The first time a request for the they/them pronoun was made
to me was at a lunch counter in Oakland just last year. I was visiting a friend
and he took me to a diner nearby his place of business where the person who
waited on us was a young man, ostensibly, but with a feminine personal carriage
and clothing that hearkened an iconic ‘50s diner waitress look. My friend
mentioned in casual conversation that our waiter was a musician, and did so using
the pronoun “he.” Our waiter corrected my friend by saying, “they/them” while
breezing past. This person was presenting exactly down the middle and I
immediately thought to myself, “You know what? They’re right.”
The Oxford English Dictionary this year welcomed into its
infiniteness the usage of “they” and “them” as non-binary gender descriptors
for persons who identify at a sufficient midpoint along the gender spectrum to
prefer it to traditional “he” and “she” identifiers. British vocalist Sam Smith
recently requested on Instagram that fans, interviewers and the rest of the
world honor a preference of “they/them” to refer to Smith. “After a lifetime of
being at war with my gender I’ve decided to embrace myself for who I am, inside
and out,” they wrote.
Do you see how easy that was? They wrote. It’s a little odd,
admittedly, and does take some getting used to. I am a language and usage
traditionalist, and my general viewpoint is that there has to be a good reason
for accepting new words and usages. Well, unlike the now welcome misuse of
“literally” and the fall of the proper pronunciation of “nuclear,” here is an
actual good reason for a shift in the language.
This is a maligned and marginalized segment of society that can
encounter sustained environmental hostility and sudden hostility in common
daily encounters. They are a misunderstood and oppressed demographic, and using
the proper pronoun (as far as they are concerned) telegraphs a measure of
support. It can even be fairly considered an expression that the transgender
person is in a safe environment. There is a great loveliness to replacing “he”
or “she” with “they/them” for people who identify as non-binary. I have
embraced the change wholly and recommend against the stodgy in this case.
