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The costumer – it?

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Okay, I have been reverted by Peter Isotalo and Thomas W. because they claim the Swedish sentence "När kunden har fått hem varan ska den källsortera emballaget" should be translated into English as "When the customer has received the merchandise, it should recycle the packaging".

Thomas W. argues: "both "den" and "det" refer to objects and are correctly translated as "it" (for example "stolen"="den" and "bordet"="det")".

I think that is beside the point. Yes, 'den' can of course refer to objects, but it can just as well refer to a person, as it does in the sample sentence. I see no reason why a perfectly normal Swedish sentence should be translated in a way that defies English grammar. After all, using it to refer to the costumer is not grammatically correct. Marrakech (talk) 15:02, 19 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Marrakech: The translation is supposed to be just that, i.e. not grammatically correct in English, in order to illustrate why a gender neutral pronoun would be desired in Swedish. Thomas.W talk 15:07, 19 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
But I fail to see the reason why a grammatically incorrect English phrase would be needed to illustrate why a gender neutral pronoun would be desired in Swedish. Any English reader with no knowledge of the Swedish language is left with the idea that, apparently, the Swedish sentence is just as ungrammatical as the English one, while it's not. If the idea is to reflect the gender neutrality of 'den', then I think using singular 'they' would be the way to go. Marrakech (talk) 16:43, 19 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
No, using singular they would imply that den already fills the same function in Swedish as singular they does in English, and has a similar level of acceptance, which it doesn't and hasn't (even though the acceptance of singular they is low in English, outside of Wikipedia...). So the grammatically incorrect phrase is there to illustrate how awkward/incorrect using den in that context is in Swedish. Which is why most people try to avoid using any form of personal pronouns when they want to be gender neutral, writing "emballaget skall källsorteras när kunden fått hem varan" or "när kunden fått hem varan skall emballaget källsorteras" instead of "när kunden har fått hem varan ska den källsortera emballaget". Thomas.W talk 16:57, 19 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
"But I fail to see the reason why a grammatically incorrect English phrase would be needed to illustrate why a gender neutral pronoun would be desired in Swedish."
It's a great illustration, because the sentence is at least semi-incorrect in Swedish too. Yes, "den" does not only mean "it"; it can also be an article, like "the" in English. Or perhaps better, like "that". The actual correct sentence would be something like "...så ska den kunden källsortera varan"; "...then the/that customer shall sort the article".
But that's clumsy as fuck, so English used to use "he or she" in those situations, and has now largely switched to singular they. Swedish used to use "han eller hon", but has no singular they to switch to, so many are tentatively going for "hen" in stead.
What was illustrated was the awkwardness of the original sentence, and that comes across almost prefectly in the translation. Sure, it's definitely grammatically incorrect in English, and only arguably so in Swedish. (I'd certainly say it was!) But replacing it with a grammatically-perfectly-correct sentence in English would miss the point pretty much completely. -- CRConrad (talk) 13:30, 12 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Decision to replace blanket use of transgender and third gender with something else

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Transgender is an umbrella term, though one more limited in scope than trans (it's an identity generally used at the exclusion of trans[s]exual). Its literal meaning, in the internet 2010s use at least, is someone who identifies under a gender that is different from the one a person has been designated at birth.

Gender can be defined as a given [arbitrary] social identity that tends to relate roughly to how one feels about society's wider concepts of gender norms, and/or in which ways such feelings are diverging from that; there are nonbinary identities more creative and complex than this, but essentially, this seems like a fairly balanced short description. The designated genders [ín human Western world societies and the ones we/you/our ancestors/our elite (?) have colonized] are: male – DMAB/AMAB, for short –, female – DFAB/AFAB –, and in rare cases, indeterminate – DIAB – (though most intersex people are designated a given binary gender and expected to conform with them just like dyadic/perisex/endosex/gametonormative (?) i.e. non-intersex people).

That means that under the umbrella of trans/gender, you will find thousands, millions, trillions of possible nonbinary genders or fractions and combinations of gender that deviate out of expected identity labels and situations For example, the full name of my gender identity might be artfully composed of a well-known term coined in 1995, another slightly more obscure term most likely coined in the 2000s, both of which having Wikipedia articles, and 4-5 obscure neologism specifiers for different kinds/circumstances of genderfluidity; as for my relationship with the designated genders, I personally hate the notions of dysphoria, of gendered anatomy, of gendered social presentation and don't really bother with people assuming I'm among the social group I was designated under. I just don't really feel a lot in common (or a lot of distance) with either designated gender. (No, I'm not a user of that certain social microblogging platform some of you might be thinking of, this is a very legitimate ideology/experience, as anxiety about my relationship with this prevalent concept in society and how it presents an undesirable picture of myself haunted me since pre-teen age.)

But trans/gender might also mean that you will find people who will just identify with the other commonly designated gender. Actually, most people expect this to be the case, and in the case people deviate out of it, a lot of dramatic behavior and ideology might ensue in response (I'm rather experienced to said perception of the debate).

Most/all (?) languages in the world offer a full apparatus for people to use that one language set instead, which is the case of all European languages. It's quite relevant since binary trans people (trans men and trans women) have historically avoided and hated being placed out of their adopted gender treatment, and this followed recommendations by institutions at large to police themselves at great levels in order to be taken seriously. I'd expect more adult cis people to use a gender-neutral pronouns than binary trans people, in fact. Sweden is not that different from the Americas, since Argentina, Denmark, Malta and IIRC Ireland are the only countries to have fully depathologized transness, a decently controversial measure given the stark distinction between that and being expected to fully change your anatomy, and often also your genuine self-expression, in order to be legally recognized as your social/psychological self (as well as complying with such expectation).

Here is a link for how the genderqueer and nonbinary terms have formed, and why I think they're more to the point than transgender: http://genderqueerid.com/post/11617933299/the-non-binary-vs-genderqueer-quandary

Here are a [ideologically loaded but still worth it, for anyone] couple of links on culturally-specific genders, their place under colonialism and the issues with the 'third gender' language (we can perfectly replace): http://b.binaohan.org/?tag=binarism http://www.womanist-musings.com/2012/07/third-genders-and-western.html http://binaohan.org/blog/why-i-dont-like-this-glossary-of-gender/

So... I guess it'd be rather more informative to have people informed about which genders (or major groups of genders) hen actually confers legitimacy and space to. Trans men tend to use he/him/his/himself. Trans women and DMAB people of non-Western genders tend to use she/her/hers/herself. Mentioning or implying it's about blurring gender lines while at the same time implying that all trans people ever, in general, have an active ideological desire to blur such lines (or desire to do so through language) is inaccurate. Using hen as a blanket term for trans people only is misgendering. There are non-intersex cis people going through great lengths to avoid cissexist and dyadist wording (e.g. saying testicular/ovarian corporeality/anatomy instead of biological male and female, for example), there are trans people who describe themselves as *DGAB gender*-bodied, FtM, MtF, and will expect you to also be anxious to eliminate your hideous ~biological sex~ features as if it was a legitimate mental disorder.

It's plain nonsensical to imply transgender people in general will agree on a single ideology or language use surrouding it, and it's plain nonsensical to use third gender (either in the sense of genders only present in Sweden due to immigrant communities, or implying that the nonbinary umbrella as a whole is a 'third gender category') in this context. Srtª PiriLimPomPom (talk) 21:35, 29 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

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cf. french

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https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/18/europe/french-dictionary-non-binary-scli-intl/index.html --Ernsts (talk) 21:36, 18 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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