it isn't a guy and it uses it/its pronouns.
I'd feel uncomfortable referring to anyone as "it" though, as there are some connotations with that :-/
This would indicate that maia wants to be referred to as "it" as the subject of a clause and "she" otherwise.
“they/he” and “it/she” indicate alternatives, whereas “she/her” indicates different cases.
Do you mean that instead of saying "it's her apple" you'd say "it's she apple"?
Correct; it is massively ungrammatical.
> Do you mean that instead of saying "it's her apple" you'd say "it's she apple"?
No possessive form is indicated. But instead of saying "I gave it a dress", you would say "I gave she a dress".
Edit: looking at other comments, it seems like it might not be the correct explanation after all?
Some people desire a single set of pronouns, and indicate this using the nominative/accusative pair (she/her, they/them, ze/zer).
Other people accept either of two different sets of pronouns, and indicate this preference using the two nominative forms separated by a slash (she/they, they/he, and apparently, it/she).
I want to choose my prepositions: in, up and above.
Also, my conjunctions are: however, moreover, and whereupon.
My native language doesn't have a he/she differentiation..
It's literally identical to the concept of learning someone's name, yet humans largely don't have a problem with that.
The third person pronouns kick in when talking about them, to someone else, almost certainly in their absence.
That may happen in writing.
"He doesn't look with it": preposition and pronoun.
Oh, and don't get me started on adjectives. If a 5-foot-tall Douglas wants to be called Giant Doug, just oblige.
I thought it was the right that accused the left of being precious snowflakes who aren't able to handle being uncomfortable ever? Why should you being uncomfortable be a blocker to referring to someone as they prefer, right? Being uncomfortable is part of life.
When English got rid of ‘thou’ and “thine” those were replaced by referring to everyone with the more polite “you“, that surly helped adoption.
> I'd feel uncomfortable referring to anyone as "it" though
In Five Children and It (published in 1902), the "It" of the title is a magical creature. However, one of the characters is a human baby who is always referred to with the pronoun "it". I glossed right over that reading the book as a child, but I found it pretty disturbing rereading as an adult.
However, once rereading the book had called the phenomenon to my attention, I noticed that it's not uncommon for me to want to refer to a generic child as "it". I wouldn't refer to a specific child that way.
So referring to a person as "it" is sometimes the normal thing to do. (And, of course, intensely inappropriate at other times.) On the other hand, the intro appears to specify that maia arson crimew wants people to use "she", an exclusively subject pronoun, as the object pronoun for she. That is deeply unnatural and virtually nobody will be able to comply; it's much worse than using "it" for a person.
I guess calling a child "it" is impersonal. Calling it "it" to its face is just strange since "it" is 3rd person.
By 1902, that time was several hundred years in the past.
> Calling [a child] "it" to its face is just strange since "it" is 3rd person.
Sure, but I haven't mentioned any such usage.
While it's uncommon today (and I think uncommon even by the time that book was written), use of 'it' for babies was definitely A Thing at one point.
Claudette Colvin was called it by the police when she was arrested
But I do have a trans friend who prefers it pronouns so that’s a sample size of one in the opposite direction
You seem eager to reduce this to "just" a pronoun issue, but it's not the same as calling someone "he" or "she", whatever they might prefer.
No one gets to single-handedly (re)define the English language for everyone else. "It" in this usage does not fall in to normal English usage, other than to mock people. That they want to use it nonetheless or whatever reason, that's fine with me. I will always listen to that and do my best to oblige with that within reason. However, radically different meanings for words in common grammatical structures, for me, falls outside of "within reason". Other people may choose different, and that is fine too.
> Who's There?
> It's me, Bill Gates!
> "It" has a pretty clear meaning in English, and it is not as a pronoun for people. Therefore you're not Bill Gates or a person.
> This person is female and I'm not comfortable referring to her as 'it' because females are 'she'
and
> This person is a human being, and 'it' is used to refer to objects. It's demeaning to call a human being 'it' and makes me uncomfortable
The later is, at least imo, much more defensible.
I also feel uncomfortable using "it" as a pronoun, luckily this person seems comfortable with "she/her" as well so we can just use those instead.
Whatever you have to say, say it to my face, and not in third person behind my back.
This isn’t “I don’t want to call her him because he’s a she.” The person you’re replying to has a very valid discomfort with reducing a person to an object’s pronoun. Completely understandable and defensible and beyond the apparent needs of the author.
And particularly for "it" and other objectifying language, it has the huge problem that it makes other people uncomfortable. Especially those who overhear without being aware of your preference (imagine sending an email to a new client with text like "in my absence, contact my colleague X, it will assist you, it is an expert").
It's not neutral but guys like to pretend it is.
If I'm in a mixed group down the pub I won't at all be surprised if somebody (usually female) walks up to the table and says "hey guys" as a greeting, intending to include male, female and enby members of said group.
If I'm on the internet I'm not going to try and use "guys" as gender neutral because I fully expect I'd be misunderstood by a decent percentage of people reading if I did.
So I wouldn't say people are necessarily pretending, it's entirely possible they're just used to it being neutral and forgetting that for a bunch of people it very much isn't.
That's socially though - when talking about people I've slept with, I acknowledge I'd expect people to read 'guys' as only referencing the male-identified ones. Though I'm more likely to use 'dudes' for that purpose myself, because confusion around 'guys' can go in both directions.
There's a difference though between "guys" as an address (which is used by plenty of female-only groups as well) and "guys" as a noun.
I do wonder what a linguist would suggest about these two uses, though. English is a language in which context often changes outcomes.
If you approach a group and say "How are you guys?" it doesn't imply an all-male group.
When my best friend came out as trans, I struggled to come up with a good way to refer to everyone as a group in a "hey everyone" kind of way. I eventually realized it's a stupid concept all together and walked into the room of my now mixed gendered friends while shouting "SUP CHODES!".
Went over very well. I recommend it.