I'd rather be identified by my personality than gender or sexuality

I would much rather be identified by my personality than by my gender, or my education, or my religion or the colour of my skin or my ethnic background .

I may be identified by the LGBTQ + people as "cis gender" if that is the language of choice, but for myself, I am not really interested in being identified by my gender or sexual preferences. And I’m not sure why we need to know other people’s sexual preferences or gender orientation or how it helps with social integration.

The intention of promoting and celebrating diversity may have been to encourage tolerance, but highlighting difference may have the opposite effect. It can cause conflict, makes for judgmentalism and puts people in boxes. This does not make for social integration. I suppose the next thing is that we will be discouraged from calling a ship "she" or from using the word "manhandled".

Calling someone "they" sounds like "othering" to me. They, those people, them … not us.

As children we were encouraged not to refer to others by pronouns. When we mentioned someone by calling them "she" we were asked "who is ‘she’ - the cat’s mother?".

It was not uncommon for schools in the past to use surnames to address pupils. I suppose this would be considered harmful today but it encouraged gender neutrality as it applied to all, regardless of gender. Schools which used this as a preferred way of addressing pupils were really ahead of their time - except that as pupils the choice wasn’t ours and it wasn’t ever a topic we considered discussing.

How can a teacher in today’s culture possibly get it right when nursery school children are educated in gender fluidity and a child may identify as a boy one day and a girl the next? Maybe using surnames as a form of address is a good idea after all. That is, after all, very inclusive.

Irene Munro, Conon Bridge.

Clamp down on short-term lets

DR Roger Black bemoans the Scottish Government’s “attack on short-term letting operations” (Letters, August 12) which spoiled his outing to the Edinburgh Festival. I too am critical of the Government for its handling of the issue. But my criticism is that it has been so slow to act to stop and reverse the damage to the Edinburgh housing market caused by the spread of short-term lets.

The action of short-term-let landlords has driven up both the price of housing and long-term rental rates in Edinburgh. This has made it impossible for many people who want to make their home in Edinburgh, near to their workplace, to find anywhere they can afford to buy or rent.

The rash of key safe boxes at the entrances to Old Town flats shows the extent of the takeover of the historic heart of Edinburgh by short-term lets. The boxes have steadily spread into surrounding areas and the boxes are just the tip of the iceberg.

Edinburgh is not short of tourist accommodation. Visitors have a wide choice with hotels (from extortionate to budget-priced), aparthotels, bed and breakfast businesses and backpacker hostels. There is no need to remove much-needed homes from the market to feed further the tourism monster which, if left uncontrolled, will change Edinburgh from a working capital city into a version of Disneyland.

I suspect that I will not be alone among Edinburgh residents in putting the needs of people who seek to become our fellow residents ahead of the wishes of occasional visitors and rapacious short-term-let landlords. I hope that our council will do all it can to use the new powers to clamp down on short-term rentals and so release many homes for actual residents to buy or rent.

Alistair Easton, Edinburgh.

Read more: Indy backers must rue the day Alex Salmond stood down

Moving McConnell

GARRY Scott ("We always strive for writing worth reading", The Herald, August 12) singles out some of The Herald's columnists as deserving praise, and with one or two exceptions, I broadly agree with him. Robert McNeil is a very clever writer who never fails to brighten up a dreich weekend, and while I disagree with almost everything Mark Smith writes, I like his style.

However, I was a tad disappointed that Mr Scott didn't mention your Business Editor, the outstanding Ian McConnell. It was especially uplifting to read Mr McConnell's article last Friday ("Amid all the gloom Scotland has reason for cheer". The Herald, August 11). Mr McConnell was referring to a survey from accountancy firm KPMG and the University of Nottingham which highlighted Scotland's attractiveness and advantages and I have to agree with him that "this good news might come as a surprise and even in some cases an annoyance to the doomsayers on Scotland, who are often politically motivated".

My only complaint is that I usually have to plough through some dismal stuff before getting to the uplifting Mr McConnell on the back pages, so I would respectfully request that Mr McConnell's columns are moved further up the paper, and preferably on to the front page.

Ruth Marr, Stirling.

Responding to Calmac alert

JUST in case Hull 802, one of the much-talked-about vessels at Fergusons, gets into the water before her seventh anniversary, Calmac has reached out to the population to help name her. Just in case they get it wrong, the company has helpfully circulated a very limited list of three names, mainly Arran locations, glens and the like, from which to choose. But a lively debate in an Arran west coast pub recently discussed alternatives to the list and the clear winner was the very pertinent MV Rabhadh òmar, the MV Amber Alert. No reply to date from Calmac.

Neil Arthur, Kilpatrick, Isle of Arran.

Elementary reasoning

R RUSSELL Smith’s observation that Hercule Poirot was given an obituary in the New York Times (Letters, August 10) reminded me that many years ago a Guardian correspondent wondered in print whether Poirot or Sherlock Holmes was the greater detective. Another correspondent pointed out that the question was silly, since it was obviously Sherlock Holmes, and that the questioner seemed to be overlooking the fact that Hercule Poirot is a fictional character.

Robin Dow, Rothesay.