Hm, some more thoughts. Not necessarily useful ones, but definitely thoughts.
Gender really can be pertinent to a lot of interactions, as can many other qualities a person can possess. If English allowed it, I would be pretty happy to use a pronoun that indicates late 20s cissexed straight-leaning bi male in a long-term committed poly relationship not actively looking for additional partners but possibly open to meeting them. These are things I think would be useful to most people I interact with to know. But I would of course object to a language where my marital status was an obligatory part of how I was addressed.
If the above seems far-fetched, consider this. Japanese doesn't really use third-person pronouns much but has an expressive range of first-person options. Fictional businessman Akihiro could use, in the course of a week, the first-person pronoun "watashi" to speak to co-workers, "boku" to speak to his mother, "watakushi" to speak to a high-status visitor from another company, "ore" when having a beer with the guys, "atashi" during the opening remarks at zer drag burlesque show, "atasha" when trash-talking one of the other girls back-stage and "ware" when delivering a eulogy at their grandfather's funeral. And a lovely quality of Japanese is that listeners would understand from those choices how to address Aki in return (Acchan, eat your breakfast/Buchou, I want that report by Wednesday/Dude, did you see the tits on that one?/You're such a good dancer, Akichan/I'll cut you, bitch!/I am plagued with sadness by your inestimable loss, Kodawara-san).
More conventionally, a teenage girl might use "watashi" or "atashi" with her parents and teachers, "ore" with her female friends, and "atashi" or "atasha" or even "mi-" with that boy from English class she likes, and each choice would carry a bevy of (possibly not always desirable or even wholly deliberate) implications for how she is identified.
German uses a third-person plural gender-neutral pronoun to refer to individuals in formal polite speech, so maybe gender neutral people in Germany always seem really respectable?
no subject
Gender really can be pertinent to a lot of interactions, as can many other qualities a person can possess. If English allowed it, I would be pretty happy to use a pronoun that indicates late 20s cissexed straight-leaning bi male in a long-term committed poly relationship not actively looking for additional partners but possibly open to meeting them. These are things I think would be useful to most people I interact with to know. But I would of course object to a language where my marital status was an obligatory part of how I was addressed.
If the above seems far-fetched, consider this. Japanese doesn't really use third-person pronouns much but has an expressive range of first-person options. Fictional businessman Akihiro could use, in the course of a week, the first-person pronoun "watashi" to speak to co-workers, "boku" to speak to his mother, "watakushi" to speak to a high-status visitor from another company, "ore" when having a beer with the guys, "atashi" during the opening remarks at zer drag burlesque show, "atasha" when trash-talking one of the other girls back-stage and "ware" when delivering a eulogy at their grandfather's funeral. And a lovely quality of Japanese is that listeners would understand from those choices how to address Aki in return (Acchan, eat your breakfast/Buchou, I want that report by Wednesday/Dude, did you see the tits on that one?/You're such a good dancer, Akichan/I'll cut you, bitch!/I am plagued with sadness by your inestimable loss, Kodawara-san).
More conventionally, a teenage girl might use "watashi" or "atashi" with her parents and teachers, "ore" with her female friends, and "atashi" or "atasha" or even "mi-" with that boy from English class she likes, and each choice would carry a bevy of (possibly not always desirable or even wholly deliberate) implications for how she is identified.
German uses a third-person plural gender-neutral pronoun to refer to individuals in formal polite speech, so maybe gender neutral people in Germany always seem really respectable?