possessive determiners

[Postbib Yeshuist]

I have a huge problem with "their" as a possessive determiner, and I wanted to get some of you humanities-types' opinions on it. When I click to see someone's profile, I always see something like the following: prolixity has not set their status.

Why not just use the gender-neutral "his"? I've noticed quite a bit more of this in the public sphere.. what is the contemporary consensus on possessive determiners?

The easiest fix (in my opinion) would be to set it say something like:

"Postbib Yeshuist has not set a status."

That would solve the problem quite nicely

PS I would point out that "his" was never "gender" neutral. Using one word to apply to both sexes does not mean it is neutral. It was simply used because men were seen as the pinnacle of the human race. It was applied to women, but this is not to say it was ever neutral.

Edited March 30, 2010 by Postbib Yeshuist