Originally a comment by What a Maroon on Use them or else.

Pronouns are like waiters: done right, they’re efficient but unobtrusive, showing up when needed, helping things flow smoothly, rarely drawing attention to themselves. English has a pretty good pronoun system, but with an obvious gap in the second person–the loss of “thou” in most English dialects has led to awkward, attention-grabbing workarounds like “y’all”, “youse”, “yinz”, “you guys”. Those are the waiters that loudly announce their names when they first approach the table, interrupt the flow of conversation, spill the pizza on your lap, and disappear when you most need them (which is to say, typical American waiters)*.

The whole pronoun movement is simultaneously attempting to make the English pronoun system more complex and more ambiguous. More complex with all the bespoke pronouns, more ambiguous with the promiscuous use of singular “they”. Proponents of the latter make two dubious arguments in its defense. The first is that we have no trouble dealing with singular “you”, but see the bad waiters. The second is that we’ve been using singular “they” for, like, ever, which is true, but only in limited contexts, where the sex of the referent is unknown or unimportant (“Someone called but they didn’t leave a message”); not in reference to a specific, known person.

For the record, I use pronouns. I just used one (and there goes another). I use all the pronouns that my dialect of English puts in my toolbox, and occasionally some from other dialects. But my toolbox is pretty much full, and I’m not going to use a hammer when I need a screwdriver, no matter how much you insist I do.

*And, of course, if you’re a decent person, you tip them anyway while cursing the tipping culture.