History Main / ItIsDehumanizing

* In OGRE by Steve Jackson Games one of the bits of flavour text in the manual mentions that the eponymous giant AI tanks are never referred to by the traditional "she". Friendly OGRE's are "he" and enemy OGRE's are "it".
* The introduction of [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Malakim]] angels in Steve Jackson Games InNomine has an angel use this trope when referring to a demon.

* In ''KazeNoStigma'', there's a girl who was created as a ReplacementGoldfish for a women who was supposed to be sacrificed to an evil spirit (so basically, she's supposed to be sacrificed in her stead). She's generally mistreated and dehumanized, including referring to her as 'it'.

* [[AvertedTrope Averted]] in [[BruceCoville Bruce Coville's]] ''RodAlbrightAlienAdventures'' stories, which feature a (good) alien who is neither male nor female. This alien tells Rod that "it" is the best English pronoun to use. Rod comments that that sort of sounds insulting, but the alien responds that it considers "he" or "she" insulting too.

* Inverted by Shale in ''DragonAge: Origins'', who is a golem and thus treated as furniture by those who don't know better, but is actually a fully sentient individual and refers to everyone else as "it" on purpose. Including the PlayerCharacter.

* [[AvertedTrope Averted]] but [[DiscussedTrope discussed]] in LoisMcMasterBujold's VorkisiganSaga, where "it" is considered the polite way to address Betan hermaphrodites. Bel Thorne, the hermaphrodite most central to the series, has an entire canned rant about how "it" is ''not'' considered to be dehumanizing.

* [[AvertedTrope Averted]] in [[LoisMcMasterBujold Lois McMaster Bujold's]] [[VorkosiganSaga Vorkosigan Saga]], where "it" is considered the polite way to address Betan hermaphrodites.

* ''StarTrekTNG'' did this in "The Measure Of A Man", an episode discussing Data's legal status; Commander Maddox constantly refers to Data as a possession of Starfleet and therefore an "it", until he slips into "he" after a court hearing formally rules that Data has free will and the right to choose.

* In ''LuckyStarr and the Moons of Jupiter'', the eugenically-enhanced Sten Devoure refers to Lucky's rather short and ugly sidekick Bigman as "that thing" and "it." The insult becomes dangerous when he tells a group of ThreeLawsCompliant robots that Bigman is not human, and orders them to "break it."

* [[UpperClassTwit Isaea Roenall]] in ''BaldursGate 2'' calls the main character an 'it' if you interject during one of his tirades in Nalia's sidequest, to underline his elitist attitude.

* ''BladeRunner''. "I don't get it, Tyrell. How can it not know what it is?"

* In RealLife most of English's PronounTrouble comes from this trope. It is the only gender neutral pronoun (if you ignore singular "they/them", which [[TakeThat anal-retentive self-proclaimed grammar experts]] want everyone to do) but it is offensive to use when referring to other people.

* In RealLife most of English's PronounTrouble comes from this trope. It is the only gender neutral pronoun (if you refuse to use singular "they/them", which [[TakeThat anal-retentive self-proclaimed grammar experts]] do) but it is offensive to use when referring to other people.

* In RealLife most of English's PronounTrouble comes from this trope. It is the only gender neutral pronoun but it is offensive to use when referring to other people.

* In the episode of RedDwarf where Kryton was first introduced, Rimmer refers to Kryton as "it". Looks like painting a portrait of Rimmer on the toilet, pouring soup on his bed, calling him "smeg for brains" and flipping him off taught him a lesson.

* ''KingdomHearts 358/2 Days'' has Saix refer to Xion as "it". The manga had DiZ refering to Roxas in the same manner.

* Being referred to as "it" is a major {{Berserk Button}} for transsexual and intersexed people. People who identify as women prefer to be called "she" and people who identify as men prefer to be called "he", no matter what they were born as.

* ''StarTrekTNG'' did this in "The Measure Of A Man", an episode discussing Data's legal status; Commander Maddox constantly refers to Data as a possession of Starfleet and therefore an "it", until he slips into "he" after a court hearing formally rules that Data has free will and the right to choose.