EVERY LANGUAGE makes assumptions and embodies biases so deeply embedded as to be invisible to its speakers. Every so often a cultural prejudice of this kind comes to light, as when people began to point out that English and many languages take for granted a gender dualism that’s typified by the third-person singular pronouns “he” and “she.” People who had once been silenced by this prejudice began to assert that this binary language did not correspond their sense of themselves as human beings.
This awareness has fanned out to a larger public. In recent years a number of celebrities have come out as not completely man or woman, including Sam Smith, Ruby Rose, and Jonathan Van Ness. The increased awareness is allowing more people to recognize and name the way they feel. When people can discuss their shared experiences, they can invent the language that allows them to explain and label their identities.
In the 1970s, the word “bigender” was coined to describe people who identify with both binary genders. The word “genderqueer” was first used in 1995 for people who don’t identify as “man” or “woman” as conventionally understood. People who don’t have a gender can call themselves “agender,” a word first popularized in 2006. Those who identify as somewhere between the two standard genders can use “demigender,” the use of which has been increasingly common since 2014. These identities are all broadly covered by the umbrella term “nonbinary.”
Because the vocabulary used to describe these identities is new, the phenomenon itself may appear novel. But people have lived outside the gender binary throughout human history. One example is the Public Universal Friend, who lived in the U.S. at the end of the 18th century. The Friend eschewed gender after a near-death experience and asked not to be referred to by any gendered pronoun.
Over 200 years later, nonbinary people still struggle to find pronouns that feel right for them. While some nonbinary people may be able to work with “he” and “she,” the basic third-person singular pronouns in English, many reject these pronouns as inadequate to describe their experience. There are also people who identify exclusively with one of the binary genders but who don’t want to use gendered pronouns for personal or political reasons. Some radical feminists who believe that the social constructs of gender should be dismantled may choose to use genderless pronouns to represent this belief. In an op-ed piece in The New York Times, Farhad Manjoo asked to be referred to by non-gendered pronouns, arguing that the use of the standard pronouns tends to reinforce gender biases and assumptions.
Irrespective of their reasons, people who don’t want to be referred to by the gendered pronouns available in their language must find other pronouns to replace them. Sebastian McGaughey’s essay “Understanding Neopronouns” in these pages (March-April 2020) elaborated some of the alternatives to “he” and “she” that have been proposed for English usage. The most common approach is to use the plural form “they,” which is non-gendered in English, but new sets of words to replace “he, him, his” and “she, her, hers” have also been put forth.
Languages Confront Their Gender Biases
While English happens to have a gender-neutral third-person pronoun at its disposal, many languages lack an equivalent to “they” that can be used in the singular to refer to a person of unknown gender, so they must use other methods to create a pronoun that does not convey gender. It should be noted here that there are many non-European languages that don’t have gendered pronouns at all. Mandarin Chinese uses the same word “tā” for “he” and “she” in speech, though the written character contains a male or female signifier, so these are written differently: 他and 她. In Finnish, a person of any gender is referred to by the pronoun “se” in speech and “hän” in writing. Estonian uses the word “tema” (often shortened to “ta”) in both speech and writing, and Turkish uses “o.”
For languages that have gendered pronouns, the extent to which a language has been adjusted to accommodate those who prefer gender-neutral pronouns is related to the politics of a given country. Very few countries legally recognize genders outside the binary, but cultures that support LGBT rights in general are more likely to support the use of words that nonbinary people can use. IGLA-Europe compiles a ranking of 49 European countries based on their laws and policies related to LGBT people known as Rainbow Europe. Three of the countries in the top ten (France, Belgium, and Luxembourg) use French as an official language. The French word that is closest in meaning to “they” (singular) in English is “on,” which can be used to mean “they,” “one,” “he,” or “she”according to context. Because it doesn’t reference gender, “on” is used by some nonbinary people as their personal pronoun. Other gender-neutral pronouns, “ol” and “ul,” have been created by changing the first vowel in “il,” the French word for “he,” but these are not widely recognized.
Swedish has had more success with the technique of changing the vowel in an existing pronoun. The gender-neutral pronoun “hen” was formed from the existing words “han” (“he”) and “hon” (“she”). Sweden has a Rainbow Europe rank of 11 and was among the first countries to allow same-sex marriage. In 2014, “hen” was added to the Swedish Academy Dictionary and is now widely understood by Swedish speakers.
Spanish has also created a gender-neutral pronoun that only slightly differs from an existing pronoun. In Spanish, the words for “he” and “she” are “él” and “ella.” A third gender-neutral pronoun was formed by combining these and changing the vowel at the end to form “élle,” and this has been adopted by many nonbinary Spanish speakers. Spain has a Rainbow Europe rank of 12, but Spanish is spoken in many countries with varying degrees of LGBT tolerance, so the acceptance of “élle” is by no means universal.
For languages that have three grammatical genders of masculine, feminine, and neuter, it may seem natural to use the neuter pronoun for people who don’t want to use gendered pronouns. In German, the neuter pronoun “es” is sometimes chosen by nonbinary people. However, this may be seen as dehumanizing, like referring to a person as “it” in English. Thus “es” can be used by nonbinary people to identify themselves, but others are advised to use it with caution.
When the words for “he” and “she” are similar, a third pronoun can be formed that’s derived from these two. But when the existing words are very different, an alternative approach is to simply join one word on to the other. In German, the words for “he” (“er”) and “she” (“sie”) have been joined to make new pronouns that are used by some nonbinary people: “ersie,” “sier,” “sir” and “xier.” In French, a similar process has created “il-elle,” “ille” and “iel” from the existing third-person pronouns “il” and “elle.” While this approach seems sensible, these words have not been widely adopted.
In Germany, the option that has gained the most traction is to borrow the English word “they.” This works in Germany, where English is a second language, while others have borrowed the concept without embracing the English word. The Dutch third-person plural pronoun “ze” is used by some nonbinary people as their personal pronoun.
Some people may object to using a plural word to refer to a single person, but there are many exceptions to this rule in English. A monarch may use the “royal we” when referring to him-, her-, or themself. It is common in British and Australian slang to use “us” instead of a singular pronoun, as in “Give us a kiss.” And of course the most widespread exception is the grammatical use of the plural pronoun in a sentence like “Someone left their coat behind,” which is now widely accepted by grammarians.
Indeed the use of “they” as a singular pronoun has become so widespread that some nonbinary people have moved away from “they” in favor of a word that refers specifically to the nonbinary. One solution to this is to invent a new word, such as the neopronouns discussed in the aforementioned G&LR article. There have been many attempts at this in recent decades. The most famous is the Spivak pronouns from the 1970s and ’80s, which were formed by removing “th” from the start of “they” to form “ey” or “e.” Other neopronouns include “ze,” “xe,” “ve” and “ne.”
That said, it’s unlikely that you’ve heard anyone using these words, which even nonbinary people largely avoid. The 2019 Gender Census reported that less than eight percent of nonbinary people used a neopronoun to self-identify. Many people are unsure how to pronounce or conjugate them, so they’ve gained little traction compared with “they,” which is already familiar to many people from other contexts.
Countries that have a lower acceptance of LGBT people have made less progress in promoting gender-neutral pronouns. In Ukraine, which has a Rainbow Europe rank of 36, some nonbinary people use the pronouns “вона” (which generally means “she” but can be used when someone’s gender is unknown), “вони” (plural “they”), or “воно” (neuter “it”). The options are similar in Russia, which has a Rainbow Europe rank of 46, where some nonbinary people use the pronouns “они” (plural “they”) or “оно” (neuter “it”). In Poland, which has a Rainbow Europe rank of 39, “oni” (the masculine form of plural “they,” used when a group contains a man, similar to “ils” in French) is used by some as a singular pronoun.
The situation is even more challenging in Italy, which has a Rainbow Europe rank of 35 and allows civil partnerships but not same-sex marriage. Italian doesn’t have any gender-neutral pronouns, so nonbinary Italians must take a different approach. Some alternate the pronouns “he” (“lui”) and “she” (“lei”), but this is difficult to achieve, particularly in speech. It has been proposed that “essi” (an archaic version of “they”) could be used, but this has not yet been adopted.
It’s More Than Just the Pronouns
There are people who argue that the easiest way to make a language gender-neutral is simply to eliminate the existing gender markers. In English, this would mean dropping “she” and “they” altogether and referring to everyone as “he.” This is seen as a natural way to simplify the language, rather than make it more complicated by adding a new gender-neutral pronoun. However, pronouns are among the most conservative components of any language, and it seems unlikely that most people are either willing or able to take this step. What’s more, it has the huge drawback of privileging “he” over “she” and “they,” which probably will not be seen as a step forward by many people.
The problem of gendered language extends beyond pronouns, of course. Grammatical gender is baked into the European languages—English is the sole exception—a constant reminder of the ubiquity of gender (though not binary in some cases). Gender also looms large in words for job titles and social roles, as in “waiter” and “waitress” or “steward” and “stewardess,” and English is as guilty here as any language. Efforts to replace these binary pairs with “server” and “flight attendant” have been fairly successful. But note that this often means that the masculine usage will simply assume both roles, so that, for example, “hostess” is absorbed by “host” and “actress” is increasingly subsumed under “actor.”
Other languages have wrestled with built-in gender dichotomies in a variety of ways. In French, the median period can be used to separate the feminine ending from a word so to refer to a person of any gender, as in “blond·e,” though the Académie Française has not sanctioned this usage. In German, “Gendergap” is used to append the feminine ending when someone’s gender is unknown, as in “Lehrer_in” (teacher). An alternative is to use an asterisk, known as the “Genderstar” (“Lehrer*in”). In Ukrainian, Russian, and Polish, an underscore is also used to add the feminine ending “ка” (“ka” in Polish) to avoid specifying a person’s gender. Nonbinary people can use these melded words to describe themselves, as in “Je suis blond·e,” “Ich bin Lehrer_in,” or “я активист_ка” (“I am an activist”).
The suffix “-x,” as in “Latinx” instead of “Latino/Latina,” is commonly used for Spanish words in English texts, particularly in the U.S. (The suffix “-@” can also be used.) As they are difficult to pronounce, some Spanish speakers support replacing them with “-e” (“Latine”). This is the suffix that’s used in Spanish with the gender-neutral pronoun “élle.”
In any language, people must choose the pronouns and other aspects of gendered language that feels right for them. When the existing alternatives don’t fit the bill for whatever reason, new solutions must sometimes be sought. It may mean inventing a new pronoun or a new word to describe some people, or even foregoing pronouns altogether. In many languages, it’s possible to avoid using any third-person pronouns by referring to someone only by name or with a shortened form thereof (e.g., “Ann is carrying Ann’s bag” or “David is carrying D’s bag”).
Pronoun preferences are varied across the spectrum of nonbinary people, which is perhaps why no consensus has been reached on usage. Some are happy to identify as “he” or “she,” while others don’t feel comfortable with these pronouns at all. Any person you’re speaking to may use a pronoun I’ve mentioned here or a different pronoun entirely. When speaking to someone in another language, the only definitive way to find out the pronouns they prefer is to ask them.
Kim Barrett (they/their) lives in Oxford, UK, and writes about sexuality, mental health, and the environment.
Discussion1 Comment
As a nonbinary person who has struggled greatly with pronouns, I appreciate this quite complete overview. I didn’t feel left out. I’m still struggling with the mystery that while “he/him” is the best fit for cisgendered me when referring to myself, and I present as male, I reject a lot of the stereotypical gender expectations of such a designation.