[lee martell]

There is another term often suggested for this group:
Instead of describing an individual as either
‘he or she’, use ‘THEY’.

I.E. “HE got HIS jacket from the closet.”
Becomes: “THEY got THEIR jacket from the closet.”

That, to me, sounds very artificial and pretentious.
Not to mention, confusing and inaccurate. “They” means a plural subject most the time to most people.

[CrazyIvan]

“I.E. “HE got HIS jacket from the closet.”
Becomes: “THEY got THEIR jacket from the closet.”

We’d all be better off if they’d just stayed in the damn closet.

[NetAddicted]

They reminds me of multiple personalities, who undergo horrendous child abuse. Maybe “they’re” making a statement.

[sparklite2]

I.E. “HE got HIS jacket from the closet.”
Becomes: “THEY got THEIR jacket from the closet.”

---

I was going to write about the ‘their’ thing, too,
of which I confess to being guilty. But now that I’m trying to, I can’t come up with a good example of it. Yours doesn’t work because it’s only one person and, as you say, inaccurate.

But if you said, “Somebody got their jacket from the closet,” the subject is unspecified and ‘their’ reflects that. I won’t use the silly pronouns they push on us, but singular ‘they’ seems unavoidable, until you get stuff like this...

“This is my friend, Jay. I met them at work.”