Pronouns

This article was first published on the Portsmouth Point blog, and has since been lightly edited before publishing here (25/1/2025).

Recently I changed my Instagram bio. I did something that’s becoming increasingly common: I added my pronouns. Shortly after though my (observant) friend asked me, “why did you put ‘he/they’, most people put their preferred one ... do you prefer they?” “Well” I said, “it’s a bit complicated…”

Everyone uses they as a singular pronoun sometimes. It’s usually used to refer to someone of unknown gender, especially when talking about a generic type of person or job. Eg 'I heard we have a supply teacher next lesson, I hope they're nice'. So part of me saying '/they' is just acknowledging that people probably refer to me like that often, and that’s perfectly fine. But of course that’s only one use of singular they. The newer and increasingly common use is as a gender-neutral pronoun for people of a known sex.

Here, I’m going to make the distinction between ‘sex ‘ and ‘gender’. When I think about this topic, I use sex to refer to your biological sex - your body - which can be male, female, or (very rarely) intersex, and gender to refer to how you think of yourself, and by extension what pronouns you use.

My belief is that how you think of yourself, how you act, who you speak to and what you do shouldn’t really be affected by your sex. Obviously there are some physical differences: sexual organs, hormones, voice pitch, body shape etc. But putting those aside, I don’t see that being male should mean you think about yourself differently from being female. I don't think the differences in bodies is anywhere near enough of a difference to warrant a different pronoun. Because what pronoun you use really can change people’s preconception of you - often in ways you don’t want.

So ideally I would like to use a gender-neutral pronoun, I would like everyone to use one by default. And this is the other part of the reason why I added ‘/they’. But the reason I put ‘/’ is because they isn’t a very good singular pronoun. Mainly because it’s also a plural pronoun, and because of that it can get pretty confusing to use. There’s also the more short-term problem that because it’s relatively uncommon, it can still sound sort of strange in conversation - and using it requires you to actively ask everyone else to use it. Unfortunately it’s so common for people to use the pronoun assumed of their sex that it takes quite a lot of effort not to. So right now, there’s not really a “perfect” solution. Using they has its issues, as do gendered pronouns. I realise that when most people refer to me as ‘he’ they’re probably not intending to treat me differently than if I were using another pronoun (even if - subconsciously - they may be). I know they’re just doing what (almost) everyone else does. So until a better and more widely used gender-neutral pronoun comes along, I’m okay sticking with ‘he/they’ - and letting people call me whichever they prefer.