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redrightreturning t1_iyleugw wrote

Reply to comment by Pjcrafty in Vaccine prompts HIV antibodies in 97 per cent of people in small study by tonymmorley

I’m not a “he”. Pro tip: If you don’t know someone’s gender it’s completely bizarre to assume. It’s literally no skin off your nose to write “they” instead of assuming someone’s gender. Do better.

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Pjcrafty t1_iylfwlh wrote

I was using he in the “gender neutral” sense, but you’re right that that’s fallen out of favor.

While I do apologize for misgendering you, I think that you could have made your point a bit more politely. That wouldn’t have been any skin off of your nose either.

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NotShey t1_iylikz1 wrote

That's an incredibly aggressive and rude way to address someone making an innocent mistake.

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[deleted] t1_iylgsht wrote

[deleted]

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redrightreturning t1_iylhka9 wrote

Thanks for engaging. I’m glad you don’t care, and still therefore took the time to write about how much i shouldn’t care. Since you took the time to write, I thought I’d give you the same courtesy.

I think what annoys me is when people assume you are male, it’s like male is the “normal” default. But actually, being female is default for me, and like half of the world. Just like it would be weird for someone to assume I’m Chinese (I’m not) or Indian (I’m not) just because there are a lot of Chinese and Indian people in the world, it’s weird to assume I’m a man. There’s no benefit to assuming my ethnicity, and there is likewise no benefit to assuming my gender. Furthermore, it takes no more effort for someone to write “they” instead of “he”. The only difference is that it means they weren’t assuming things about my identity.

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FormalWrangler294 t1_iylhppz wrote

Don’t assume someone on the internet is a native English speaker. That’s racist, do better.

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Whiterabbit-- t1_iylf9xo wrote

fwiw depending on how you learned English, "he" could very well be the non-gendered singular pronoun. "he" is the male or generic pronoun. "she" is the feminine pronoun. what I'm saying is that person may not be trying to insult you. but regardless, I want to thank you for your participation in the vaccine.

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nicktheone t1_iylm68j wrote

Moreover, in many languages masculine pronouns are the neutral/undefined gender by rule so it's also possible they are not an English native speaker and used their own grammar rules.

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HomoRoboticus t1_iyllu3o wrote

> it’s completely bizarre to assume

I assume this all the time on Reddit. It's not bizarre at all.

It's not right, sure. But it's not bizarre.

> It’s literally no skin off your nose to write “they”

"They" is traditionally a plural pronoun, so, either we knowingly make a grammatical mistake and introduce possible confusion there or we just take a 50/50. My English prof, a very snooty old white dude with a lot at stake in such trivial grammatical affairs, suggested using "he" half the time and "she" the other half - on different essays/posts of course so as not to be too confusing.

Whatever side you come down on this - and there is no objective right or wrong here - the one thing we can all agree on is that it's trivial and only pedantic cretins like me (and apparently you) worry about it.

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