I find the gender issue fascinating --- It forces me to think of whether we are facing a "chicken vs egg" scenario: If we all had spoke gendered languages would the issue of non-binary arise at all? In my experience with my two mother tongues (there's a pun right there involving same-sex marriage), the issue arises far more frequently in English, simply because "it" is a meaningful concept in the language, i.e., things may be male, female, or neither. In Maltese, which is strictly gendered, the discussion on pronouns, for example, never took place to the best of my knowledge.

Source author: André Xuereb andre.xuereb@um.edu.mt