Me, by default I'd advocate avoiding referring the gender of the people involved. My general test is to see what happens if I substitute "they (gay)"/"they (straight)", "they (Irish)"/"they (British)" or whatever for "he"/"she"; usually, the result is completely unacceptable.
Avoiding gendered pronouns can make prose look very clunky, especially if done by a reluctant author, even more if done by an author trying to make a point about how clunky their avoidance makes prose look. But it's fairly easy to get an unobtrusive result. For example, David Crystal's Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language avoids gendered pronouns for generic individuals throughout and you wouldn't notice, but for it being pointed out in the chapter discussing the issue. (-8
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Date: 2013-01-23 06:14 pm (UTC)Avoiding gendered pronouns can make prose look very clunky, especially if done by a reluctant author, even more if done by an author trying to make a point about how clunky their avoidance makes prose look. But it's fairly easy to get an unobtrusive result. For example, David Crystal's Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language avoids gendered pronouns for generic individuals throughout and you wouldn't notice, but for it being pointed out in the chapter discussing the issue. (-8