Can I clarify that you are maintaining that “he” is a completely gender-neutral pronoun?
OK, reading further down the thread, I see that you are. Well, in that case, I respectfully* disagree. It feels innocuous, but it really isn’t.
(*meaning “with no respect whatsoever”.)
On these occasions I generally like to link to Douglas Hofstadter’s Person Paper on Purity in Language. He expresses my position rather better than I ever manage.
