In response to Brandon Gaudet's post "He or She is Not Gender Neutral" (April 21, 2012):
In addition to the somewhat problematic singular 'they,' people have attempted to come up with various alternative pronouns which are gender neutral. Perhaps the best known of these is the 'ze/zhe, zir/hir' system. Unfortunately, in modern culture, people tend to use these pronouns only for those who do not fit into the gender binary, not to refer to a person of unknown gender (as in, 'the cloaked individual adjusted zir hood'). Furthermore, many find these pronouns rather awkward to use, as the letter 'z' is uncommon. The pronouns are also rather annoyingly close to pre-existing gender-specific pronouns - 'ze' is basically 'he', 'hir' is almost indistinguishable from 'her.' As such, I think it would be easier for people to adjust to singular, gender-neutral pronouns based off 'they' and 'their' - perhaps 'vey' and 'veir,' as the 'v' sound is not terribly dissimilar to the 'th' sound. This way, one would be more likely to associate the new pronouns with the gender-neutral term 'they' than with the single-gender 'he' or 'she.'
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