On The Possible Practical Utility of Gender-Neutral Pronouns

Last semester, I had my students share their thesis for their final paper with the rest of the class, to get them feedback and alternate viewpoints.  One student was this kinda tomboyish girl with this emo thing going on.  Her argument was that English should adopt gender-neutral pronouns--that is, something that meant "he" or "she" without specifying gender, but is also more personal than "it" or "one."

And indeed, she had precedence--Sweden recently adopted gender-neutral pronouns into their language; and I know that in Chinese, "Ta" means both "he" and "her," such that gendered-pronouns are something most Chinese people struggle with when learning English. Clearly other languages get along just fine without gendered-pronouns.

She said that she picked this topic based off personal experience, because people kept confusing her for a boy.  I very gallantly replied that I had never confused her for a boy.

"No, I am a boy," he said, correcting me, "You misheard--people keep mistaking me for a girl."

This was in front of the entire class, mind you.  I was tempted to just grab my bag and march out door with a, "welp, class dismissed, see ya'll Monday!"

Let's be clear, this wasn't some "It's Pat!" situation where I wasn't sure of the gender, flipped a coin and was wrong, no--I had just assumed from day one that he was a girl, and never gave it a second thought.  He wasn't even a cross-dresser or anything; I said he looked tomboyish, because, well, he was a boy!  Why wouldn't he dress like a boy?  But his voice, body-type, everything, just seemed so girl-like, that though I should've second-guessed my assumptions, I never did!

He was even totally cool about the whole snafu, assuring me that people confuse his gender all the time (not that that made me feel like any less like a jack-ass).  He later told me that once at Queer Prom--you know, among the folks who are supposed to be all about sensitivity towards gender ambiguity--people kept assuming his gender wrong.  In any matter, that incident in class made a clearer case for gender-neutral pronouns than an essay ever could.

Makes a great story, at least.  I love telling it to people who start declaiming loudly how gender-neutral pronouns are totally pointless...right up until I get to the big reveal.  The looks on their faces are priceless.