The 'they' heyday

What to do when pronouns are new

In
4 minute read
Clockwise from left, BSR team members Alaina Johns, Kyle V. Hiller, Sarah Grey, and Neil Bardhan share our pronouns.
Clockwise from left, BSR team members Alaina Johns, Kyle V. Hiller, Sarah Grey, and Neil Bardhan share our pronouns.

I remember the first time I asked for someone’s pronouns. I felt a little anxious. Shouldn’t I know without having to ask? Would the question be offensive?

I was living in one of those glorious old West Philly Victorians, with a porch, an ornate wooden stairway with wobbly banisters, and a warren of bedrooms. My new roommate was trans. As we chatted in the third-floor kitchen one morning soon after the move, I asked, “What are your pronouns?”

“He/him,” he said. “Thanks for asking.” And that was that.

What’s with the nametag?

A while after that, I updated my bios and and signatures to include my own pronouns (she/her), and began writing them on nametags at events. Recently, someone asked why I did that. It’s a legitimate question: I’m a cisgender woman with traditionally feminine looks and style. Why specify something obvious?

TransForming Inclusion

Last year, the Leeway Foundation published TransForming Inclusion: An Organizational Guide, addressing specific steps for how nonprofits and other institutions can include and affirm trans and gender-nonconforming people (TGNC). You can request your copy here. The guide, written by V Varun Chaudhry, has a good explanation for why we should all make a habit of sharing our pronouns.

Doing so helps “reduce the burden on anyone whose pronoun is often misidentified, and may help them access the discussion more easily.” And “because cisgender people often do not experience being misgendered or misidentified, asking all people in the space to engage in this process can challenge many of the assumptions that people make about gender.”

Just ask

Folks sometimes confide their difficulty remembering the pronouns of people in their lives who have come out as transgender or nonbinary (i.e., identifying not as a woman or a man but as both or neither).

“If you are not sure about a person’s pronoun, ask,” Leeway advises. It really is that simple — you can even introduce yourself by name, specify what pronouns you use, and ask if the other person wants to share theirs.

If you make a mistake later on, don’t ignore the mistake — just calmly correct yourself. This is important both to the person you’re addressing and anyone listening. If someone else makes the same mistake, same story: make a calm correction and continue the conversation.

Keeping this guide close while we think about BSR's future. (Photo by Alaina Johns.)
Keeping this guide close while we think about BSR's future. (Photo by Alaina Johns.)

700 years of they

I can think of several people in my own life who recently announced that they no longer identify as he or she, but as they. Let’s end the grammatical argument against using the plural gender-neutral personal pronoun they as a singular gender-neutral personal pronoun right here. According to the Oxford English Dictionary blog, we’ve been using it this way since at least the 14th century, and I’ve already done it in this essay — did you even notice?

Many cis folks like me express embarrassment when they fail to remember someone’s new pronouns. They’re constantly anxious they’re going to mess up and guilty about misgendering the TGNC person (using the wrong pronoun), whether they do it to the person directly or later on, in conversation with others.

How many things do we spend our lives accurately remembering? The names of hundreds of friends and family, plus our favorite celebrities; countless birthdays; spouses; kids; dogs and cats; not to mention who’s vegan, lactose-intolerant, gluten-free, or allergic to avocado.

So why is it so hard to remember, for example, that a person who used to identify as she is now they?

One syllable at a time

It’s not just a matter of faulty memory. For most Western cultures, it’s centuries of a systemic gender-binary drumbeat. (We’ve been talking about this at BSR; listen to this or read this.) Each time you recognize the correct pronouns of people of all genders, you flout and diminish a false categorical norm. You’re in the gender revolution, one syllable at a time.

And it’s a necessary place to be, especially if you call yourself a feminist. The Leeway guide reminds us that people on the transfeminine spectrum in particular live in the “overlapping oppressions” of transphobia and misogyny. Feminist movements working to combat misogyny and related bigotry “should consider and even prioritize the needs of transgender and gender-nonconforming people.”

That’s why inquiring about pronouns and wearing name tags are important. They help normalize the idea that gender isn’t something you can assume or define for people outside yourself. The more we normalize this, the easier it will be to ask, tell, and remember everyone’s pronouns — and make a safe, welcoming environment for all.

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