adrideo:

swfarnsworth:
In English, 'it' is the neuter-inanimate pronoun, making it somewhat insulting to use it when referring to a person. This, however, is not the case in Esperanto.

Honestly, would you want to be referred to as "ĝi?"

To be referred to as gxi would not bother me in the least.
Esperanto gxi is not exactly equivalent to English it.
Esperanto is not "English with other words" it is a separate language.

"Gender neutral" in Polish is "to" (tio/gxi). If we see a "man" who thinks "he" is a "woman" (etc.) we say "to coś" (that thing).
In Esperanto I would say "gxi".

This issue of "gender pronouns" and "gender nouns" (really references to physical sex and not actual grammatical gender, which is something else) keeps coming up every so often in Esperanto. I agree with the sentiment, "Well, that's just the way it is." If you want nouns and pronouns available without explicit reference to sex, try Ido.

matus1940:Femoj seems the best way to refer to the majority of homoj on this planet. Objections to that? The short root fem- does exist in femala and feministo. Why for pity's sake can't I use matro instead of patrino? Matr- exists in matrono, and derives from a proto-indoeuropean root and perhaps from a prelinguistic root, that is, ma -- which is present in many language families.

Who says you can't use femo or matro? It would be totally according with the Fundamento to use such new roots (cf. this), but mosts Esperantists still wouldn't understand or accept them.

Kirilo81:

matus1940:Femoj seems the best way to refer to the majority of homoj on this planet. Objections to that? The short root fem- does exist in femala and feministo. Why for pity's sake can't I use matro instead of patrino? Matr- exists in matrono, and derives from a proto-indoeuropean root and perhaps from a prelinguistic root, that is, ma -- which is present in many language families.

Who says you can't use femo or matro? It would be totally according with the Fundamento to use such new roots (cf. this), but mosts Esperantists still wouldn't understand or accept them.

For the same reason we don't introduce malay- and chinese- based words for every other root in the language: it will defeat one of the purposes of the system: ease of learning through reduction of the number of words that one is obligated to learn (as opposed to be able to construct).

JulietAwesome:I happen to have a several friends who are transgender, gender-queer, androgynous, genderless, or ambigenderous (I like that word ) in some way or another, and there are lots of people in these communities who prefer the use of gender-neutral pronouns:

he/she == ze
him/her == hir
his/hers == hirs

There are a handful of other pronouns, but I've only seen ze/hir used on the LGBT blogs I read. These pronouns are intended to be used in reference to a specific person, e.g. Pat bought hirself a new umbrella. Most people in the queer community prefer them over singular "they", gender-neutral "he", and the word "it" which should never be used to describe a human ever.

Are there are conventions to accommodate gender-queer people in Esperanto? Would use of "oni" be appropriate or jarring in this context?

There is a pronoun used (according to the Fundamento) as a gender neutral pronoun. It is "gxi".

There is another word that was introduced somewhat recently to be gender neutral, "ri". This is probably the only other one that thee will see (other than such abominations as "sxli"). The only "problem" with this word is that it is (irrationally IMHO) objected to by certain segments of the Esperanto community.

Kirilo81:

matus1940:Femoj seems the best way to refer to the majority of homoj on this planet. Objections to that? The short root fem- does exist in femala and feministo. Why for pity's sake can't I use matro instead of patrino? Matr- exists in matrono, and derives from a proto-indoeuropean root and perhaps from a prelinguistic root, that is, ma -- which is present in many language families.

Who says you can't use femo or matro? It would be totally according with the Fundamento to use such new roots (cf. this), but mosts Esperantists still wouldn't understand or accept them.

Kirilo81 shows us this.
Elsewhere I have seen something similar.
So the idea is not new, or unique to any language.
Perhaps the proponents of this idea would have a greater chance of it being adopted if they could achieve consensus on which terms to use.