In the absence of knowing someone's pronoun of choice (zie, hir, or something else) I would think that many transgendered and genderqueer people would prefer a gender neutral (though incorrectly plural) "they" to making assumptions about their gender, based on appearances, or to gender binarism in general.

This is what I mean about just using a plural subject. Works beautifully.

Ah, punctuation. I follow my universities' style guides, so as to write papers that don't get thrown in the bin by my professors. All (four of) the universities I've attended have used style guides that put the punctuation outside of the quotation marks. I wasn't taught this at school, though, so if it's not academic writing, I'm less concerned. Old habits die hard, nonetheless. I'm not a prescriptivist, as I'm a bit of a sociolinguist, but I fully accept the need for register, writing for a purpose, and meeting the requirements of a demanding readership.

It may have been a bit too soon for Alton Towers, although it was nice for a couple of hours. I huuuuurt. The Girl just crawled into bed next to me, clutching a bottle of water and demanding death. I put Eddie Izzard on for her. "Cake or death?"

Wedding pics, anyone? The first official batch came in (no fewer than *four* of our friends are professional photographers, so there are more to come - we are very lucky). TG's the slightly shorter one with the darker hair. [link]

ETA: OK, none of my direct links is working. That's annoying. I'll upload a few to flickr tomorrow. The site link's there, at least!

This is what I mean about just using a plural subject. Works beautifully.

Excuse my confusion, but I'm doing too many things at once and my head hurts like a bitch. Can you give me an example of a sentence about one person of unknown gender with a plural subject that satisfies your requirement?

I'm sorry to interrupt the crucial grammar discussion, but I need to squee! for a moment:

There's a good chance that after weeks of careful hinting and passing-the-word on my side, I will manage to create a rape crisis center training designed especially for leftist demonstrations organizers and activists (where a lot of sexual harassments are taking place and they're clueless about what to do about it. Arabs' rights first, women's last. I wish I was kidding). They took a lot of fire on this for almost a year now - mostly after asking from women to come in more modest dress for demonstrations - and did next to nothing to show they care about women's rights other than the basic "but we have women leaders in our demonstrations! Which means no one is harassed here!" speech.

Enter moi. It took almost two months of asking from leftists men to spread the word to the demonstration organizers (and a lot had to do with one feminist leftist man that actually helped and didn't just nod his head with "yeah, good idea"), but I just received an email via that one great men saying that they're ready to listen. Right now, I'm trying to get them a good deal for (or free) that training at the rape crisis center.

In my book, I call it a win. They were so goddamn persistent with they "we don't know what you mean by sexual harassment" answers. I really hope they'll take it seriously and won't back off at the last minute.

Edit: ehh, spell check, you bitca.

Shir, you are a rock star. Seriously, you are doing Something Important, and that's amazing.

I think you are missing my point ita. I should have specified from the outset that I teach academic writing, not fiction. My point is that, if you are making an academic argument and don't want to use a gendered third person pronoun, generally it's going to be easier and neater to use a plural subject.

Good for you. For real.

Wedding pictures! Wedding pictures! Wedding pictures!

explodes with joy

not literally

Ah, Burrell, I thought you were saying you hated the usage in general.

Shir--I fixed your tag.

People? I can't recommend quickedit highly enough. That way, if other people's posts get borked? It's my fault, not yours.

Wedding pics, anyone? The first official batch came in (no fewer than *four* of our friends are professional photographers, so there are more to come - we are very lucky). TG's the slightly shorter one with the darker hair. [link]

You both look so lovely and happy! I am grinning for you.