Recently I met a person who was born a female and now wants to be referred to as 'he'. This person is a college friend of my daughter's and, as we drove home, Emily and I had a lively discussion about the concept of changing one's gender. Having never given this very much thought, I nevertheless weighed in with several opinions, some uninformed, as is my wont. So here I am, faced with this interesting situation: a trans-gender person has come into the sphere of my awareness and acquaintance and now it has become necessary for me to understand what I think about that. My first thought was this: I can acknowledge that this person was born into a body of a certain gender and does not feel at home in that body. We are fellow human beings and I wish this person well. However, just because someone wishes to be referred to with non-standard pronouns because of gender identity issues, that does not necessarily obligate me to modify my use of language. My second thought was:
The well-phrased, grammatically correct, occasionally thoughtless ravings of a linguaphile.