User:SOTO/Forum Archive/The Panopticon/@comment-1451563-20180913002703/@comment-6032121-20180915222244

First, let me congratulate you on a long and well-put-together post. (The Internet needs more people being nice to each other, darnit!)

In truth, I cannot say if this is what Game-Fanatic truly wanted (they seem to have dropped out of the conversation…), but here's what I think we ought to do: in cases referring to several incarnations of varied gender, do what the Doctor did when talking about the Corsair and say "he, or she" instead of saying "they". If "they" was the proper way to refer to gender-crossing Time Lords, one would expect the Doctor's above-quoted line to go something like "himself — well, themselves". Instead, Gaiman went with "himself… or herself, a couple of times".

And I think (though of course, this is rather subjective, as is the concept of gender itself these days IRL) that there is a nuance between "he or she" and a singular "they". The latter is most at home when talking about a person of unknown gender, or a person whose gender does not fit the traditional male-vs-female distinction; it implies a gender-neutral or genderqueer character. "He or she" means precisely what it says, an individual who is, at times, a he, and, at times, a she. But not both at once.

What I mean is that (regardless of the speculation regarding a "default gender") all evidence points to Time Lords being individuals who are, at times, decidedly female, and at times, decidedly male; but at no point do they consider themselves gender-neutral, and thereby as someone who could be referred to as "they".