Maybe you should write to your congressperson and suggest they add Qr. as an option. You can choose Dr for that initial note though - could be it means Doctor, but maybe it could also stand for Differenter.
I think thatâs alright - after all, it is originally a gender neutral term. So just carry on in the Lebowski fashion, and youâre all good. Or at worst, youâll just offend everyone equally, which is really all we can hope for these days.
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I like your âQr.â A fair number of people use âMx.â for various non-binarinesses.
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Iâd prefer no prefix/honorific/whatsit at all. Mx. would have been okay though I guess.
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I tend to use guys when referring to a group of either gender (including all female). Its counterpart girls is falling out of favour and ladies or women sounds too formal for most casual contexts. Some people apparently donât like the word female either, so itâs guys for everybody, with no gender assumptions (until someone can come up with a better non-specific term that fits the register and catches on).
As for my own gender, Iâll wait to hear a sensible definition that makes me think that Iâm in the right or wrong one or at a specific point along the scale rather than just living in an overly reductive culture before I can even address the issue. Wikipedia says:
Traits traditionally cited as feminine include gentleness, empathy, and sensitivity, though traits associated with femininity vary depending on location and context, and are influenced by a variety of social and cultural factors.
These are three specific qualities that attracted my wife to me, along with my lack of pride in my masculinity. The three prototypical masculine traits that are cited (courage, independence and assertiveness) are also there to some extent, but I see them as qualities that many women (including my wife) have too, and donât see them as particularly masculine at all (all six qualities are common in both genders, they just have different labels if someone of the âwrongâ gender displays them). Have the writers met northern European and Scandinavian women? Apart from general rules of thumb that vary widely based on culture, this is all so hopelessly vague. There are biological differences that also affect behaviour, but giving a woman testosterone against her will could bring on many masculine traits without people saying that her gender had changed. This is aside from the fact that people who make a point of policing adherence to gender identity are implicitly admitting their lack of confidence in its innateness.
I admit that I donât know a lot about this issue, but one of the ways I see it at the moment is that people who specifically identify as non-binary have what some Christians might call a prophetic role - symbolically challenging neat categorisations of gender by their presence and actions in society. (Not that this is why they make those choices, just that the effect on society can be an undermining of rigid gender identities).
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So ânewâ that it was addressed over a thousand years ago in the Talmud.
But dont let mere facts get in the way or anything.
Actually, I think you are helping me prove my point. That we already use neutral terms (not the word âitâ) everyday and donât really requite a NEW 3rd neutral pronoun system.
That was my original point, that most of our interactions we know nothing of the strangers we interact with, including name, so preferred pronouns we are going to probably use the one that person appears to align with, or use neutral terms we already have.
I too use guy and dude and man all the time when talking to everyone - women included. âHey, guys, whatâs for lunch.â âMan, your shirt is awesome, Cathy.â âDude, youâre right, this client sucks, Emily.â
Donât worry, I didnât. My intent wasnât to discuss the history of Judaism, about which I know almost nothing. It was to point out the offensive arbitariness of âyou have to pick a sideâ.
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I can totally agree with you on that. Iâm all for the Shakespearean choice of using âtheyâ, myself. Weâve already got it, weâre already using it, itâs less frightening to people who are stuck in their ways.
ButâŚI think itâs important to find out what people for whom this is most important have to say about their preference(s). Not that everyone is going to get exactly what they want, but who are we (you and I) to determine the solution for them, you know?
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IMO, dude and man are perfectly acceptable as general generic terms.
Also equally acceptable.
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To throw another data point on the pile ⌠I would really rather not be "dude"ed or "guy"d. 
If itâs toward a multi-gendered group which I happen to be a part of, Iâm ok with either ⌠sort of.
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What would you prefer? Iâd prefer to use non-gendered terms if theyâre available (and the whole point of my usage of guys as a plural is not to specify gender where itâs not relevant to the interaction. "They also seems like an obvious choice with a long history to me). Other general terms that have no association with gender can have their own problems:
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Living in the South, Iâve picked up yâall. In Pennsylvania (or Ohio; not certain where my grandma picked it up), theyâd say something that sounds like youâuns.
Unpatched English is lacking at times.
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A lot of these terms have a pretty strong regional marking; in Northern Ireland people say yous, in other places you might hear you all, all yâall, folks, friends etc. In other English speaking regions or among other groups though, the same term would sound odd. Where I was in Ireland, people might use lads as a gender-neutral term. Lads and dudes sounds male gendered to me though, while plural guys sounds almost neutral (although it can also be used as male, especially in the singular). It bothers me that there arenât any female plural forms that can cover both genders though - 20 women and one man can be guys, but not ladies.
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Youâuns (or youns or yinz) is western PA/Appalachia. Itâs Scots-Irish in origin, coming with the settlers who came in the 18th century.
I donât really think that referring to groups of anyone with a gendered term is appropriate. The fact that we do it with male terminology only reinforces male dominance. For example, when referring to a group of 10 females we might say âgirls,â but a group of 9 females and one male would never be referred to as âgirlsâ (unless it was used in a demeaning way), only referred to as guys."
"[quote=âchgoliz, post:69, topic:77082â]
I can totally agree with you on that. Iâm all for the Shakespearean choice of using âtheyâ, myself.
[/quote]
I think this is only recently deemed acceptable for referring to a person of unknown gender, but Iâm not sure itâs used for someone whose gender is presumed. For instance, if a user manual should refer to a user, it might say something like âthe user should type their passwordâ and in that case itâs being used in the singular form, but in a generic, hypothetical sense. If it is a particular user with a known or presumed gender, it would still be him or her, his or hers.
I donât presume to fully understand the issues related to being GQ, but I do think we need to recognize that language has evolved over a very long time, and during that time there was very little recognition of anyone otherly gendered. So there are bound to be some legacy uses of that language, and some are likely to take it as offensive. And rightly they should; insisting on using a gendered noun other than what a person has said is their preference is dismissive, discriminatory, and rude. That said, we canât be blamed for inadvertently or presumptively using gendered nouns because itâs going to take time to evolve language to accept the newly understood spectrum of gender identity.
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When I run into that stuff professionally, itâs usually down to bad writing practices based on stale assumptions. âTechnical staff are all men, end users are all women.â Itâs wild for so many reasons. Not least of which being the obvious âthey knowingly sent this to women in technology.â
If itâs for end users, use âyou.â If itâs for technical staff to tell clients, use âclientâ and âtheyâ when âclientâ gets cumbersome.
(Continuing your thought, not arguing against it.)
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Which is kind of funny to me: I grew up in the South and worked to expunge âyâallâ from my usage when I moved away.
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The use of âyâallâ tends to be a give away of southern origins. Not using it is a great way to signal a desire to dissociate oneself from the region and I can totally understand why some would want to do soâŚ
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I moved out of the American South almost 30 years ago, so while I do have some vestiges of my former accent (especially when Iâm tired or have been on the phone with my mother for more than two minutes), my dialect is much more mid-western these days.
I have visited family there, and even brought two of my partners with me. This involved having to later explain to my sweeties the subtle social meanings that they were missing. My relatives (Note: != family) were accepting of my sweeties, because they are âYankeesâ and therefore donât know any better. I, however, am a traitor to the South.
It was actually kind of interesting explaining the meaning of âWell, bless your heart.â
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I know right⌠if youâre not from here, you donât know the full meaning.
And of course, Iâm not a real southerner, because I was born north of the mason-dixon line - although Iâve been here for 99.9% of my life!
the south is a weird, strange place that clings way too much to its prejudices and fears⌠which is sad, because there is some wonderful food, music, and scenery down here too. And some wonderful people, too. It would be great if the rest of the south didnât work so damn hard to wreck all that.
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