Background: In most articles, the reporter uses He or She as the default way to refer to a subject in an article when their identity is known. And most of the time the journalist hasn't asked (or even met) the subject. The choice of he or she is derived from presentation style.

This market is about whether the NY times changes this convention and a more serious requirement is added, to either ask, verify the subject's habits or preferences, or fall back to They or some other pronoun. I.e. remove the default assumption that someone who looks like a man with a male name should be referred to as He.

This behavior already exists for non conforming people. This market is about whether this becomes the default or at le as at common in the new York times style for subjects where there is no reason to think they prefer anything other than the default traditional pronoun. E.g. people in history, people in other countries with other native languages, Americans with conventional names and presentations etc for which there is no known reason to not use the default.

Also this market is not about 3rd person generic "they" such as "everyone should mind their own business". It's also not about statistical assumptions, since that's already changed: "every maternity ward nurse shows care for her charges" is already nonstandard. It's about cases where the identity, name, face, etc. of the subject is fully known.

Deadline June 1 2045

Update 3/2023 - I am adding "They" as the change to the title for clarity, but the market as written hasn't changed - any change from the default as specified above leads toward YES resolution, not just to They.

Mar 24, 8:53am: NYTimes changes default pronoun assumptions in English → NYTimes changes default pronoun assumptions in English to "They" from "He/She"