In defense of your English professor, the problem with using they/them as a replacement for he/she/him/her is the difference between using a plural vs a singular pronoun. English is an (unfortunately) messy language, and those distinctions are rhetorically important to make. A better substitution would be to use singular gender-neutral pronouns instead of tossing in pronouns that are meant to be plural. Granted, people have made those pronouns, but they're not widely used.
Dude, I don’t even want to bother discussing this. Grammar is malleable. Get off anon.














