Re: [OT] Grammatic gender

[David Kastrup]

"N. Andrew Walsh" <address@hidden> writes:

> On Thu, Nov 16, 2017 at 3:04 AM, David Wright <address@hidden>
> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> > German: "Das Mädchen aß seine Mahlzeit.".
>> >
>> > >> > It may seem so, because the articles for all three genders are the
>> > >> > same, but words are referred to by ‘he’, ‘she’, or ‘it’. In
>> > >> > English the sun is male, the moon female
>>
>> Think so, grammatically?
>>
>
> Since this is already well off-topic, I'd like to ask a general question of
> the German speakers here: the Constitutional Court recently ruled that
> forcing people born in Germany to identify only as either male or female on
> official documentation is discriminatory (for a number of reasons,
> including: some people cannot be biologically categorized as entirely one
> or the other, some people are mis-assigned, some people don't identify that
> way, etc.). The court provided two possible remedies: either add a third
> category (presumably "unspecified"), or strike sex from official
> documentation entirely.
>
> Since German *does* use gendered pronouns, what do you imagine is likely to
> happen here, as people start entering into adult life with no specified
> male or female gender? As noted above, referring to biological organisms,
> much less people, with the neuter pronoun would likely be considered
> unacceptable. So what do you imagine is likely to happen here? Is the Duden
> going to start establishing what is effectively a fourth gender category?

I think you misunderstand what the Duden does.  It is descriptive, not
prescriptive.  There is no such thing as the "Académie Française" that
has the power to prescribe language usage.  The closest thing is the
Kultusministerkonferenz which can decide which teaching materials to use
and what spellings are to be used in official documents.

> As a consummate mannerist, I'm in favor of all linguistic expansion.

Personally, I don't think that micromanaging gender identities is going
to help anybody deal better with who and what they and/or others are.

-- 
David Kastrup