I'm reading The Epicene Prounound [1] on Kuro5hin [2] and about the lack of a gender neutral prounoun in relationship with people—it not having the right connotations for people. The example being used in the discussion, “When the president calls, tell [insert pronoun for president] to call me back,” replacing [insert pronoun for president] with it changes its meaning (what? The president is a bug-eyed alien?).
In the discourse, solution [3] was “When the president calls, tell'em to call me back.” Em. A bit of linguistic play going on there. The general (possibly incorrect solution) of using they as a singular gender-neutral pronoun is still in effect, but maybe there's something there. “Let em who is without sin, cast the first stone.” Not too bad, but it only covers him/her and not he/she. Possibly ey?
Then again, I should probably read the Gender-Neutral Pronoun FAQ [4].
[1] http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/9/26/183536/296