Erasing Gender in the English Language

Erasing Gender in the English Language 

When I went to high school, admittedly this was a very long time ago, the nuns who taught us pounded English grammar into our heads. We used to “decline” sentences with a diagram describing every word and its proper use (adjective, pronoun, noun, verb, different tenses, etc.). Even though I am now quite capable of bastardizing English when I speak (and cannot help but be aware that I am doing so) these English lessons stuck with me and I still try my best to follow the rules when I write.

The English language, they say, is a difficult language to learn, so many exceptions to the rules, especially in spelling. But I was immersed into it from birth so its idiosyncrasies don’t confuse me too much. Didn’t confuse me I should say - until now.

The 21st century has entered the stage. We now have a problem with gender pronouns. In order to avoid offending people who don’t identify with their physical gender the pronouns “he” and “she” are being substituted with the word “they”. At least I think that is what’s going on. This is grammatically confusing. “They is not pleased with the arrangements we made” is a sentence that I find jarringly wrong. “They” is plural, not singular. It should be “they are” not “they is”. I pity the teachers and journalists who have to cope with this craziness. Why didn’t they just invent new neutral pronouns for genderless or gender confused or gender transitional people, or all people? Maybe ze instead of he or she. Then the above sentence would read “Ze is not pleased with the arrangements we made”. 

I guess this rant was spurred on when I found out the media is now calling pregnant women pregnant persons. Give me a break!

I do not wish to negate the problems facing those who are not comfortable with the gender they were born with. Gender issues are important, especially to the LGBTQ+ minority, their families and friends. But it seems to me that our government, if government is indeed responsible for imposing these changes on the media (workplace, schools?), may be employing diversionary tactics. If they concentrate on minority issues we may think they are actually doing something. In the meantime they fail to address issues which concern all taxpayers - issues such as crumbling or non-existent infrastructure, housing, health care, food and water security, nuclear war, genocide, etc. Our Prime Minister… Ze is having a tough time proving ze is relevant to the majority of Canadian people.