Orion Scribner 🐉 is a user on dragon.style. You can listen to them or interact with them if you have an account anywhere in the fediverse.
I saw a thread on the history of "singular they" in English, & how it's standard back to Chaucer. One remarked that while "singular they" is nothing new, but that's for unspecified, unidentified, & hypothetical individuals, & that folks *requesting* to be called by neutral #pronouns is new. Sounds like a challenge!
Anyone have sources about folk *asking* to be called by neutral pronouns before 1990?
@jamey Neat! I only wish they gave more information about the one in 1950, about someone choosing to go by "they."
@frameacloud Me too, that would be an interesting story to follow up on!
@frameacloud I'd look into some stuff about Uranians in the early 1900s, which might have something?
@frameacloud Merriam-Webster has a nice post on the history of singular "they", and claims evidence of nonbinary "they" dating to at least 1950, with other English pronouns reflecting the reality of people existing outside a gender binary at least as far back as the 17th century. https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/singular-nonbinary-they