The Pronoun Problem By Becky Stowe

The Pronoun Problem

By: Becky Stowe

With the growing interest in transgender rights in the American political sphere, American citizens (slowly, as per usual) are becoming more informed about transgender issues and even accepting of the idea that gender is a spectrum and not just a binary (either/or) system.  Among the transgender issues we’re becoming increasingly aware of is the need for a gender-neutral pronoun in the English vernacular. This has been a topic of concern in the LGBTQA community for a long while, but with the new burst of transgender visibility in the media this topic is starting to get a lot more mainstream attention.
            So for those of you that aren’t English major nerds like myself, gender-neutral third-person pronoun are pronouns to use when someone’s gender is unknown OR when the individual does not identify as either male or female. The individual being addressed could be transgender or genderqueer (a catch-all term for those who don’t identify as either male or female).
English traditionally has three singular pronouns: “he”, “she” and “it”. “He” and “She” are obviously gendered while “It” tends to refer to something that is inanimate like a book or an idea and for that reason (along with several others that have to do with the icky connotation of calling a person ‘it’ as a way to assert a misogynistic power imbalance. But I digress) another option must be found. What’s the point of having gendered pronouns? There really isn’t one. If you think about it, the only real purpose that grammatical gender serves is the occasional clear up some ambiguity. ¾ of the world’s languages seem to be managing fine without gendering their pronouns, However for those individuals already struggling with their gender identity, our binary system of he or she pronouns serves as a regular reminder of their mainstream exclusion, and that’s just not what our language should be used for. While we’re on this topic, now is a great time for a Gendered Pronoun Public Service Announcement: NEVER ASSUME A PERSON’S PRONOUN BASED ON THEIR APPEARANCE! *clears throat* Thank you. At any rate, “He,” “she,” and “it” are pronouns that only take us English speakers so far. And I don’t know about you but I’m not about to start referring any person as an “it” because quite frankly my dear that’s dehumanizing.
There was a time when English had a gender-neutral pronoun, in Old English-[HOLD UP! Just need to clarify something because this is a big English Major Pet Peeve of mine: Old English is NOT the version of English that Shakespeare spoke. That was Early Modern English. Old English was waaaaaay before that; I’m talking about centuries in their pre-teens. Carry on.] there was a gender neutral pronoun, “hit” (pronounced as it’s spelled for us Modern English speaker). I hardly need to explain why it would be problematic to incorporate that word into present-day vocabulary.
Some have offered up “ze” as an alternative, but some argue that it sounds to much like “he” (as if “she” doesn’t already sound similar… Not to mention that we’d all sound like we were doing really bad French impersonations. Moving on!). Students in Baltimore apparently use the word “yo”, but if using that pronoun constantly didn’t make us all sound like Jesse Pinkman, I don’t know what would (Yeah, bitch!). There have been dozens more offered but the current front runner in the gender-neutral pronoun race is “they”.

So what to use? There are a lot of choices. What it should come down to is what the person you’re speaking to or referring to prefers. Sure, you’ll make a mistake here or there, but as long as you own up to these mistakes, correct yourself and make it clear you want to be respectful, that makes all the difference in the world.