Re: grammar and gender - a problem

In article <48182038@xxxxxxxxxxxx>, wes.parish@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx says...
I have a real problem - insofar as it impacts the lives of the people in my
imaginary world.

When they change gender, they say "I engendered myself [male|female]" as the
case may be.

What would they say about other people? "He engendered himself
female"? "He engendered herself female"? "She engendered herself
male"? "She engendered himself male"? Etc?

In other words, what point in time would people use when speaking of such
matters? Before they had undergone the gender-switch? Or afterwards?

What do people think?

The whole construction seems awkward. If he was already male, he was
already engendered, so he should have regendered himself.

Depending on whether regendering is always a switch, or whether the
people in your story sometimes give themselves a gender top-up, you
could say "he regendered himself" meaning he was subsequently female, or
"he regendered himself male / female".

As implied from the above, I'd be inclined to use the "she" from the
beginning of the next sentence. Given that no obvious point to change
over leaps to mind, why not go with what's easiest to read?

You could also lose the "himself":

"He regendered." Or "he regendered female."

- Gerry Quinn






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