TTRPG enthusiast and lifelong DM. Very gay 🏳️‍🌈.

“Yes, yes. Aim for the sun. That way if you miss, at least your arrow will fall far away, and the person it kills will likely be someone you don’t know.”

- Hoid

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 1st, 2023

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  • Regardless of your opinion on whether dude has become genderless or not (I also use dude for my friends of any gender), the word is a gendered term that has become ubiquitous. If someone doesn’t want me to use “dude” referring to them, I won’t. It’s not good to assume, so until I know that someone doesn’t mind, I’m not going to use gendered terms contrary to their gender. I wouldn’t call a man “sis” or “girl” the same way I would women I’m friends with, unless I know that doesn’t make them uncomfortable. I wouldn’t call a woman “bro” or “guy” the same way I would men I’m friends with unless I checked. All of those terms are gender nonspecific for me, but they might make someone who doesn’t have my lived experience uncomfortable.















  • I think the issue is that the “new” usage of “they” is seen as different, or incorrect, when that’s simply not the case. The strict usage of “they” as only a plural pronoun is not “correct.” It’s revisionist. Historically, “they” has been used as both a singular and plural pronoun, and it can be found in conversation and literature going back hundreds of years. At some point, we revised that they should be only plural, and that’s why it feels like things are changing in our current lifetimes. We aren’t changing how the word is used, we’re going back to how it’s been used for centuries.

    Language is not a set of rules and strictures. It’s fluid, and the way people use words becomes grammatically correct. If these things could not change, then language couldn’t exist. You can feel uncomfortable that language has changed from what you’ve known, but don’t hold it back, or complain about the next generation. Language will change in their lifetimes too. Overall, it’s a good thing and pushes us to understand each other in the manner appropriate for the times. Right now, an easily recognizable and commonly accepted gender neutral, singular pronoun is more valuable to language than a strict usage or a new word for the use case.

    “They left their bag.” “They went that way.” “I’ll find them later.”

    All these examples could refer to either singular or plural cases, and maybe that confuses some people, but I think it’s very simple to determine with even the barest bit of context. It’s better than defaulting to “he” for any unspecified gender, as was “correct” for the last few decades, and allows for non-binary people to be referred to without needing oft-criticized neo-pronouns.

    TLDR: Times change. We need to get with it.