gender-neutral pronouns

A federal appeals court in Cincinnati will hear arguments Wednesday in a legal dispute that pits a Columbus-area school district’s gender pronoun policy against the free speech rights of classmates who believe there are only two genders.

The Republican-backed ban would be applied to applications for admission or employment at public colleges and universities in Ohio.

The dictionary publisher lauded the singular they Tuesday, noting that the tiny word has enjoyed important new uses in an English language that otherwise lacks a good gender-neutral alternative.

For anyone struggling to use "they" as a singular pronoun, linguist Geoff Nunberg says: Just practice. He believes human language processing capacity is far more adaptable than people realize.