The Human Condition: Pronouns

By Daniel Schnee on March 9, 2022.

I remember being taught about personal pronouns back in elementary school: words like “he” or “she”. If there’s more than one person we use “they” or “them”. So how can one person nowadays be referred to as a group of people? Why are “they” and “them” preferable to “he” or ‘she”? I decided to discuss this topic with Oliver, a person who uses all the pronouns: he, she, they, them and so on.

He is happy when somebody doesn’t refer to them by just one set of pronouns, because the combination is a more accurate representation of her gender identity: not just a man or woman. Their sexual identity, a different matter, is described as bisexual, because they have an attraction to women, non-binary people, and men. Since I am using a pseudonym I still have not told you what Oliver’s actual biological gender is: if he was born externally male or female, or dresses up in stereotypically male or female clothing. But Oliver’s choice of pronouns is right for her; has the right feeling for all aspects of his sense of being.

If that seems strange to you, walk a mile in his shoes. Imagine waking up one day and everyone started referring to you as “he” if you are a straight woman, or “she” if you are a stereotypical burly straight man. It might not seem that bad, initially. But if they never ceased, you would feel increasingly disturbed and traumatized by the disconnect, i.e. being told that your preference of pronouns is just that: a preference (choice), and not who you absolutely are.

If a Japanese woman tells us her name, e.g. Yumiko, we don’t get angry and demand they use Elizabeth, i.e. a “proper” girl’s name to Westerners. We also do not think Yumiko (“arrow-child”) is using the wrong name because she is not literally an arrow or a child. This is when one realizes that names and pronouns describe individuals, not define them. If “he” has traditionally been a word that defines my maleness, it is now becoming a word that makes up part of my description: a common type of evolution in linguistics. We think nothing of “Janus words” that mean their own opposite, like dusting a cake (adding a layer of icing), or dusting an old lamp (removing a layer of dust). Expanding the meaning of words like “he” or “she” is how English became so nuanced and thus useful in the first place.

And no matter how uncomfortable we may be in the process, Oliver’s expansion also does not make our own personhood smaller or less meaningful. He is not asking me to change, just use more accurate language in our particular conversations.

Old conservatives like myself are often vehemently against non-traditional genders and pronouns; I am a “he” and hard science itself has shown no proof that my gender is fully separate from biology. But identity, culture and one’s sense of being are indeed complex, and not so simply defined. In the end, a tiny minority of people changing their own pronouns has never hurt me or made our Canadian life less grand.

With war and COVID-19 raging away, worrying over how many pronouns Oliver uses is not necessary. We have real problems.

Dr. Daniel Schnee is a cultural anthropologist and jazz drummer.

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