They Doesn't Know About Us

I don't have any negative judgement regarding gender identity.  You do you (no pun intended).  With that in mind...

Dictionaries have capitulated to a new definition, but singular "they" does NOT work.  Every defense I've read is essentially an example where multiple people may be involved.  If you refer to yourself as "they", I think you're confusing the hell out of people.  The word is context sensitive, and you can't just change the plurality of its antecedent pronoun - e.g. "Gary is from my hometown.  They have been a swell friend." That sucks.  Try "Gary is a swell friend from my hometown."

Here's OED's example of singular they we are told dates back to the year 1375. 

"Each man hurried . . . till they drew near . . . where William and his darling were lying together."

Uh huh... OED is reasoning (quite by mistake if you ask me, and they didn't ask me) that "they" here means one person, but this is really a plural scenario.  "Each man" of course implies that there are more than one man.  You could swap some words out there and not change the meaning at all. "All of the men hurried till they drew near..."  

Every other example I've seen that tries to establish precedent for singular they makes the same mistake of selectively forgetting that more than one person is implied.  I really don't think an effective writer would say "Tom hurried, till they drew near."

Wait... who is Tom with?  Did I miss somebody?  Crap! RE-READ.  

"Tom moved to the area in 1984.  They have been living here ever since."

Who does Tom live with?  Did I miss that?  Is it Gary?

While it may seem like a way around the gender issue, "they" ultimately doesn't get you where you're trying to go.  I think defaulting to "they" might just be kind of a lazy way out.  There are other ways to word things that don't require us to co-opt the meaning of an existing and simple word, and many times a person's given name works interchangeably with he/she/them.

"Tom hurried near."

"Gary has been living here since moving to the area in 1984."

The above was written by a single writer, who would like to end this piece now because they are tired.  

Sorry - they is tired.