Change: Use gender-neutral pronouns in english.txt #9189
Merged
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Motivation / Problem
OpenTTD does not use gendered terms or pronouns in English. (See #8601/#8659 or search in english.txt).
On TT-Forums, tofu7 pointed out the single instance where we use "his/her" to refer to the player and noted that this is not inclusive for people who don't use binary pronouns, which according to a Trevor Project survey accounts for 25% of LGBTQ+ teens.
Description
This PR changes the single usage of "his/her" to "their".
"They/them/their" is a commonly-accepted gender-neutral pronoun both in the LGBTQ+ community and in the wider world. The Oxford English Dictionary reports its usage as early as 1375, and the BBC reports additional usage in The Canterbury Tales, Hamlet, and Pride and Prejudice. Today, it is widely used to refer to someone whose gender is not known, as in finding a lost umbrella and remarking, "someone lost their umbrella."
A 2019 Washington University study showed that use of gender-neutral pronouns reduce biases against women and LGBTQ+ people.
Limitations
Translations may need updating (depending on pronoun use in each language), but we just released 1.12 so I don't see a problem with this.
Checklist for review
Some things are not automated, and forgotten often. This list is a reminder for the reviewers.