Star Trek casts its first non-binary and transgender actors

[clearspira]

Here's a fun exercise for those of you who still do not get what I mean: pick up a novel. Any novel. I'm sure you have one. Read it, and mentally transpose every usage of the word ''he'' and ''she'' with the word ''they'' and then come back to me. Gee, it really comes off as a book where the human race has been assimilated by the Borg doesn't it?

The f are you even talking about? I've done that my whole life.

Are you really telling me that it's unheard to be aware of a person without being aware of their gender, and that you resort to referring to someone as "it?"

You've done what your whole life? Read books where you've swapped out he and she with they? I literally don't know what you just wrote.

I've used they for when the gender is ambiguous. I don't look at every single person on the street and start calling them they, nor am I resorting to some dumb hypothetical where there is no such thing as gender anymore.

What I am asking you is very simple: if you wrote a book with a non-binary main character, for which we have established that the pronoun for such a person is ''they'', does that book actually make sense if we now have a person with a description that makes them sound as if they are multiple people?

I feel as if we are talking about two different things here.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Here's a fun exercise for those of you who still do not get what I mean: pick up a novel. Any novel. I'm sure you have one. Read it, and mentally transpose every usage of the word ''he'' and ''she'' with the word ''they'' and then come back to me. Gee, it really comes off as a book where the human race has been assimilated by the Borg doesn't it?

The f are you even talking about? I've done that my whole life.

Are you really telling me that it's unheard to be aware of a person without being aware of their gender, and that you resort to referring to someone as "it?"

You've done what your whole life? Read books where you've swapped out he and she with they? I literally don't know what you just wrote.

I've used they for when the gender is ambiguous. I don't look at every single person on the street and start calling them they, nor am I resorting to some dumb hypothetical where there is no such thing as gender anymore.

What I am asking you is very simple: if you wrote a book with a non-binary main character, for which we have established that the pronoun for such a person is ''they'', does that book actually make sense if we now have a person with a description that makes them sound as if they are multiple people?

I feel as if we are talking about two different things here.

I would notice it, but it wouldn't be confusing as I've always used they for ambiguous circumstance.

There's no reason to be confused unless there's actually a group of people to which to choose from, which is no different from general pronoun issues already.

[TGLS]

change one of the most fundamental rules of grammar in order to appease a group of people who cannot think of their own word instead of co-opting an existing one.

Yeah, well, all the alternatives are shit. Here are several:
one
it (dehumanizes)
'em (objective only)
Yo (non possessive)
S/he (how the hell do you pronounce the slash?)
Thon
E
Xe
Ey
Hu
Ze
Sie

They're all shit. Best off just abusing the plurality by turning They singular, just like "you" used to be plural only. The singular they even has some history to it:
https://public.oed.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-singular-they/

I mean, does this really read all that badly?

The lottery was conducted—as were the square dances, the teen-age club, the Halloween program—by Mx. Summers, who had time and energy to devote to civic activities. They were a round-faced, jovial person and they ran the coal business, and people were sorry for them, because they had no children and their wife was a scold. When they arrived in the square, carrying the black wooden box, there was a murmur of conversation among the villagers, and they waved and called, “Little late today, folks.” The postmaster, Mr. Graves, followed them, carrying a three-legged stool, and the stool was put in the center of the square and Mx. Summers set the black box down on it. The villagers kept their distance, leaving a space between themselves and the stool, and when Mx. Summers said, “Some of you fellows want to give me a hand?,” there was a hesitation before two men, Mr. Martin and his oldest son, Baxter, came forward to hold the box steady on the stool while Mx. Summers stirred up the papers inside it.

Leaving aside all else, if someone says that they would prefer it if you referred to them with "They" or some other non-standard pronoun, are you going to start arguing with them?

[McAvoy]

My only experience in figuring out non binary is this one person I know. She or he is a trans M2F or a cross dresser not even sure. Problem is that this person doesn't have a female name he or she goes by consistently. She uses wigs and each wig has a name attached to it. But you don't know that and I am bad with names. I am not going to remember every name for each wig. But that person goes by her birth name, a male name.

My failing is that I associate the person's male name with male pronouns, but the person is obviously female in front of me. But then shows up sometimes as a male, and then the pronouns get crosswired.

Good person though.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Genuine question because I actually don't know: The non-binary character, is the correct pronoun actually ''it'' or is that just a piss take?

To be perfectly fair, Madner Kami is German and maybe not familiar with the intricacies of English.

I think "they" is often used for non-binary people.

It is "they".

And before Clearspira starts flaunting his ignorance about how "they" can't be used as a pronoun for a singular non-binary person: Yes it can. Because English is an made up language that evolves with the cultural. Just like how the word "gay" now strongly associates with homosexuality rather than the state of one's happiness.

It has changed for the worse. A book with the pronoun ''they'' being used as singular instead of plural would be a complicated mess to understand. And here's the difference between this and the evolution of the word gay: ''this'' is one of the most popular words in the English language - it is used potentially every other sentence. The word ''gay'' even at the height of its use was used once or twice in the book at most. You can read a book from the 1920s that says ''Matt and Jeff had a gay day'' and have it still make sense; you cannot read a book that fucks up plural and singular and have it make sense. That is just a fact.

This is not tolerance. This is making everything more complicated under the mask of tolerance.

Here's a fun exercise for those of you who still do not get what I mean: pick up a novel. Any novel. I'm sure you have one. Read it, and mentally transpose every usage of the word ''he'' and ''she'' with the word ''they'' and then come back to me. Gee, it really comes off as a book where the human race has been assimilated by the Borg doesn't it?

what the fuck dude

[Makeshift Python]

Personally if I'm not sure and I don't know their name, I go with 'they' or 'them' terms, I've never thought to use 'it' to describe a person, I don't even do that with my dog.

Same. 'Y'all' is also gaining traction with some folks as an alternative to 'guys', 'gals', 'fellas', etc. Seriously, who uses 'it' to describe a person?

I was merely asking what the correct pronoun is for a non-binary person and then expressed my dissatisfaction at having to change one of the most fundamental rules of grammar in order to appease a group of people who cannot think of their own word instead of co-opting an existing one. ''They'' is not grammatically correct when talking about a singular person unless you happen to have two people living inside your head.

Language changes. It's really not that difficult to know how to use the term "they" in the correct context. You're just being rigid.

[GreyICE]

Well far be it from me to just dogpile on ClearSpira, but this seems so ludicrously stupid I can't believe it's getting airtime.

"Can whoever left their car parked in front of the store please move it?"

I've heard some variant of this phrase a billion times. Never registered as "rewritting the entire rules of English grammar" to me. I think it took me negative ten seconds to get used to it. I honestly can't recall anyone who was weirded out by using they/their pronouns for singular, partially because we literally do this for second person singular/plural (which is the same word, you) so there shouldn't be any issue.

Strikes me as a bunch of idiots who barely grasp English making fools out of themselves, but maybe it's just a testament of the quality of the American educational system.

[Makeshift Python]

I believe Clearspira is from the UK?

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I believe Clearspira is from the UK?

And I believe I can fly.

I believe I can touch the sky.

[Link8909]

I believe Clearspira is from the UK?

And I believe I can fly.

I believe I can touch the sky.

I think about it night and day.

Spread my wings and fly away.

...

Anyway, as someone from the UK, and if I personally wasn't sure and didn't know their name, I've always used they or them.

S/he (how the hell do you pronounce the slash?)

So in the Star Trek New Frontier novels, the Chief Engineer is Burgoyne 172, who is from the alien species called Hermat, which are dual gendered and thus when s/he is being referred to they use this term, the novels also use hir, and I think at one point s/he talks about how hir race kept changing these terms because other races were having trouble on how to referrer to them, one of those terms was combining she, he, it, into one word, they didn't go with it.