Comment 45 for bug 272826

 Leigh Honeywell wrote:
"Ubuntero is neutral to an anglophone, but to an hispanophone it sounds very male, so let's consider Ubuntista."

then

"the -ista ending is neutral in English: the person who makes fancy coffee is a barista, regardless of gender. No-one says "baristo"

So -o is gender neutral in English... but is not ? and when it is, we drag Spanish in the mix ?

Well if we are not going to stick to English, then take French: -ista generally sound feminine, just as much as -ero sound generally masculine...
in French there is no such thing as a 'neutral' gender, so everything fall on one side of the other. this cannot be avoided. (desk: m, table:f, tv:f, monitor:m, car:f, boat:m, computer:m, linux distribution:f, keyboard:m, mouse:f,printer:f, scanner:m... and even though these words are not in the language, unbutero:m, unbutista:f)

My point is: make an argument using strictly English if you feel it is that important, but don't arbitrarily bring other language in the mix to import a sexual connotation that was not there to start with, because once you open that pandora box, there are enough language and diversity in the world to find every example and it's opposite.

PS: Allow me to add that I too, do not favor at all requesting people to declare a sex. Sex is as irrelevant to a technical discussion as height, weight, or cleft chin.