Somethings been bothering for a long while and sounds really silly but I've been wondering if I'm alone in this. My second language is Italian and there have been times in my life when I've been literally years without speaking or writing English, hence the stunted prose you are reading...
The issue is this. Have been avoiding speaking in Italian or contacting my italian friends and family because it forces me into a gender choice. One has to speak as a man or as a woman there is no middle way and no possibility of avoiding the issue. Even switching tenses doesn't really work as sooner or later one comes up against it. On a plus side there is of course no his and her's but he and she remain.
I default to the male but feel terrible doing so as it seems cowardly but on the other hand it feels uncomfortable the other way too. Perhaps in Spanish & Portuguese it is the same, I don't speak either so have no idea as to whether that is true. It's doing my head in. Just today I was having coffee and the guy making it knows and spoke to me in Italian and I replied in English. Felt bad as he's Gay, has me sussed and probably knows why I did that. Paranoia...
Does anyone else who is either a native speaker of Italian/Spanish/Portuguese or uses it frequently encounter the same issues, and if you do what choices do you make?