Board Thread:The Panopticon/@comment-1451563-20180913002703/@comment-6032121-20181004142147

In-narrative with a different character, Orr, singular they/them is clearly established in Aliens Among Us as the correct set of pronouns for an individual who is not always identifiable as "he" or "she".

Because of how the English language works, it seems self-evident to me that "they" is the most preferable option, and I have yet to see any reason for that to change.

Going to reply to both of these at once: what I've been arguing is that Time Lords are not the same thing as Orr. Orr is a constantly-shifting being who is, in fact, non-binary; thus "they" is appropriate.

But Time Lords aren't non-binary — nor is their gender unknown: it's a case that simply doesn't exist in the real world of a being who spends rather period of its life as one sex and gender, then switches for an equally-long and solid period of time. At times the Master is a "he", at times the Master is a "she", but there's never a time (to our knowledge) when the Master identifies as a "they".

Thus I argue that "they" would be appropriate for people whose gender is not "male" or "female", like Orr or Alpha Centauri; or for people whose gender is just unknown; but it doesn't accurately describe the situation of a Time Lord, who is either "male" or "female", as accurately as systematic "he or she"/"she or he" would.

I think this is a very real nuance. My calling-up of in-universe examples of "he or she"-type phrasing hasn't been to argue that "he or she" is the way people in the DWU refer to those whom we in the real world would refer to as "they"; it's been on the basis that "he or she" and the singular "they" mean different things.