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Google's shocking developer decree struggles to justify the urgent threat to F-Droid
(www.neowin.net)
this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2025
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Stallman has never been and never will be wrong.
I sometimes like to read his political posts:
https://www.stallman.org/archives/2025-jul-oct.html
And honestly? I mostly agree with them? Like this:
He has some questionable beliefs as well, though for unusual reasons. He accepts non-binary people but refuses to use they/them pronouns because he doesn't like the ambiguity of singular/plural pronouns. So he has invented the neopronouns per/pers to refer to singular non-binary persons. I genuinely think no other person on this planet could hold this opinion.
I criticized singular they/them for increasing language ambiguity and suggested replacing it with something new like xe/xer multiple times. The reply is usually a shitstorm and downvote tornado. I've given up on that front.
Probably because singular "they" predates singular "you" grammatically. Should we go back to using thou and thee instead of the singular you as well?
I always found this argument funny because how would you use pronouns for someone whose gender you do not know? They. It's they. E.g. you are given the sentence: Jordan went to the store to buy apples. And you want to ask a followup question regarding how many, you reply: How many apples did they buy? It's not that complicated. They has been used for gender ambiguity in everyone's lives since grammar school. People just have an inherent bias towards trans folks and it's incredibly depressing and sad.
It hasn’t been used for “gender” ambiguity, but sex ambiguity, because the separation of sex and gender is only a recent thing and it’s not even unanimously accepted.
Oh my gosh, you're being pedantic. It has been used for "gender" ambiguity for quite some time. If you choose to be ignorant, then that's your dill, pickle. At the end of the day, you get to choose whether you make someone happy, or sad. Why is that difficult? Why can't you comprehend the concept of providing joy to someone? Why can't you just be nice? That's what this whole thing is about, right? You can either choose to be nice, or not. And I'm so tired of arguing with people to be nicer. Why can't people get it through their thick skulls, that people just want to live and be considerate of each other. That's what we all want, right?
And that's not how English was taught to me or 99℅ of the population (including English as a second or third language) 20+ years ago. Singular they was only used for situations where the gender (read as superficially visible sex) was factually unknown. You see a forgotten umbrella and never saw who forgot it: "Somebody forgot their umbrella." As soon as you only got a glimpse on the person forgetting it you would make a guess about he/she.
If you're younger than ~30 and from Great Britain, maybe. GB were the first to formalize and teach it like that less than 2 decades ago (if I recall correctly).
That's bullshit projection.
I, a non-native speaker, complain about increased ambiguity of the language because of singular they as a personal pronoun and make a proposal about new pronouns for the purpose.
You: Ah, must be transphobe. Let's ignore everything he said (which doesn't relate to transphobia at all).
It's so frustrating not to be able to have a discussion about stuff making a language harder than it needs to be without people invoking transphobia, like, instantly.
But hey, I called it: can't have a discussion about it and I've given up on it.
edit: tiny add-on. I was still taught gender-neutral he and only heard about they later while being discouraged to use it in writing.
Thank you for agreeing with me! Singular they is only used for gender ambiguity! So, trans folks, or non-binary folks, who choose to go by an ambiguous pronoun, use it. You got it! Unfortunately, I am older than 30, my knees might be older, haha. Also, I'm not from GB/UK. I know grammar school nay have caused some ambiguity there, but grammar school is used in many English speaking countries. Usually, to refer to elementary, primary, or grade school.
Regarding your last diatribe, I didn't even invoke transphobia. For someone so adamant on literal, linguistic definitions, you seemed to overlook the word bias. You have a predispositioned outlook towards trans people, because of your feelings on linguistic definitions. You inherently disregard hundreds of years of evolution in the English vernacular. Words have changed, evolved, and adopted different meanings throughout time. Do we need to cast out the word gay, because it now also means homosexual, when it originated as happy? Do we need to cast out the word terrific? You know, the word that was a synonym for horrific? I understand that you are ESL, but every language has different dialects, vernacular, and idioms. It's why a thong in Australia is vastly different, than a thong in America. You can either adapt your knowledge of the language, or choose to emotionally hurt people on the premise of being "right and literal". There is no need to create something new when society has deemed it acceptable. Just because you don't, doesn't mean everyone else is wrong. The question you must ask yourself is, "Do I care more about being right, or emotionally supporting another human being?". If you have trouble answering that, well, we all have our answer then, don't we? Cheers, mate. Hope you find, or have found, peace, love, and happiness.
You're contradicting yourself here. You're saying you were taught to use singular they when gender is unknown, yet claim that "How may apples did they buy" is wrong based on how you were taught English.
Does it matter whether gender is unknown or just unresolved? Not really, singular they is clearly intended to be a gender neutral pronoun and works in any situation where gender is ambiguous. It's not wrong for people to adopt it as a pronoun to refer to themselves any more than it is for a trans man to adopt "he/his" or a trans woman to adopt "she/hers."
At best your refusal to use it makes you sound like one of those people who gets offended at the word "literally" gaining a colloquial meaning that differs from its original definition. At worst, it presents as transphobia to claim "language purity" as the reason to be so adamantly against something that the trans community has largely adopted.
Doesn't feel like you want to have an honest argument when you ask how far we should go back on a proposal about going forward and don't address the single motivator ambiguity.
Correct, because there is no argument to be had. Intentionally refusing to use someone's pronouns is unacceptable, every time, with 0 exceptions. If there's a dire need to be explicitly clear you're talking about a single person, you could just use their name in that instance.
You don’t get to decide how other people refer to you. I’m sorry but you don’t have that authority. You can dislike people using the “wrong” pronouns, but you cannot compel the usage of the ones you want to be called because of your beliefs. If I say my pronouns are “your majesty” it’s not unacceptable if you don’t use them.