It genuinely confuses me when people say "Pronouns aren't real".

I get so confused when they say this. They usually say something like "before 2020, pronouns weren't real" and I'm sure 99% of them are joking but some do make me question if they are. 

Like. . . how do they think people were addressed before 2020?? Or before the "woke movement"?? Even if they wanted to make the argument that they/them pronouns didn't exist, that's just blatantly incorrect. 'They' has always been used to refer to someone of an unspecified gender.

People really just confuse me sometimes. Especially when English isn't my native language. It's one of the hardest languages to learn and they just make it more confusing.