Source
r/asktransgender•
Streambeta

They/Them

I have a question. Why has the trans community adopted using “They/Them” for gender neutrality vs just using the word ‘individual’?

Seems to me that using “They/Them” is causing more confusion, along with not flowing well within the English language. Even despite the history of those words.

Where it looks as if using the word ‘individual’ would have a much better reaction from cis people. Individual as a word seems to be great for being used singular and plural. While bring a great gender neutral background.

Thoughts?

Posted Oct 28, 2019, 5:06 PM UTC

028
shrikeAught•

“They” is a pronoun. “Individual” is a noun. They are not really interchangeable.

20
StreambetaOP•

Sure it isn’t a pronoun. But within our language we don’t have to use pronouns. We can rearrange our grammar for using a word like individual instead. As an example.

I guess the real question is, why go down the path of using proper pronouns? When it seems we as a society can remove using those pronouns which are giving issues from our usual sentences.

Since most of the time when we identify someone, we are either using that person’s name or using a descriptive to narrow down someone’s search of said individual/person/etc. It just ends up where our society defaults to gender to help identify. Which it absolutely doesn’t have to be, of course.

Idk, it was a conversation I wanted to bring up. I was only curious.

-3
butwhy738•

Have you ever really tried to avoid pronouns? It's incredibly awkward and obvious. We don't deserve to bend over backward with our language for the comfort of transphobes.

8
StreambetaOP•

More of the “transphobes” being the ones to bend over backwards by avoiding pronouns. Since so many of them LOVE to use gender pronouns, mainly out of spite now. They care more about gender when they realize they shouldn’t from others.

Seems like I have success avoiding pronouns. I just stick to non gender discription and using people’s real name. At least for me personally it isn’t awkward, it flows quite naturally. Yet, I may be just weird, idk. Pronouns can sound more like fuller words than actually providing anything useful I’ve noticed.

-2
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
low-tide•

They/them has always been used as a neutral way of referring to someone whose gender you don’t know.

“I saw someone run out of the building and get into a car, it was too dark to tell any details. They drove off immediately.”

“Which way did they go?”

This isn’t new.

12
[deleted]•

I'm confused about OP, can't tell if individual are trolling or just posted without thinking.

9
StreambetaOP•

This is a legitimate question. I wanted to bring this conversation up since I get a lot of confusion from people when I use They/Them. Yet, once I changed my grammar to use individual instead, I noticed an improvement.

-1
[deleted]•

[deleted]

8
StreambetaOP•

Well, the idea is that They/Them is confusing because it implies multiple people in our current language. While Individual flows a lot easier. For example

“They over there helped me.” “That individual over there helped me.”

With the former, people are instantly going to be looking for a group of people (2+). Where the latter makes people look for one specific person.

Or while indentifying one person.

“Did you have a great time with <insert name>?”

“They are fun!” “That individual is fun!”

The latter response has a better understand.

I have noticed that people seem to have a much better understanding when I started using “individual” instead of They/Them. I don’t have to help people’s confusion.

-6
chimaeraUndying•

the idea is that They/Them is confusing because it implies multiple people in our current language.

It is, and has for the past like three hundred years, been also used to indicate a single person of unknown gender. Words can have multiple meanings.

7
shrikeAught•

“That individual is fun!”

That sounds incredibly stilted and unnatural.

The English language already contains a great deal of syntactic ambiguity. For example: “The pigs are ready to eat.” Is grammatically correct, but could refer to cooked pigs that are ready for people to eat, or some pigs in a sty that need to be fed. The fact that people are using “they” to refer to “one, or more” as opposed to just “more than one” hardly seems like some serious syntactic issue.

It always seems like people’s alternatives to singular they feel much worse than singular they. Whenever I see “he/she” in writing, it reads like driving over a speed bump feels. Saying “that individual” or “an individual” requires more words and doesn’t flow as smoothly as using a pronoun.

6
StreambetaOP•

That makes sense, it does make a statement longer. I guess I must be weird, since it seems to come natural to me. Though I’ve been using the words individual and person more than pronouns without thinking. Most of the time instead of using he/she, him/her, I usually always default to the person’s name instead.

Do most people not do that?

-1
chimaeraUndying•

Generally, no? It's very much clumsy; the whole linguistic utility of pronouns is so that you don't have to constantly repeat someone's name (as it's generally more syllables).

4
[deleted]•

[deleted]

3
butwhy738•

They/them has been used as a singular pronoun since Shakespeare's time...

6
StreambetaOP•

Yet, in our current time we don’t. Most people with majority of the time associate those words with meaning multiple.

0
butwhy738•

I suspect people you know are intentionally acting dense. Ever heard the phrase "to each their own?" Singular they. It's used all the time.

6
[deleted]•

[deleted]

5
StreambetaOP•

Yes, there are scenarios where we do. I agree.

0
helperdragon•

Let me see if I understand.

If someone told you that their pronouns were "they/them", you would find that confusing to use in a sentence?

Am I getting that right?

What would you tell them to use instead? The word "individual" is a noun and doesn't work as a pronoun. They wouldn't want to use she/her or he/him because those are binary pronouns.

4
StreambetaOP•

From my personal experience I’ve had some people tell me that they were confused. As for myself, I was confused under certain statements. Most times there is no issue. I’ve just noticed that some situation have created a double take effect.

I’ve usually always advocated to tell people to just use that person’s real name instead of he/she, him/her. Then when you don’t know that person’s name to not use a pronoun at all. Instead use individual/person/etc.

Idk, I seem to have noticed good success from others.

0
enbyirisFtM•

Honestly? We're not doing it for cis people. We're doing it for us, and using they\them pronouns might be 'confusing', but it sounds a hell of a lot more human than 'individual'.

'Individualself' pronouns don't exactly flow off the tongue. :P

Unless you meant for us to not use pronouns at all, and just refer to ourselves as 'individuals', in which case...

No? Hell no?

Cis people can learn to deal -- our lives aren't for their comfort.

3
StreambetaOP•

I can definitely agree and understand that it isn’t meant for cis people.

But, aren’t we trying to improve the understanding of trans people and the movement of better acceptance?

I bring this up because I am curious why individual was never used more. Since I’ve seen a better understanding from people that I am trying to help comprehend trans issues.

0
enbyirisFtM•

They should accept us because we're human; not because we fulfill some baseline requirement of 'acceptability'.

I think you know that, too; you're just being obtuse because either:

A) you're a troll who came on here spurred by a desire to own the libs with appeals to 'understanding' and 'respectability', when you know damn well that transphobes don't give a flying fuck about either.

B) you somehow believe that if we were more 'respectable' and 'appealing' to cis folks, they'd somehow give more of a shit about us.

They\them is what we use because we choose to, and debating its use is almost never in good faith. That's all.

2
StreambetaOP•

Well, I will tell you right now I am not option A. You can never know 100%, but I give you my word that I am not trolling. I may be acting obtuse because trans issues are very complicated issues, these are issues that are very difficult for most people to understand. I mean, to some individuals, transgender people and homosexual people are a paradox to each other, where only one can exist and not the other. Which is obviously a very simple view point for someone to believe that. Yet, that is exactly why I mention these are complicated issues for people to wrap their heads around.

I personally don’t want to just be inclusive, just to be inclusive. I want to massively understand topics to their full potential. That way I have the best knowledge on how to converse with people about said topic, while potentially getting them to understand or change their view points.

I only wanted to have a conversation to see if what I have noticed has any validity. I would love to see a world where everyone can accept each other for who they truly are. From my experiences it seems like the use of They/Them has been doing some harm to convince people that trans individuals are “human”. Since I’m guess that the community probably hates how there is so much focus currently with transphobic people on hating how they are “forced” to use acceptable pronouns. Versus actually talking about the issues at hand. I thought it would help stop people from thinking so much about gender (or how they are “being attacked” because now they have to use specific pronouns, which fuck them for thinking that) and more about how everyone is just a human, how everyone is valid.

I may be completely wrong with this take. Which is exactly why I wanted to ask it here to get some feed back. I didn’t want to just make assumptions without talking with anyone. I wanted to hear from multiple people within the community. I didn’t know if this was something that was talk about before. If it wasn’t, then to see if it might end up helping trans individuals.

Please, I am truly doing this in good faith. I only want to have this conversation and for me to learn something from it. Even though I understand quite a bit, I am still ignorant on trans issues in general. I want to learn. I would love to be able to bring up more of my thoughts to have people question them. Thank you for your time.

0
enbyirisFtM•

If you want to be respectable to us, and learn, then please, listen.

If people want you to use They\them, use it. Don't try to find an 'alternative' for us because you just come off as patronizing. Our identities and how we express ourselves isn't a debate.

2
Teejsaurus| ftm | agender | they/them•

I dunno if "individual" would make sense in all situations though. "Jo and I were at the grocery store, when they ran into their teacher." vs "Jo and i were at the grocery store, when the individual ran into the individual's teacher." It just sounds weird imo. It can sometimes be a little unclear who one is talking about when using they/them pronouns, especially if multiple people are involved in whatever they're saying, but "individual" sounds to me like it would make it even more unclear who the speaker was talking about in a lot of situations. Personally I just think they/them works best, but I also prefer they/them for myself so I'm probably biased lol. And I'm not gonna knock it down if someone tells me they prefer to have the word individual used for them as a pronoun, and I'll do my best to use it for them, same as I would for anyone else asking for any other specific types of pronouns to be used for them.

1