Humans like naming things after other things. Like how we name people after concepts we like (love, hope, faith, etc).
He vs. she is already not that useful of a distinction anyway.
I agree.
We don’t gender any other pronouns, hasn’t ever been an issue.
Well, first-person pronouns don’t really need any distinguishing since it can only mean one person/group. Second-person pronouns are generally favored by context so they can be non-specific. But third-person pronouns can mean literally any person (including the speaker and the listener) so some way to limit who that ‘them’ might be is useful. At least, that’s my experience from writing notes about a society with no gender - I got really tired of endless ‘thems’ so I started using two sets of neopronouns.
English also has three different sets of plural pronouns, none of which are gendered - AFAIK some other languages do make distinctions there, too, though it’s more common to gender first and second person pronouns.
People are writing novels in first person, too, doesn’t seem like a big issue that there’s only one set of first person pronouns in English.
Humans like naming things after other things. Like how we name people after concepts we like (love, hope, faith, etc).
I agree.
Well, first-person pronouns don’t really need any distinguishing since it can only mean one person/group. Second-person pronouns are generally favored by context so they can be non-specific. But third-person pronouns can mean literally any person (including the speaker and the listener) so some way to limit who that ‘them’ might be is useful. At least, that’s my experience from writing notes about a society with no gender - I got really tired of endless ‘thems’ so I started using two sets of neopronouns.
English also has three different sets of plural pronouns, none of which are gendered - AFAIK some other languages do make distinctions there, too, though it’s more common to gender first and second person pronouns.
People are writing novels in first person, too, doesn’t seem like a big issue that there’s only one set of first person pronouns in English.