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Originally Posted by gmw
I don't think these terms are available for serious consideration at this time, and I mean that literally. These archaic terms have taken on an essentially humorous aspect, used in modern speech and writing mainly in exaggerations and similar (and historical reproductions I suppose, although accurate usage even there is often questionable). This doesn't make them easily acceptable.
I wasn't surprised because I didn't think the OP was really about this topic, which is far from simple. Would such people even want a genderless pronoun used in their case? Would they really want some new pronoun used to explicitly separate them from "he" and "she"? I would not be surprised if some were offended by explicit non-gender-specific references - isn't the question here usually very gender-specific? (If gender wasn't an issue then it shouldn't matter which they started out as.) But I am only guessing.
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Yes, I did add further complications to a difficult subject. I can only say that the questions were already implicitly there. I only brought them forward.
The article I showed above had words, used by a young person to describe that person, that could not be used by a more normal person without some people being incensed, yet some would claim that there is not a "more normal" person, that everyone is normal. Confusing? Yes.
I find when descriptions become confusing or overly complicated then there are going to be problems.
Basically when people become exposed to these kinds of confusing, complicated, and difficult things they have a tendency to withdraw, stop associating, or separate themselves and that has the tendency to make things worse.
And finally your statement:
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I would not be surprised if some were offended by explicit non-gender-specific references - isn't the question here usually very gender-specific?
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If you note the title of this thread it says
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Is it time English adopt a genderless pronoun?
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"Other" and "per" as I used them are that.