Umm…I don’t Get It

Details here, but for once I’m going to pontificate a little.

Ace of Spades HQ (mu.nu)

Unlike America, France has an official language. Not just a name, “French”, but honest-to-God approved words, approved by the Acadamie Francaise. And they have an official dictionary, Le Robert. I have one myself.

The Acadamie Francaise decides what’s in the French language, and Le Robert publishes it.

Well, the wonderful people at Le Robert this year decided that the Acadamie Francaise was moving too slow on this whole non-binary pronoun thing. So, they mutinied and created their own non-binary pronouns.

I had been wondering myself about this, as French is very much a gendered language. La voiture, for car,  for example, is feminine, but le train for train is masculine (la for feminine, le for masculine).

Ok, that’s bad enough. Le Robert has always been the official word on the official language. Now, they’re setting their own path. Not good.

But it gets worse. The path they’re on doesn’t even go anywhere.

As quoted by Ace (emphasis mine):

French dictionary Le Robert decided to add the entry "iel" -- a combination of "il" and "elle," which means "he" and "she" in French respectively -- into the online version of its dictionary in October.

It's a "personal subject pronoun of the third person singular and plural, used to refer to a person regardless of gender," the dictionary entry reads.

Together with its plural and feminine form, called collectively as "iel, ielle, iels, ielles," this new addition to the French language has triggered strong opposition from some French politicians.

So, this is the part I don’t get. You created masculine and feminine forms of your new non-binary pronouns? How is this in any way different from the il & elle that you started with? You created binary non-binary pronouns.

Apparently, Ace and I are the only two people to realize just how insanely stupid this idea is.

Or, as Ace mockingly puts it:

Wait.

Wait.

Wait.

Your "non-binary" pronoun iel--

ALSO HAS A "FEMININE FORM"???!

SO "IEL" IS THE MASCULINE FORM OF THE "NON-BINARY" PRONOUN, AND "IELLE" IS THE FEMININE FORM OF THE "NON-BINARY" PRONOUN?

Do you--

Do you not see--

having masculine and feminine forms makes them "binary"?

Don't you need a ANOTHER "non-binary" pronoun for people who are, what's the word, actually non-binary?

Sacre Merde, this is even stupider than I thought it was going to be.

Well I guess the non-binary pronouns have to have a gender, because every noun or pronoun in French is either male or female.

So....

What is the point?

Exactly. What IS the point?