Tuesday, September 17, 2019

He/she, they/them. What's in a pronoun? A lot.


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.




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