It&#x27;s not right. There are linguistic restrictions on gender-neutral, singular &#x27;they&#x27;.[1] When the referent is known, it can&#x27;t be used (i.e. it&#x27;s not about &#x27;patrick&#x27; and &#x27;he&#x27; matching up, it&#x27;s about &#x27;they&#x27; not being usable with a known person).[2]<p>My favourite real-life example of it&#x27;s usage is one in which we know that the gender is female, and we know it&#x27;s singular:<p>&quot;If a mother wants to use the nursing room, they can just key in the code in their pamphlet&quot;.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;linguistics&#x2F;comments&#x2F;3cgbyv&#x2F;limitations_of_singular_they_usage_singular_they&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;linguistics&#x2F;comments&#x2F;3cgbyv&#x2F;limitat...</a> gives some good discussion<p>[2] I can&#x27;t help but feel that these restrictions are related to nondefinite contexts for &quot;(negative polarity items)[<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Polarity_item]&quot;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Polarity_item]&quot;</a>, like &#x27;no-one&#x27;  and &#x27;any&#x27;, where you can&#x27;t say e.g.<p><pre><code>    *I ate any cake
</code></pre>
but you can say:<p><pre><code>    I didn&#x27;t eat any cake
</code></pre>
but you can also use it in questions:<p><pre><code>    Did you eat any cake?
</code></pre>
This seems related to usages like<p><pre><code>    If someone comes, tell them to wait
</code></pre>
vs<p><pre><code>    *If John comes, tell them to wait.</code></pre>