She was already criticizing the generic „he“ while writing the book. It probably wouldn’t be bothering me so much if there weren’t entire passages debating it every few chapters without mentioning the possibility of the singular „they“.

Considering he forgot women needed to exist for a species to work, I'm not so sure that was intentional.

That’s not correct.

This use of singular they had emerged by the 14th century, about a century after the plural they.

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they

To the best of my knowledge it would be correct to say that English language style guides at the time treated they/them as strictly plural, but that was actually a more recent change (ie, within the last century or so). Singular they existed for centuries, only to fall out of style with the increasing formalization of the English language. It's use today is not a modern invention, but a return to its original usage.

So yes, Le Guin was probably taught that it is not proper to use it as a singular, and that's how anyone alive at that time would have been taught to use it. But that's not the same thing as saying it was "always" singular.

They bothers me for that reason. It obfuscates the conversation. Makes me feel like Abbot and Costello. Almost every conversation about my daughters non binary friends requires clarification about who we're talking about and usually we revert to calling everyone by name. I'm all for personal expression and everything, but I wish we picked a new word.

The singular "they" predates the existence of the USA. By several centuries. The first known written attestation to it dates back to the late 14th century. It was probably in common spoken use long before even that.

"They" was not, in short, "always" a plural pronoun.

When my kid was still young enough to want me to, I would regularly read stories at bedtime, and one that we did was Adam-2 by Alistair Chisholm - and in that there's a non-binary character who uses "ze" and "hir" pronouns.

Took me quite a while to get used to it, even though I was reading direct from the page. Was quite effective though, once I got past my brain's hesitation.

Singular they has been part of the English language since the 14th century.

Bodine (1975) – Androcentrism in Prescriptive Grammar

Excerpt of AI-generated findings:

Though published in 1975, Bodine’s landmark paper relies heavily on field data and structural analyses of English third-person singular sex-indefinite pronouns conducted during the late 1960s (specifically citing frameworks from Postal, 1969). Bodine categorizes this phenomenon into two main types:

• Sex-unknown: e.g., "Who dropped their ticket?"

• Mixed-sex, distributive: e.g., "Anyone can do it if they try hard enough."

Bodine notes that despite two centuries of intense prescriptive efforts by educators to enforce the generic "he", singular "they" remained the dominant colloquial and written choice for nonspecific referents throughout the 1960s.

Actual abstract from that article:

Abstract

This paper demonstrates that prior to the beginning of the prescriptive grammar movement in English, singular ‘they’ was both accepted and widespread. It is argued that the prescriptive grammarians' attack on singular ‘they’ was socially motivated, and the specific reasons for their attack are discussed. By analogy with socially motivated changes in second person pronouns in a variety of European languages, it is suggested that third person pronoun usage will be affected by the current feminist opposition to sex-indefinite ‘he’ – particularly since the well-established alternative, singular ‘they’, has remained widespread in spoken English throughout the two and a half centuries of its ‘official’ proscription. Finally, the implications of changes in third person singular, sex-indefinite pronouns for several issues of general interest within linguistics are explored. (Language change, sex roles and language, language attitudes, language planning, prescriptive grammar, pronouns.)

Interesting read, thanks for sharing. That does put things into perspective, though I still disagree with her on some things.