I'm not John, but will weigh in. I don't like it and will continue to avoid it personally, but I decided this past year to start ignoring this use of "they" when marking.

The fact that I'm at the university where Jordan Peterson made such a big deal of not using non-gendered pronouns weighed in that decision. (Note, for those aware of that controversy, Peterson is now so successful with his ****-disturbing online that he is no longer teaching.)

This popped up on my feed today. It's called "How a dictionary writer defines English."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLgn3geod9Q

To be fair, it's a very small percentage of that (already small) population that would truly say they're genderless. Typically it's more like being a blended or ambivalent gender, which is more in the spirit of "they" (the modern usage) than "it".

To me the spirit of they is in the number of people, not their gender.

I recently read a novel in which one of the main characters was of unspecified gender. It was never even explained why, but the person was referred to by "they" for the whole book. Of course, "they" was also used when referring to a group of people. It was extremely confusing for the entire novel. Using "it" would have been confusing for the first few uses only.

lol it's like when I was asked what size drink I wanted, and I replied "small." The guy behind the counter told me they only had medium or large, so of course I spent the next ten minutes explaining to him why you can't have a medium if you don't have a small.

He should have just given you the medium and said, "Here ya go, sir."

You can't be serious. "It" refers only to objects, never to people.

I also don't believe that you find "they" as a singular pronoun "extremely confusing." Most of us do just fine when it's used in the context of a conversation or a novel. But I think you know this. Dictionaries and prevailing opinion is against you at this point. To insist on using "they" only as a plural will get you pegged as a pedant or an alt-right mouthbreather these days, even if this isn't a fair assessment.

Of course I'm serious. "It" has not generally been used to refer to people in the past, but it would be much less confusing than "they". I'd also be fine with a made up new word.
Reading an entire novel like that was very confusing. Each time "they" was used, I had to think about whether the individual or group was meant. I would have quit the novel if it hadn't been for a book club. I'm guessing almost everyone would have had trouble with it. If anyone is curious, the novel is "River Of Teeth".
Unfortunately I then missed the club meeting so I don't know if it confused the others. If anyone here has read it, I am curious to know if they found it confusing as well.

I can't remember ever being confused about what was meant by "they", have you got an example? It would be insanely confusing to use "it", lol. You would get sentences like "Tell your child to take the dog for a walk, whether it wants to or not".

That's a rather contrived sentence. And still doesn't prove any point, because most people who have dogs call them "him" or "her", not "it". I've never noticed any dog being offended either way though, even the neutered ones.

I guess I could go back to the book and try to find some examples, but it was a really terrible book all around, so I don't really have any desire to do so.

Back when they used to ask me if I "wanted to Super-Size it for a dollar more," I'd always tell them to Toddler-Size it for a dollar less. Of course, I'd have to go into a PA rant that they gave me the wrong change and look baffled by the whole exchange.

I still say "Toddler Size" or "Child Size" when they ask me what I want. Sometimes they surprise me and I get a Juicy Juice or a sippy cup with my grease bombs.

The pronoun "they" has been commonly used for an unspecified or unknown singular third person all my life (and I'm not young). This has never been confusing to me but just natural and correct.

When you don't know the third person's gender, you should say "they".

When you don't wish to specify their gender or identity, you should say "they" (see what I did there?).

When the gender or identity is irrelevant to your narrative, it is common to say "they", e.g. "The server was good at their job."

This pronoun is used as singular all the time by most people and I can't even believe it's remotely controversial. The singular usage is totally standard English.

I already stated all that was true and I have no problem with it.

Side note to this argument: My Victorian era grandmother followed a grammar rule she said she'd been taught in school, which was to call animals "it" and only use gendered pronouns for people!

So so for her, it was "take it for a walk"!

Um... yeah? Like my point in the example sentence was that "it" would normally clearly refer to the dog, but would be ambiguous if "it" could refer to the child.

"It" is totally normal for non-human animals in Australia, it's the standard non-gendered pronoun. "He" and "she" are common as well. "They" would not be acceptable. "It" is even sometimes used for newborn babies where the sex is unknown to the speaker, although it can be considered rude if you're not careful. "They" is again unacceptable. The polite thing to do is clarify the sex before speaking. I can't really explain any of this, thinking about it, it's just convention in our dialect.

With the newborn baby example you actually prove that "it" is sometimes used for people and works fine.

"Is it a boy or girl? "
Or just avoid the pronoun and go with, "boy or girl?"

"Is they a boy or girl" is also a possibility.

Regarding dogs and pets in general, it sort of depends. These days, people are naming their pets Roger and Susan. I think calling pets "it" is sort of falling out of favor as well. I haven't hear "it" used for a pet in a while now that I think of it.

The newest word for "non-gendered" babies are "theybes," which the spell-checker dislikes. I can only hope it stays that way.

What the hell is a non-gendered baby?

Don't box in my child. They should be free to discover their own identity. I haven't named it, either.

It will discover having a dick or vagina pretty soon.

From The New Yorker: "The Hedonic Appeal of Dreyer’s English" by Katy Waldman
https://www.newyorker.com/books/page...term=TNY_Daily

This sentence, among other atrocities, appeared in an internet article by Jesse Nussman:

"By the movie’s last fourth, his character has taken a dark turn; becoming someone who is so obsessive and out of line with reality, that they are now unstable."