They/Them/Their Are Singular Pronouns
I have been intentionally using they/them/their as singular pronouns in my posts for a while. I feel that now, the social climate being what it is, is a good time to mention why this use of they is so important.
Thanks largely to trans activism, gender norms are evolving and there is a lot more fluidity in the once-binary options we are given to express our gender identities. Some people are non-binary, i.e. they don't identify with the she or he poles on the gender spectrum, and their preferences deserve a place in our language. Read You Know Those Common Objections to ‘They’ Pronouns? Here Are 9 Simple Facts to Shut Them Down for more details on this from a witty non-binary writer. English has not had a specifically singular unisex pronoun: they has increasingly become our option to reflect the changing cultural dynamics around gender, and I think it is only right to use it in writing meant to apply to all people.
When people resist the changing of our language to reflect our changing culture, they do so at the expense of those people once shut out of social thought, their suffering and their very existence made invisible by lack of words to describe their experience. A knee-jerk "academic" complaint about this change, while often coming from a place of defense for the formal/correct, comes across as elitist nostalgia for a more repressive language and repressive time in cultural history.
As a cisgender, straight, white woman, I don't claim to have comprehensive understanding of the diverse human experience. But I am a therapist, and I better try as hard as I can to keep informed of the most inclusive cultural developments and be open to critical feedback from people with different experiences than my own. With that said, I welcome feedback from people who feel excluded or misrepresented by anything I write on this blog. Reading just this article earlier today - What Being Non-Binary in Female-Centric Spaces Is Like – And How to Be More Inclusive - was reflective to me of my blind spots as a privileged feminist.
My heart goes out to the innocent people and their loved ones - who quite possibly include non-binary folks - who were killed, wounded and terrorized by the atrocious violence that occurred early this morning at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando.
Thanks largely to trans activism, gender norms are evolving and there is a lot more fluidity in the once-binary options we are given to express our gender identities. Some people are non-binary, i.e. they don't identify with the she or he poles on the gender spectrum, and their preferences deserve a place in our language. Read You Know Those Common Objections to ‘They’ Pronouns? Here Are 9 Simple Facts to Shut Them Down for more details on this from a witty non-binary writer. English has not had a specifically singular unisex pronoun: they has increasingly become our option to reflect the changing cultural dynamics around gender, and I think it is only right to use it in writing meant to apply to all people.
When people resist the changing of our language to reflect our changing culture, they do so at the expense of those people once shut out of social thought, their suffering and their very existence made invisible by lack of words to describe their experience. A knee-jerk "academic" complaint about this change, while often coming from a place of defense for the formal/correct, comes across as elitist nostalgia for a more repressive language and repressive time in cultural history.
As a cisgender, straight, white woman, I don't claim to have comprehensive understanding of the diverse human experience. But I am a therapist, and I better try as hard as I can to keep informed of the most inclusive cultural developments and be open to critical feedback from people with different experiences than my own. With that said, I welcome feedback from people who feel excluded or misrepresented by anything I write on this blog. Reading just this article earlier today - What Being Non-Binary in Female-Centric Spaces Is Like – And How to Be More Inclusive - was reflective to me of my blind spots as a privileged feminist.
My heart goes out to the innocent people and their loved ones - who quite possibly include non-binary folks - who were killed, wounded and terrorized by the atrocious violence that occurred early this morning at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando.
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