They should return they as they is now commonly used as a singular pronoun and a widely accepted gender-neutral pronoun (or a personal preference to be referred to as).

Returning he (or she as it appears to be doing right now) is destructive behaviour as passing in:

• "he" to be pluralised will return "they", but be singularised to "she" (in existing code), we've swapped the genders;
• "she" to be pluralised will return "they", but be singularised to "he" (in this PR), we've swapped the genders in the other direction;
• "they" to be pluralised will return "they" but be singularised to "she" (in existing code), we don't know if they were female, it could be pluralising the pronoun of someone who wants to be referred to as they;
• "they" to be pluralised will return "they" but be singularised to "he" (in this PR), same reason as above.

If a program stores the users' preferred pronouns as [he|she|they] and uses that to pluralise/singularise [he|him|his] and their matching equivalents when needed in context then the program cannot respect the selected pronoun.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/they

Hi @wopian please see chat in #154 - it being widely accepted is a bold statement which I don't think is true. It's also not about gender. It is also not about personal preference but generic respect.

It is also not about personal preference but generic respect.

Those are not mutually exclusive. If a user selects "they" in your program settings and you have the following string:

{ pronoun } liked your post where pronoun is toSingular(settings.pronoun), it should be:

• He liked your post for he
• She liked your post for she
• They liked your post for they

Turning They liked your post to He/She liked your post is not respectful. I'd also argue that it is not generic either as it modifies the gendered (pro)nouns returned in the response (she -> they -> he)

Regardless of gender, singular they (14th Century) has been around for just a century less than plural they in English usage: https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/200700

I respectfully ask you to please refer to chat in #154 - This is not personal preference in settings. This is general which is "he" to convey respect, "he liked your post". "she" is used for love as in country. Respect is opted for over love. Love is intimate, and not given to everyone "generic". Every language follow this pattern.

Dang this bug still lives. Isn't they to he preferred over they to she? Or do you prefer the "she"?