Does anyone else wish that there was a single word for he/she, him/her, his/her, etc? When I write "he or she" in a sentence where gender is irrelevant, it seems like a distraction, like the reader will stop and think, "yes, I guess the person could be a male or a female."

It's especially bad while talking about a general person which is almost always one gender, like a ballerina or a construction worker. I don't want to write "he or she" because the reader will stop and think "I guess males can be ballerinas too", and all of these implications are added to the sentence that have nothing to do with what I'm saying. But if I just write 'she', the reader will think I'm being sexist or narrowminded for not considering that males can do it too.

I sometimes just choose a gender. That especially works when bringing up an example involving two people. I make one male and one female. Then sometimes I go to great lengths to avoid using the pronouns at all, instead using "the person in question", etc.

Does anyone else have this problem? How do you structure your sentences to avoid it?