-But the _reason_ transsexuals want this is _because_ they're trying to change their socially-perceived sex category and actually-existing English speakers interpret _she_ and _he_ as conveying sex-category information. People who request _he/him_ pronouns aren't doing it because they want their subject pronoun to be a two-letter word rather than a three-letter word, or because they hate the [voiceless postalveolar fricative](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_postalveolar_fricative). They're doing it _because_, in English, those are the pronouns for _males_. If it were _actually true_ that _she_ and _he_ were just two alternative third-person pronouns that could be used interchangeably with no difference in meaning, then _there would be no reason to care_ which one someone used, as long as the referent was clear. But this doesn't match people's behavior: using gender pronouns other than those preferred by the subject is typically responded to as a social attack (as would be predicted by the theory that _she _ and _he_ convey sex-category information and transsexuals don't want to be perceived as their natal sex), not with, "Oh, it took me an extra second to parse your sentence because you used a pronoun different from the one the subject prefers, but now I understand what you meant" (as would be predicted by the theory that "_he_ refers to the set of people who have asked us to use _he_ [...] and to say that this just _is_ the normative definition").
+But the _reason_ transsexuals want this is _because_ they're trying to change their socially-perceived sex category and actually-existing English speakers interpret _she_ and _he_ as conveying sex-category information. People who request _he/him_ pronouns aren't doing it because they want their subject pronoun to be a two-letter word rather than a three-letter word, or because they hate the [voiceless postalveolar fricative](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_postalveolar_fricative) (_sh_) sound. They're doing it _because_, in English, those are the pronouns for _males_. If it were _actually true_ that _she_ and _he_ were just two alternative third-person pronouns that could be used interchangeably with no difference in meaning, with the only function of the distinction being collision-avoidance, then _there would be no reason to care_ which one someone used, as long as the referent was clear. But this doesn't match people's behavior: using gender pronouns other than those preferred by the subject is typically responded to as a social attack (as would be predicted by the theory that _she _ and _he_ convey sex-category information and transsexuals don't want to be perceived as their natal sex), not with, "Oh, it took me an extra second to parse your sentence because you unexpectedly used a pronoun different from the one the subject prefers, but now I understand what you meant" (as would be predicted by the theory that "_he_ refers to the set of people who have asked us to use _he_ [...] and to say that this just _is_ the normative definition").
+
+You can't have it both ways. "That toy is worthless", says one child to another, "_therefore_, you should give it to me." But if the toy were _actually_ worthless, why is the first child demanding it? The problem here is not particularly subtle or hard to understand! If the second child were to appeal to an adult's authority, and the adult replied, "The toy _is_ worthless, so give it to him," you would suspect the grown-up of not being impartial.
+
+"Pronouns shouldn't convey sex-category information," is a fine [motte](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/03/all-in-all-another-brick-in-the-motte/), but it's not consistent with the bailey of, "_Therefore_, when people request that you alter your pronoun usage in order to change the sex-category information being conveyed, you should obey the request." Even if the situation is an artifact of bad language design, as Yudkowsky argues—that in a saner world, this conflict would have never come up—that doesn't automatically favor resolving the conflict in favor of the policy of keeping both _she_ and _he_ but asserting that the difference doesn't mean anything.
+
+This may be clearer to some readers if we consider a distinction less emotionally and politically fraught than sex/gender in the current year. [Many languages have two different second person singular pronouns that distinguish the speaker's relationship to the listener as being more familiar/intimate, or more formal/hierarchical.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%E2%80%93V_distinction) In Spanish, for example, [the familiar pronoun is _tú_ and the formal pronoun is _usted_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_personal_pronouns#T%C3%BA/vos_and_usted): one would address friends, family members, children, or personal servants as _tú_, but strangers or social superiors as _usted_. Using the wrong pronoun can be the cause of offense or awkwardness. A speaker switching from _usted_ to _tú_ for an interlocutor who they're getting along might ask if it's okay with _¿Te puedo tutear?_ (Can I call you _tú_?) or _Nos tuteamos, ¿verdad?_ (We call each other _tú_, right?); this is somewhat analogous to an English speaker asking if they may address someone by first name, rather than with a courtesy title or honorific (Ms./Mr. Lastname, or ma'am/sir).
+
+One could argue that the _tú_/_usted_ distinction is bad language design for the same reason Yudkowsky opposes the _she_/_he_ distinction: you shouldn't be forced to make a call on how familiar your relationship with someone is just in order to be able to use a pronoun for them. The modern English way is more flexible: you _can_ indicate formality if you want to by saying additional words, but it's not baked into the grammar itself.
+
+However, if you were going to reform Spanish (or some other language with the second person formality distinction), you would probably abolish the distinction altogether, and just settle on one second-person singular pronoun. Indeed, that's what happened in English historically—the formal _you_ took over as the universal second-person pronoun, and the informal singular _thou_/_thee_/_thine_ has vanished from common usage. (People still recognize it as a second-person pronoun when encountered in old poetry—"The truth shall be thy warrant", _&c._—but most probably aren't aware of the formality distinction.) You wouldn't keep both forms, but circularly redefine them as referring only to the referent's preferred choice of address (?!).