Me personally? I’ve become much less tolerant of sexist humor. Back in the day, cracking a joke at women’s expense was pretty common when I was a teen. As I’ve matured and become aware to the horrific extent of toxicity and bigotry pervading all tiers of our individualistic society, I’ve come to see how exclusionarly and objectifying that sort of ‘humor’ really is, and I regret it deeply.
Can we just create some genderless pronouns instead of asking everyone you meet for theirs? I’d be down with that.
I mean, isn’t that exactly what you just used? They/them are genderless pronouns that can be used for both plural and singular subjects. If you don’t know someone’s gender, it’s already what people default to.
Like, “They’re sending someone over at 3, but I don’t know when they’ll get here.” Or, “That person? Nah, I don’t know them.” Or, “Whose is this? Is it yours? Is it theirs?”
When people first started yelling about having to be polite about genders I always found it odd how they’d angrily refuse to use the neutral pronouns already in English, while using those same pronouns in their own sentences without really realizing it.
The only problem I have with, “They” is that it requires context to distinguish the plural form and the singular. We need a dedicated, genderless word for singular third-person.
Does that really matter? If you’re talking to someone the context is obvious, same if you’re talking about someone. The cases where not knowing whether they’re a group or an individual is a problem is basically nonexistent.