Why I Use The Pronoun They

I’ve spoken about this in interviews and in person about my support for the singular-they as a gender neutral pronoun before, but an email I got prompted me to write a full response that I wanted to share with you all. So, here’s the question, as well as my answer.

Note:  Current usage is transgender, not transgendered.  It is who a person is, not what has happened to them. Think “yellow” vs. “yellowed” paper.  Also, the singular-they is just that.  Singular.  It’s not plural.

I find it confusing to see transgendered folks refer to themselves in the plural (“they” instead of he/she).  Do you suppose you could get folks onboard using the term “xhe”? 

No. While language is held together by rules and standards, it is a living, breathing, ever-changing creature of endless growth and potential. The singular-they may be unusual to you, and perhaps jarring, in that sense, but I would argue that it’s extremely rare that it’s actually hindering your ability to understand the sentence it’s in.  English speakers use “you” both in the singular and plural, and it seems to work out OK.  In fact, we had a singular-you (that’s what “thee” is) but we dropped it centuries ago.

Many attempts at creating new pronouns have been made.  They are about as successful as Esperanto.  (Neniu ofendo.) I’ve tried them for myself for years before giving up and going back to gendered pronouns. I couldn’t get used to them.  For myself.  Having people regularly not use my pronoun felt awful. And it kept turning my gender into the focus of the sentence, which wasn’t the point at all.

On the other hand, the singular-they was a quick and simple adaptation, and judging on how people have been using pronouns around me, my experience isn’t alone. Few people consistently used gender neutral pronouns for me, and for those who did, it was nearly always a conscious action. In comparison, most people report adapting to “they” within weeks.

If a person prefers third-gender pronouns, or no pronouns at all, I try to respect that. It’s clunky, but sometimes so are our genders, especially living in a culture that blocked our paths for so long. And I know how much it sucks to ask for people to do a little something extra to respect you and have them not do it. But I do believe the most seamless way forward is by shifting the purpose of a word we already have, like language does. And for me, that means proudly taking on the singular-they, and using it when I don’t know someone’s gendered pronoun.

At the end of the day, it’s more important to respect people and how they want to be called than to be “right”.  Try the singular-they for a bit and see if you can adapt.  Animals make great test subjects for this practice.

As for the old-school grammarian who’s still railing, I refer them to the Oxford English Dictionary (see usage notes) and note that a Washington Post copy editor deems it just fine (after a rousing bit about hyphens). Jane Austen used it, as did C.S. Lewis.  To really name drop, it goes back to writers as old as Chaucer and Shakespeare.  Also note my own use of the singular they earlier in this paragraph, which, unless you enjoy pointing out errors for their own sake, you probably glossed over.

More on the history of the singular-they here:
https://motivatedgrammar.wordpress.com/2009/09/10/singular-they-and-the-many-reasons-why-its-correct/

Edit:  I am happy to add that I sent this to the person who wrote the question above and we’ve got another convert, friends of the singular-they. Not only are they going to start practicing with their pets, but they noticed, for themself, that they should have done their homework first. Quoting them: “Consider me a ‘they’ zealot now!” Keep spreading the good word!

Another Edit:  There are lots of trans people who do use “he” and “she” and that’s also well and good and to be respected.  Please don’t deny anyone their pronoun because you heard some trans person say that we’re supposed to use “they” for everyone now.  That’s not what this is.  Perhaps that’s obvious, but I’ve seen words twisted in weirder ways before.