PRONOUNS are a part of daily life and are used by all of us hundreds of times a day. For this reason, pronouns tend to be taken for granted. However, pronouns can become problematical in times of social change, as they are today for those in the trans and nonbinary communities, and for society at large.
Pronouns in English (unlike in many European languages) differentiate gender only in the third-person singular, “he” and “she” and their attendant cases: him, his, her, and hers. However, this distinction isn’t carried over to the third-person plural, leaving “they” as a possible replacement for the gendered singular form in some situations. Thus, for example, a sentence like “Someone left their coat in the theater” is quite widely accepted by grammarians. More recently, “they/them/ their” has been used in a more specialized way, to refer to a category of person who does not identify as either of the standard singular pronouns. And while “they” was named as Merriam Webster’s word of the year for 2019, it has not gained universal acceptance as an alternative to binary pronouns.
Neopronouns are new coinages that were created as an alternative to “they.” Some of them go back further than you might guess, and new ones have cropped up over the years. For example, the pronoun set “ey/em/eir” was created in 1975 by Christine M. Elverson to replace “he/him/his” and “she/her/hers.” It was the winning entry in a contest by the Chicago Association of Business Communicators, who were looking for an alternative to the gendered pronouns. Elverson described this set as “transgender pronouns” and came up with the three words by dropping “th” from “they/them/their.” Another set, “thon/thons/thonself,” was listed in Funk and Wagnalls dictionary from 1898 to 1964. This set was created for ease of use by a lawyer named Charles C. Converse, whose strategy was to combine the words “that” and “one.” This set popped up in crossword puzzles, comic strips, and some publications, but it never really caught on and was eventually forgotten. Still more remarkable, the pronoun set “ne/nis/nir” originated half a century before that, in the 1850s. An article in The New-York Commercial Advertiser in 1884 explained the pronoun set and noted the brevity of its lifespan. After that, the record on this brief experiment goes silent, though it seems to be enjoying something of a revival with today’s “ne/nem/nirs.”
To show how they’re used in a sentence, we’ll use this example: “Sam went to the store to buy himself some applesauce, which he loved almost more than his boyfriend.” So:
Sam went to the store to buy xyrself some applesauce, which xe loved almost more than xyr boyfriend.
Sam went to the store to get hirself some applesauce, which ze loved almost more than hir boyfriend.
Sam went to the store to get zirself some applesauce, which ze loved almost more than zir boyfriend.
Sam went to the store to get emself some applesauce. which ey loved almost more than eir boyfriend.
Sam went to the store to get nemself some applesauce, which ne loved almost more than nir boyfriend.
Now that you know where neopronouns came from and how to use them, the question remains: why are they used? The use of “they” to replace a singular antecedent (“Someone left their hat…”), while once frowned upon, has recently been approved in the Seventh Edition of the APA Manual. However, the use of “they” to refer to a category of person who rejects “he” or “she” as identifiers is still controversial. The main objection is that it can produce a grammatical ambiguity when the number of persons is not clear.
I spoke with several people in the course of my research to discover why some prefer to use neopronouns when referring to themselves. In general, they are looking for a pronoun that acknowledges an existence outside of the traditional gender binary. For example, one respondent who doesn’t feel like xi has a gender explained that xi uses “xi/xer” pronouns because “It makes me feel like I’m not regular, because I’m not! I feel like nothing, like I’m not supposed to have a gender, just a little mix-up on nature’s part, and I feel xi/xer pronouns best suit me, though I know they/them are the most commonly used unisex pronouns, I felt like they didn’t fit.” Another neopronoun user who also uses “xi/xir” explained: “I like them because they’re strictly unrelated to binary genders. They/them (which I use occasionally) feel impersonal and ambiguous.”
The Gender Census is a worldwide survey of nonbinary people and covers a wide variety of data, including preferred pronouns. The 2018 census found that 837 people of the 11,278 participants—over seven percent—said they would be comfortable being called “xe/xyr” pronouns in a scenario where these pronouns would be accepted and people would be able to learn them. Interestingly, when accounting for all the neopronoun options provided and the top five write-in answers, 24 percent stated that they would be comfortable using at least one set of neopronouns. This doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re using neopronouns currently, only that they could envision a scenario in which this could be the case. The reluctance to use neopronouns to identify oneself is clearly related to the fear of rejection by the larger community.
Neopronouns are making their way into everything from TV shows to novels and web comics. In the reboot of One Day at a Time, the character Elana shoots off the line: “Alright, everybody. When we get there, she takes her team to the stairs, ze takes zir team to the parking lot, and they take their team to the corner. He, she, they and ze will all meet up at the fair-trade coffee shop.” Remarks her mother: “She’s gotta have rehearsed that.”
On the other hand, as newly proposed pronouns grow in use, so does the backlash against them. While there has been some negative reaction from mainstream society, most of it has come from within the transgender community, whose members usually identify with one of the two traditional genders. To find out what the trans community thinks about this issue, I posted a survey about neopronouns and on a website frequented by the transgender community, the blogging site Amino. The survey asked if the participants have personally used neopronouns, followed by a series of questions related to their feelings about neopronouns and their impact on the transgender community. From the 200-plus responses that I received, the two main arguments against neopronouns were that they’re unnecessary and they cause the trans community to lose credibility.
On the credibility front, one concern was that the introduction of strange, foreign-looking and -sounding words puts the nonbinary community on a footing similar to “Otherkin” and “Therians,” people who identify as another species of human (or nonhuman) being. One trans man objected that this “makes it seem like we’re treating being trans as a fun, somewhat childish thing, when we want to be validated and taken seriously.” He also recoiled at the proliferation of neopronouns, noting that “males and females don’t get multiple options when it comes to pronouns.” Another trans man was even more emphatic, asserting that “by creating more useless words and pronouns it makes the community look like a bunch of illiterate outcasts who want to be special in every way possible.”
There was also much support for the use of neopronouns, including some respondents who thought that people should be free to use whatever pronouns they choose. One nonbinary respondent who used “they/them” opined: “They shouldn’t have to change the pronouns they are comfortable using to make people take them or the community seriously; instead other people need to change their own mindsets and become educated so they respect all people in the community for who they are. We need to be working towards creating a society that will be fully accepting of all people in this community, not changing the community, and excluding people, in order to be accepted by society.”
One respondent (who answers to both “they/them” and “he/him”) pointed out that transphobia on the part of cisgender people is not related to the use of neopronouns or pronouns in general. Instead, they commented that “the most backlash I have seen against neopronouns comes from other, usually binary, trans people. This hurts the community a lot more than neopronouns themselves ever will, because it alienates and ridicules the people who use them, denies them basic human respect and creates a divide within the community.”
A recurring criticism I heard about the current state of affairs is the excessive and unnecessary number of neopronouns. Many people who favored their use in principle wished there were a standard set, or even two sets, that everyone could agree upon. Why do we need so many? A large number favored the preservation of “he” and “she” while allowing for an inclusive term such as “they.” The advantage of this approach is that it uses existing words, which is easier than trying to introduce new words or grammatical constructions into the language. The extensive list of alternative sets of neopronouns noted above is too confusing and too hard to learn to be sustainable over the long haul. It is important to note that for trans and nonbinary people it is worth the effort to learn multiple sets of new pronouns, but it’s unlikely that they will all be picked up by mainstream society.
The question then becomes a practical one: which set of neopronouns would make the most sense as a standard for general use? When considering this question, it seems to me there are two important factors: the extent of current usage of a pronoun set, and the ease of spelling and pronunciation. Considering the first factor, the strongest contenders appear to be “ze/zir/zirs,” “ey/em/eir,” and “ne/nem/nirs.”
• The first has been referenced in popular media, such as the reference in One Day at a Time. The downside of this set is that the spelling of “zir” is similar to that of “sir” and is often pronounced the same way, which could cause confusion when spoken.
• The next candidates are “ne/nem/nirs.” While this set does not seem to be as commonly used, it has had some backers as the standard for mainstream use. Its major drawback could be its pronunciation, which sounds to some ears too close to “he/him/his” to be a neutral alternative.
• That leaves “ey/em/eir,” which is the set that’s existed for 45 years. This group has been proposed for use as a pronoun for the trans community. The set was derived from “they/them/ their,” but when said out loud sounds fairly distinct, and it isn’t difficult to spell. Their derivation from existing pronouns could make them easier to remember and to pronounce. Consequently, this set of neopronouns seems to me the most promising candidate.
Whatever set of words is chosen, the next problem is one of public relations and logistics. Just how do you go about changing semantic usages in the population at large? It has happened in the past, as when “Miss” and “Mrs.” were collapsed into “Ms.,” and when “Negro” was replaced by “black” and later (partially) by “African-American.” The use of neopronouns has gained considerable traction in the LGBT press and is beginning to enter the mainstream. The more that people start to use them in print and in the spoken word, the closer we will come to a time when neopronouns will need to be integrated into everyday vocabulary.
Sebastian McGaughey is a nineteen-year-old freelance writer based in Barrie, Ontario. He is a transgender man and uses he/him pronouns.
Discussion2 Comments
Hello! I have a question regarding neopronouns, I was wondering about the people who put words as there pronouns (for example people who use daddy/daddyself or doll/dollself) are they also in the section of neopronouns?
Hi!! Neopronoun user here (i use a set of xe/xem/xyrs along with he/him and they/them)- im not expert but i’d like to give my two cents. With daddy/daddy self, they’re most likely trolls that use neopronouns to make fun of actual neopronoun users.
Doll/dollself and other nounself pronouns are Xenopronouns that fall underneath the neopronoun umbrella!