nonsense. Just don't pay any attention to it. Normal people in the real world don't use "they" to refer to a single person (small exceptions apply).

 

[jigglet]

It's deluded nonsense. Just don't pay any attention to it. Normal people in the real world don't use "they" to refer to a single person (small exceptions apply).

Again while I agree, I'm trying to keep politics out of this as the focus of my post is more on clarity of language. I guess what I'm trying to say is if they want a different pronoun then fine, but choosing one that is generally used as a plural could be extremely dangerous in some contexts (law, medical, science etc). I can see this causing some real issues one day. Why not use something else?

 

[funkygunther]

This is some good concern trolling. If a lawyer, police officer, scientist or doctor gets confused because they think a single person is actually plural people then you’ve got bigger problems.

 

[German Hops]

 

[Coolwhhip]

Your first mistake is going on that website.

 

[farmerboy]

I think if presented with that situation I'd just much rather call them by name.

 

[jigglet]

This is some good concern trolling. If a lawyer, police officer, scientist or doctor gets confused because they think a single person is actually plural people then you’ve got bigger problems.

Concern trolling? Um, no. I actually consider myself left of center and I actually support a lot of their shit. But I also think they’ve taken things way, way too far.

 

[VN1X]

Wow, as a lawyer (and policeman by night) I am always super confused! Thanks for bringing this to GAF's attention. I hope more people will start to understand the hardships of my work!

 

[jigglet]

Wow, as a lawyer (and policeman by night) I am always super confused! Thanks for bringing this to GAF's attention. I hope more people will start to understand the hardships of my work!

Happy for you to tell me I’m wrong. That’s the great thing about this forum - we can discuss things without facing ban.

 

[Coolwhhip]

Happy for you to tell me I’m wrong. That’s the great thing about this forum - we can discuss things without facing ban.

That's exactly why some lunatics on twitter and resetttteraaa carefully follow the woke handbook on gender. They get banned otherwise.

 

[jigglet]

That's exactly why some lunatics on twitter and resetttteraaa carefully follow the woke handbook on gender. They get banned otherwise.

It's ridiculous anyone has to be tippy toeing around. Let's talk it out. Freedom of speech. That's how we resolve things. If I'm wrong I'll be happy to be proven wrong. Use arguments not censorship.

 

[DispatchNinja]

Firstly if this is considered political I apologize and mods please delete this.

Anyway I just want to stress I am not here to debate gender issues. It's been done to death and I don't think I have much to contribute to that discussion today. What I want to talk about is how confusing and potentially dangerous it is (outside of a social context)

So I was on Resetera yesterday and read this post about Jim Sterling and made all sorts of very confusing references to "they" - what made it particularly confusing was the youtube thumbnail actually contained two people - was the poster referring to a partner? Co-host? A show guest? Who is that other person? Or was it Jim Sterling himself?

Here's the original post:

Ever since Jim (and they are happy to still be referred to as Jim) came out as Non-Binary in late January, their channel has seen a somewhat dramatic loss in subscribers. Before they made this life choice public, they were pushing the 1 million barrier. Now, over the course of the past 4 months, they have seen their numbers bleed as far back as 895k and still falling. It has become such an obvious issue for them, they made a video about the subject:

(don't need to watch the video, I just posted it here so you can see that second person in the thumbnail)



I figured it out easily enough. However it got me wondering - isn't this potentially dangerous in some contexts? If a police report makes ambigious reference to "they" and is confused with plural "they"? Legal documents where lots of money is at stake making vague references to they owing they? Scientific research about studies where it really matters if it's one test subject or many?

Again putting aside all the debates about genders and so forth, it does make me wonder if this isn't going to cause some real problems one day (unrelated to social inequality or whatever the supporters advocate). Precision in language is important. And in some contexts (law, science, medicine) it's absolutely essential.

Just putting this out there as a police officer, I would never use someone’s preferred pronoun in a police report or on any kind of official paperwork. We use their official name, gender on their DL/ID, or other words like subject/suspect/victim/offender/witness etc.

 

[VN1X]

It's ridiculous anyone has to be tippy toeing around. Let's talk it out. Freedom of speech. That's how we resolve things. If I'm wrong I'll be happy to be proven wrong. Use arguments not censorship.

As long as something isn't hurting you or others why make a big fuss over it? Sure the pronoun thing is annoying but I'm not going to lose any sleep over people pretending they're a unicorn or a plural entity. I laugh and move on. It's an Internet thing propagated by a vocal minority, mainly from the US.

If I ran into someone like this in real life and they'd ask to be called a certain way I'd respect their wishes (within the confines of the reasonable). I'm not going to make it the focus of the discourse in any case.

 

[Hydelol]

As long as something isn't hurting you or others why make a big fuss over it? Sure the pronoun thing is annoying but I'm not going to lose any sleep over people pretending they're a unicorn or a plural entity. I laugh and move on. It's an Internet thing propagated by a vocal minority, mainly from the US.

If I ran into someone like this in real life and they'd ask to be called a certain way I'd respect their wishes (within the confines of the reasonable). I'm not going to make it the focus of the discourse in any case.

When I see someone in real life expecting me to conform to their crazy ideology, I laugh in their face and go away. No need for me to talk to this person

 

[jigglet]

When I see someone in real life expecting me to conform to their crazy ideology, I laugh in their face and go away. No need for me to talk to this person

I think he's right in that you'll rarely see them. They're an extremely vocal minority.

 

[VN1X]

When I see someone in real life expecting me to conform to their crazy ideology, I laugh in their face and go away. No need for me to talk to this person

Don't want to get bogged down on the semantics of it all and I get what you're saying but I think it'd be a 10 second exchange at best hehe.

"Hey sir, I was wondering if you could help me pick out a present for my niece?"
"sir? I'm a woman!" (*or whatever flavour of gender is popular that month)
"ah apologies, so anyway about that present"

Obviously if they then in turn make a big deal out of the situation I'd laugh it off and go somewhere else but I would like to think that the majority of the the non-binary community aren't actually the screeching tiktokkers we've come to witness online all the time.

 

[Hydelol]

Don't want to get bogged down on the semantics of it all and I get what you're saying but I think it'd be a 10 second exchange at best hehe.

"Hey sir, I was wondering if you could help me pick out a present for my niece?"
"sir? I'm a woman!" (*or whatever flavour of gender is popular that month)
"ah apologies, so anyway about that present"

Obviously if they then in turn make a big deal out of the situation I'd laugh it off and go somewhere else but I would like to think that the majority of the the non-binary community aren't actually the screeching tiktokkers we've come to witness online all the time.

You ever met crazy or strange people, you clearly don't want to talk to and can only laugh about because they are so weird? Those gender / pronoun people are just a part of a larger group of just crazies.

And obviously I am not talking about disrespecting people like a guy dressing like a girl. I don't care about it, I treat him like I would treat anyone else but the moment he makes a big deal out of misgendering him, like you said, he would get a laugh out of me.

 

[nush]

Don't want to get bogged down on the semantics of it all and I get what you're saying but I think it'd be a 10 second exchange at best hehe.

"Hey sir, I was wondering if you could help me pick out a present for my niece?"
"sir? I'm a woman!" (*or whatever flavour of gender is popular that month)
"ah apologies, so anyway about that present"

Obviously if they then in turn make a big deal out of the situation I'd laugh it off and go somewhere else but I would like to think that the majority of the the non-binary community aren't actually the screeching tiktokkers we've come to witness online all the time.

 

[INC]

I'll just call you by your name

Problem solved

Anything past that is your baggage, not mine

 

[FunkMiller]

Just putting this out there as a police officer, I would never use someone’s preferred pronoun in a police report or on any kind of official paperwork. We use their official name, gender on their DL/ID, or other words like subject/suspect/victim/offender/witness etc.

Can confirm this would be the case in the UK as well. Always use their official gender designation. The officer's PNB (notebook) is a legal piece of evidence. You can't fuck around with woolly terminology, because it could prejudice any court cases that may arise.

 

[Coolwhhip]

Can confirm this would be the case in the UK as well. Always use their official gender designation. The officer's PNB (notebook) is a legal piece of evidence. You can't fuck around with woolly terminology, because it could prejudice any court cases that may arise.

"A man has been shot to death, the suspect, a squirrel, got away in his car. After a 2 hour chase the police finally got the suspect in custody."

 

[FreedomOfSpeech]

The pronoun insanity is about forcing speech, which is a form of suppressing speech.

Always tell them to fuck themselves.

 

[RoboFu]

I feel bad for the very small majority that these pronouns would really help their mental health. The others have made it a circus of “ look at me “.

 

[Coolwhhip]

I feel bad for the very small majority that these pronouns would really help their mental help. The others have made it a circus of “ look at me “.

Indeed. If I actually was born in the wrong body these tweeter idiots would piss me off.

 

[INC]

I dont understand "they", Thats 3rd person.........shouldn't it be "we", "us" for 1st person, when talking about themselves?

Or is it because us and we sounds like you're schizophrenic?

 

[Coolwhhip]

I dont understand "they", Thats 3rd person.........shouldn't it be "we", "us" for 1st person, when talking about themselves?

Or is it because us and we sounds like you're schizophrenic?

Not understanding crazy people is a good thing, keep it like that.

 

[INC]

Not understanding crazy people is a good thing, keep it like that.

To me as an older gentleman, all these terms make no sense to me, when I was growing up, you had straight, gay, bi-sexual, transvestite/sexual

That covers everything, you either like the same genitalia, the opposite genitalia or both genitalia, I guess no genitalia.....but who wants no genitalia lol, or you were born wanting the opposite genitalia, but you still go back to the above....

 

[GeekyDad]

I dont understand "they", Thats 3rd person.........shouldn't it be "we", "us" for 1st person, when talking about themselves?

Or is it because us and we sounds like you're schizophrenic?

The thing that confuses me is, doesn't "we" and "they" signify more than one? I'm being asked by a single person to use "they" when referring to them.

 

[nkarafo]

People who want others to use special pronouns for them other than the correct ones, are so full of themselves. This is pure narcissism.

 

[INC]

The thing that confuses me is, doesn't "we" and "they" signify more than one? I'm being asked by a single person to use "they" when referring to them.

By using "they" "them" as their plural, by proxy that must mean that "it" is how "they" should use their singular......right?

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

Concern trolling? Um, no. I actually consider myself left of center and I actually support a lot of their shit. But I also think they’ve taken things way, way too far.

Who is “they” here? Jim Sterling? A group of people?

 

[nkarafo]

The thing that confuses me is, doesn't "we" and "they" signify more than one? I'm being asked by a single person to use "they" when referring to them.

Greek language has a different plural pronoun for "you" (English has the same for both plural and singular).

We usually use the plural version when addressing to elders, superiors/bosses or people who we don't know. It's considered respectful. And some times people ask to use the singular word when you address them because they want the conversation to feel less formal and more friendly/intimate.

When others address me in plural i usually respond with "it's just me here, i'm alone"

 

[jason10mm]

English HAS a non-binary term to refer to something neither male or female, or both, or unknown, or fluid, or -kin.

It is "IT"

All normal people should use "it" when referring to these invented genders, normalize the term, and we can all get back to colonizing the solar system.

 

[Drew1440]

Gender Pronoun's are a modern form of attention seeking, the only pronoun they should be using is Me because that's all they care about.

 

[clem84]

How many GAF threads are responses to ERA threads because dissenting opinions are more often than not banished over there?

Agree with OP. btw, there have already been cases where wrong information in regards to gender in a medical file led to medical complications. Just one I found after a quick google search.

Why transgender people are ignored by modern medicine

Gender is fundamental to many decisions in health care systems around the world – and this puts transgender people in a vulnerable position.

www.bbc.com

There are several different lower limits for an eGFR, depending on things like a person’s weight, age, gender and race, which are intended to reflect the natural variation in the human body. Based on the female cut-off, he would have been allowed a transplant immediately. But he’s registered as a man on his medical records, and this meant his doctors used the male eGFR level. He wasn’t put on the list until he reached it – a decision that ultimately delayed the surgery by over a year, and very nearly cost him his life.

 

[Dr.Morris79]

It's all nonsense to me. Jims a bloke, isnt he?

A bloke that now wears womens wigs to look like a bird? If I saw him in a nightclub though I doubt i'd be fooled, i'd know it was a bloke. Nice try Jim, you rascal. Pay for your own drinks.

 

[GeekyDad]

By using "they" "them" as their plural, by proxy that must mean that "it" is how "they" should use their singular......right?

Greek language has a different plural pronoun for "you" (English has the same for both plural and singular).

We usually use the plural version when addressing to elders, superiors/bosses or people who we don't know. It's considered respectful. And some times people ask to use the singular word when you address them because they want the conversation to feel less formal and more friendly/intimate.

When others address me in plural i usually respond with "it's just me here, i'm alone"

What I'm saying is, if this person is standing right in front of me, and I say to someone else, "hey this is my friend, they are from Florida." The grammar doesn't seem right to me. It would seem proper to say, "he (or she) is from Florida," unless I was referring to a couple or more. But as one person, it doesn't seem accurate.

 

[Ten_Fold]

My thing is like do you ask them what gender or pronoun they are? Or do they just assume you know? I’m still confused about the she/her and she/they, like what’s the they part? Why can’t it just be man/women/other. Then you got she/him. It’s this a big deal with all the woke people? I just rather call you by your name.

 

[Tschumi]

Honestly.. I've been calling people "they", etc, when my subject had nothing to do with gender, since i was like 6.. i don't understand what's so challenging about just saying "they" of "their" or whatever.. i mean okay it's clear to see that some posters here would be hard pressed to add another 4 words to their vocabulary but jeesh ..

 

[jigglet]

Honestly.. I've been calling people "they", etc, when my subject had nothing to do with gender, since i was like 6.. i don't understand what's so straining about just saying "they" of "their" or whatever

Context. There are many situations where I agree "they" works perfectly fine when referring to a singular entity. But there are also many situations where it just causes confusion.

 

[Tschumi]

Context. There are many situations where I agree "they" works perfectly fine when referring to a singular entity. But there are also many situations where it just causes confusion.

I guess it can get awkward when the person is right next to you, perhaps, but in that case i guess I'd ask them what their name was with a smile and go from there~

What instances did you have in mind?

 

[Birdo]

All this because MTV stopped playing music.

 

[jigglet]

I guess it can get awkward when the person is right next to you, perhaps, but in that case i guess I'd ask them what their name was with a smile and go from there~

What instances did you have in mind?

See the Resetera post in my OP. Half of the "they" references work, the other half is just confusing as hell.

 

[Tschumi]

See the Resetera post in my OP. Half of the "they" references work, the other half is just confusing as hell.

Okay, i get you.

I have never really lost track of my theys and theirs but i can see how you might get a bit cross-eyed at clunky writing like that

 

[Azzurri]

Can someone explain to me what it means when a girl uses she/her or a guy using He/Him?

I googled it and I still don't understand what the fuck it means. I mean if you're a women (biological) aren't you a she/her anyways? And same with the dude?

 

[Amory]

I've personally never been asked to use different pronouns for anyone. If I ever am, I'll do my best to accommodate. But relative to the amount of stupid internet BS on the subject, the reality is that this kind of thing is not prevalent at all.

I think it's a stretch to 'worry' about singular/plural confusion in the scenarios you mentioned.

Jim Sterling's channel has become so tired over the years. Endless bitching about old, worn out subjects like microtransactions, loot boxes, and mediocre AAA games. Just not interesting content. I'd assume that's more the reason the channel has lost subscribers, rather than the pronouns and the new wig.

 

[belmarduk]

If someone is transgender, I will use that person's preferred pronouns.
If someone is nonbinary, I won't use they/them or xe/xer because that's just ridiculous.

 

[mortal]

Yea I'm not playing their delusional game. Simple.

 

[Raven117]

Who knew the south was so cutting edge!

I've personally never been asked to use different pronouns for anyone. If I ever am, I'll do my best to accommodate. But relative to the amount of stupid internet BS on the subject, the reality is that this kind of thing is not prevalent at all.

This is my position as well