1) Oh, languages have been changed. Sweden pushed to use "you" instead of the formal "they" always, and it was quite conscious. Speaking of "Studierende" instead of "Studenten" happens in German all the time now, and it's very conscious.

Eh, no-one except the fringes are suggesting to invent gender-neutral nouns. Mostly, they do exist anyways. Speaking gender-fair or gender-neutral is really easy once you get the hang of it.

Hey, I'm a native speaker who tries to only speak gender-neutral. Ask me anything!

Because it's "la garage" (feminin) in French, where it also might come frome? :D

I'd love to leave you alone, but the facts are that if, in German or other gendered languages, you use a male noun to describe a group of people, the majority of people will only think of males. It is also proven that females see themselves significantly less likely in a position or profession if you describe it with…

About the professions: Sadly, no. There are awesome studies out there that have researchers go into classrooms and ask the students if they want to become an "Arzt", and into another classroom where they ask if they want to become an "Arzt oder Ärztin". In the second case, the number of girls that hold their hands up…

I was in Lithuania at a conference recently and talked a lot about LGBT, Gender and other issues with my hosts. Most of those (young, college-educated) people were really great, socially progressive. Yet most of them stated that the state of those issues in Lithuania was fucked.

Eh ok. Fair point. I live in Switzerland, and I'm mostly Swiss. I do read the right German and Swiss newspapers ;)

The problem is that, in Europe, there is no-one who calls this bullshit out. In America, you can reasonably hope that whenever someone proposes such a photoshoot, someone will stand up and speak out against it. In Europe, there is far less knowledge on how problematic cultural dress up is. Native American dress-up is…

Fun related fact: Did you know that Schwarzenegger had a stadium named after him? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UPC-Arena

But is the MLS really worse than, say, the matches of my local club in Switzerland, FC St. Gallen? Probably not. Most probably not. I tend to say it is better. What the MLS has not is a local fanbase that is utmost loyal and goes to matches even if the local team is destined to lose. A tenth of St. Gallen goes to…

In Bern, Switzerland, the soccer stadium is called Wankdorf (well, it used to be, and is still called so by locals, but likes to be called "Stade de Suisse" now).

Drew, as a Swiss citizen, I demand that you devote a whole Deadspin post only to hating Swiss!

Good for him!

There is a great Austrian mockumentary from 1992 called "Das Fest des Huhns", the feast of the chicken. It features some African anthropologists who make a movie about the Austrian rituals, and it's of course made in the fashion of ethnology documentaries. Incredibly funny if you understand German:

Really, the best selfie machine I know is my three year old sister. No person in the whole world can pose as cute as she does!

But changing your gender is no lie. It's just not. That's the problem.

But the reporter also has a responsability not to endanger anyone. And apparently, that's exactly what she felt like, i.e. what happened.

So what? You surely can spare the detail of her sex change from that description. You surely don't have to tell that to her investor. All the other things are of course relevant and should be mentioned, but journalists do have a responsibility not to out trans people who do not want to be outed.

What about: She used to have another name? That's it. Nothing else is of importance.