Another update (10/25/15): came across this article on the topic in the Wall Street Journal. How illuminating could it be for our students to learn that there are groups of people (as in here, the American Copy Editors Society) that debate, discuss, and make decisions about language to help spur change?
As requested, here is a link to the beginning of the Teaching and Learning Forum debate about the pronoun THEY.
And here are some of the resources (many more were suggested) that teachers provided to each other with perspectives on this: Have a good fall break!
Why we Need Transgender Pronouns --http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/17/transgender-pronouns_n_6887112.html
Blog Post from Motivated Grammar
Steven Pinker--http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2015/oct/06/steven-pinker-alleged-rules-of-writing-superstitions
Blog Post from Arrant Pedantry
Have a good fall break! --Dr. Rule
- Here is another article I rather like, though not about pronouns exclusively http://daily.jstor.org/grammar-rule-is-probably-fake/
- AND I mentioned Pygmalion, the George Bernard Shaw play (that was the basis for the musical My Fair Lady) which is all about the attempt to eliminate a "low" dialect in favor of a "refined" one). Captures a lot of the language attitudes we're discussing. Youtube has the 1938 version of Pygmailion that I HIGHLY recommend: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmdPj_XbF30