If someone accidentally uses “he” when they meant “she” or vice versa and when talking about a person who’s gender they know, it is likely because the speaker’s first language does not distinguish between he and she.
This could be Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian and some Turkic languages and probably also other languages. I haven’t actually use it, but noticed it with a Finnish speaker.
Oh, yes, true. However, I still maintain that particularly jerkish people would be happy to misgender in that manner as they’d think that the only good gender is male or somesuch nonsense.
If someone accidentally uses “he” when they meant “she” or vice versa and when talking about a person who’s gender they know, it is likely because the speaker’s first language does not distinguish between he and she. This could be Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian and some Turkic languages and probably also other languages. I haven’t actually use it, but noticed it with a Finnish speaker.
Counterpoint: it could also be because the speaker thinks male is default and automatically thinks of an unknown person as male.
@Sune specified that they know the person’s gender.
Oh, yes, true. However, I still maintain that particularly jerkish people would be happy to misgender in that manner as they’d think that the only good gender is male or somesuch nonsense.
Retracting the comment because I have seen a couple of couterexamples, including myself!
Interesting! I will attempt to verify this and then add it to the list.