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Just So You Know

Yes, you do have pronouns. Whether you like it or not.

The panic over pronouns isn't about ideology - it's about power, identity, and who gets to decide what counts as "normal."

Karla J. Strand

Karla J. Strand

— 15 min read
Yes, you do have pronouns. Whether you like it or not.
Photo by Stephen Harlan / Unsplash

I consume a lot of YouTube. From how to put the plow on my ATV (actual search) and other instructional content to self-proclaimed slop tubers The Vanguard (Is that an ambulance I hear?) and all the history, current events, and politics inbetween (like The Red Nation, Heather Cox Richardson, Majority Report), I am one of the growing number of people who watch YouTube regularly, especially on TV.

Skip the context; I just want the info. Or take me to the sources.

And yes, I watch debate content. I’ll admit to starting with Parker and Dean (because they are tough to avoid, believe me, I’ve since tried) before finding my way to Santana and Polypolitics, and happening into science debates and reaction content with Dr. Blitz, Planet Peterson, and Modern Day Debates. And then a funny thing happened: I started watching religious debates. 

How does someone who doesn’t give (organized Western) religion a second thought find themselves entrenched in these debates? Well, turns out if you watch even the slightest bit of science debate content, the topic of evolution comes up a lot. And don’t get me started on the flat-earthers, holy shit. So science debates led me to Deconstruction Zone (#RHFD, #SWFS), The Line, and Allegedly Ian. In fairness, I’ve been a fan of Dan McClellan from the start, but the atheist vs. theist debate content was new and gave me the dopamine hit I needed to stick around.

If you’ve not watched debate content on YouTube, there’s usually a host who allows call-ins on YouTube or requests from audience members on TikTok to get on their livestream and respond to a question or prompt. There’s often a series of questions the caller must answer before being allowed up, such as how old they are (to comply with TikTok's TOS), where they’re calling from, how they identify politically or religiously, that sort of thing. And if you’re Parker or Dean, this is used to weed out the approximately 93% of callers who are either screaming 13-year-old girls or 16-year-old boys trying out racial slurs. 

But this post is about pronouns.

Jovan Bradley, The Bible Guy, and The Line are among those whose preliminary questions include the dreaded, “What are your pronouns?” Some can answer this simple question easily, while callers of a certain ilk (I’ll let you guess who) have a bit more trouble and usually respond in one of three ways. 

Responses to “What are your pronouns?”

(Feigning) ignorance

These are folks who pretend not to understand the question. It’s usually harmless, and they back down pretty quickly when pressed. It’s similar to when someone asks me about Charlie Kirk and I say, “Who?” just to see what they’ll say. But sometimes these callers don’t actually understand, and when it’s explained to them, they’ll answer. So whether feigning ignorance or truly ignorant, they often get a pass. 

Belligerence

These are the willfully ignorant who expect hosts to “use their common sense” because “clearly” the caller is a man, as if we can tell by a voice. If you’ve ever heard a woman who’s smoked much of her life speak, you’ll know that someone’s voice is not always indicative of their gender. These folks know what they’re doing and push back a bit, but will usually come around with threats of being kicked off the live.  

The crash out 

These are classic. If you’ve seen one, you know what I mean, and if you haven’t, check out Jovan Bradley’s clips of the best pronoun crashouts. These folks lose their shit when you ask them their pronouns because clearly this is all a leftist conspiracy by the deep state to wipe out straight people or some stupid shit. These are the shameless bigots, Christian Nationalists, or mediocre closeted white men with anger issues. In all seriousness, these are often folks who feel threatened by changes they don't understand. They project their confusion and fear onto others whom they've been conditioned to dislike. More on this later.

In watching these replies to the pronoun question, I found myself getting so annoyed by the ignorance of it all. (I think you’ll hear me say this a lot.) So here we are! I know it can be confusing and scary to some folks, but never fear, I am here to explain basic pronoun use, personal pronouns, and why you should use the ones folks want you to use.

Pronouns 101 

What are pronouns?

According to Merriam-Webster, a pronoun is “any of a small set of words in a language that are used as substitutes for nouns or noun phrases and whose referents are names or understood in the context.” We use pronouns to provide clarity and context, increase efficiency, and avoid repetition.

For example, instead of saying, “The tree is tall. The tree is very old.” I can say, “The tree is tall. It is very old.” So, in this example, “it” is the pronoun that stands for the tree, which is the referent (also called the antecedent), or the thing that’s being referred to.

Another example: “My dog is wild! Today, she had the zoomies for 10 whole minutes.” Here, “she” is a pronoun referring to my dog, and “my” is a pronoun standing in for the speaker (me in this case), which is inferred since I am the one talking. Even in that last sentence, just look at all the pronouns!  

Other pronoun basics:

  • Pronouns are one of the eight parts of speech in the English language; the others are nouns, verbs, adverbs, etc. 
  • There are a bunch of different types of pronouns (reflexive, possessive, demonstrative, and more).
  • Hundreds of years ago, speakers of Old English used pronouns. They’ve evolved a lot throughout history, from the mixing of languages through migration to people seeking generic or gender-neutral pronouns.
  • From the time we begin to talk, we use pronouns, and we continue to use them every day, whether we realize it or not. In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to speak more than a sentence without using one.

In my experience, what freaks people out the most about pronouns is their relatively recent affiliation with the LGBTQ+ community, and especially trans folks, which is funny because, as I said above, there are lots of different pronouns that we all use every day, and only a select few used in select circumstances come under fire. I won’t get too into the weeds here about all of the pronouns, but instead I’ll focus on the scariest ones: the personal pronouns. 

Personal Pronouns

Personal pronouns are one type of pronoun used to express a distinction of a person, other people, or things (in the case of “it” or “its”). Some examples include I, you, they, me, he, etc. According to Merriam-Webster, the first known use of the term “personal pronoun” was in 1668. 

We don’t call these pronouns personal because they always refer to a human being, but because of the grammatical rule of “person.” This rule refers to pronoun use based on whether you are referring to the speaker (using a first-person pronoun), the person being spoken to (using a second-person pronoun), or the person or people being spoken about (using a third-person pronoun). 

The personal pronouns you use for yourself and others depend on several factors, including the “person” rule above, the number of people referred to, and the case or role the pronoun plays in the sentence. And yes, gender plays a role as well. There are a number of handy charts out there to help you distinguish between personal pronouns used in a variety of situations.

The Search for a Generic Pronoun

For hundreds of years, people have debated and sought a generic pronoun that could refer to any person, regardless of gender; this is also known as an epicene pronoun. People wanted a neutral pronoun that was easy to use and elegant, but that, ideally, also adhered to traditional grammar rules. 

Throughout this time, debate has centered on a few primary alternatives. One of these was “it,” but this one is usually not a good choice when referring to human beings. We’ve used “he or she,” or alternating generic “he” and generic “she,” but these are often clunky and confusing. At least as early as the 18th century, the “sex-indefinite he” was prescribed as the term for any person, regardless of gender, but this was far from universally accepted. Women called out the lack of gender neutrality in “he,” and we no longer use it as an epicene pronoun. Of course, there’s also the singular “they,” which we’ll get to in more depth later.  

I won’t get into a whole history here, but my point is that trans and queer people didn’t spark these debates in the last ten years. In fact, while some of the earliest debates about pronouns focused on gender, more were centered on style. Grammarists desired symmetry and beauty in the English language, and using “he or she” just wasn’t it. 

Even though you might only be hearing about pronoun use now, linguists and others have been seeking an epicene pronoun to make the English language easier, more neutral, and more refined since the 1700s. The queer community is just the latest in a string of concerned people taking up the mantle to explore and challenge pronoun use today.

Pronouns + Queer People = Scary

Up to this point, I've focused on linguistics and history to provide a much-needed context for pronoun use. Now I'll switch gears to discuss why this issue suddenly feels political – and scary.

As I've shown, cishet people have been questioning pronoun use forever; it's only now that the conversation has been connected with queer and trans folks that some people are freaking out. But even in the queer community, we have been questioning the use of personal pronouns and experimenting with those that best reflect who we are for decades. People bothered by the pronoun conversation will fight like hell to keep antiquated and oppressive gender and sexuality norms and power structures in place, and pronouns are just the latest battleground.

While Baron argues that most people are just slow to change their use of grammar conventions, I (and Bodine) argue that the rejection of epicene pronouns goes deeper. For these people, talk of pronouns can trigger deep-seated conditioning about binary gender, sexuality, and gender roles, which (not at all) ironically, is precisely what it's designed to do.

The mainstream attention the pronoun conversation has gained recently is in large part due to the manufactured fear of queer and trans folks stoked by Donald Trump and the MAGA right over the last ten years. Since the 2016 elections, MAGA leaders have been ratcheting up their anti-trans rhetoric and policies. By 2024, they made trans folks a significant talking point by spending $224 million on anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ+ ads. They played on fears of trans people to galvanize their base and distract from, ahem, other issues. While the ad Trump used didn’t sway voters, it did increase the support of restrictions on the trans community, which is potentially more dangerous. 

These folks cope with their fear of trans people by ignoring requests to name their personal pronouns, denying they even have pronouns (huh?), and worse yet, by refusing to use the pronouns a person requests because they think they know better. If you're someone in this camp, I get it. You might feel that adhering to pronoun conventions means you affirm an ideology you don't condone or that you're being forced to participate in something you don't like.

Let me assure you here that no one is forcing any beliefs on you – this is just about how language works in shared spaces, just like names or titles. You're not affirming any ideology by respecting someone's pronouns – this is the same social expectation as calling your boss the correct name. You don't argue about someone's name when you first meet them. You don't get to decide if a person's name "feels right" to you. Even if you dislike someone's name, you still use it. Refusing to use it would be a choice, and a rude one at that.

And yes, language changes fast, and it can be tough to keep up, but language itself is a convention that responds quickly to social need. What can feel sudden is really just increased visibility of a conversation that was occurring long before you realized it.

Use of the singular “they/them”

We often hear objections to using “they/them” in the singular, which mainly stems from a lack of understanding of its use. So here are some more fun facts:

  • “They” has been used in the singular form and in neutral contexts when someone’s gender was unknown since at least the 14th century. 
  • Singular “they” has also been used to conceal gender and identity intentionally in cases where those factors shouldn’t be considered, like in hiring or contests.
  • Shakespeare, Chaucer, Dickens, and other writers used the singular "they" to conceal characters' identities.
  • The singular "they/them" was Merriam-Webster’s word of the year in 2019, and every major English language authority now recognizes singular "they" as standard usage.

And yes, some people indeed use other pronouns to refer to themselves, such as "it," "zie," "hir," and many others. Sometimes referred to as neopronouns, these may seem strange or nonsensical to you, but people have been coining their own personal pronouns since at least the 1850s. In fact, there have been “more than 100 attempts to coin a gender-neutral pronoun over the course of more than 150 years.” The glossary Baron (1981) provides includes "ne/nis/nim," "thon/thons," "e/es/em," "ze/sim/zees," and more. 

Singular “they” and the search for an epicene pronoun isn’t new, friends, and in the past, we didn’t bat an eye at it because it didn’t (necessarily) mark someone’s gender identity or sexuality. The only differences now are that some folks would like to be referred to as they/them all the time, and the prevalence of the dreaded question, “What are your pronouns?” 

I provide this history to encourage you to uncouple standardized pronoun use from your feelings about the queer and trans community. See that we've all always used pronouns, and we aren't doing anything new or outrageous by adapting language to our current situation. So, just use the pronouns! Yours and others’. 

Why should I?

  1. Respect.

If you are "Mr. Jones," do you want to be called "Mrs. Jones"? What if someone called you "ma’am" instead of "sir"? Would that bother you? If you are "Dr. Strand," should some asshole call you "Mrs. Strand" as a dig? No, because "Mrs. Strand" is your mother! Anyway, we all experience situations where someone didn’t refer to us in the way we prefer, so when someone asks you to use particular pronouns, just do it.

  1. Because language changes.

As one of my favorite folkies sang, “English is Cuh-Ray-Zee.” It is! The rules of English grammar often make no sense, and sometimes meanings and uses evolve with societal waves. People coin new words all the time and adapt existing ones to modern needs. When it’s a word that doesn’t trigger us in some way, we usually adapt because, well, see #3.

  1. We just made this shit up.

You’ll hear me say this all the time. Really, humans created gender categories and the words to identify them. Words have meaning and are powerful, AND they are also fluid and changeable—all the more reason to use words (including personal pronouns) intentionally and with respect. We know you can do it because we’ve all heard people intentionally misgendering someone to make a point. Just stop it.

  1. Why shouldn’t you?

Why do you care? There are so many other things to concern yourself with that merit attention (like poverty, authoritarianism, and genocide, just to name a few), why do you care about a person’s pronouns or, if we’re really being honest, what’s in their pants? It doesn’t harm you to use someone’s pronouns or tell people what yours are. At this point, refusing pronouns is like refusing to use someone's name just because you don't like it.

  1. Because not using the pronouns that people request can be very harmful to them.

According to The Trevor Project, trans “young people whose pronouns were respected had lower rates of past-year suicide attempts (11%) compared to those whose pronouns were not respected (17%), being associated with 31% lower odds of a past-year suicide attempt.” Using the requested pronoun is the tiniest thing you can do to help a young person feel seen and valued. 

So, what do I do now?

Listen, I know the rules of English grammar are complicated and the language changes quickly, especially when it comes to terminology used within and about minoritized communities. It can be hard to keep up, and the changes can be scary because they challenge your existing worldview. That’s okay, but it’s not an excuse. Here are some simple ways to move forward: 

  1. Use the pronouns a person wants you to use when referring to them. Don’t just do this to their face and then misgender them when they’re not around. Use their requested pronouns for them ALL THE TIME.
  2. If you don’t know someone’s pronouns, ask. “What pronouns do you use?” starts to roll off the tongue when you do it enough. 
  3. If you get someone’s pronouns wrong, just apologize and correct your behavior moving forward. NBD.
  4. Share your own gender pronoun even before someone asks. Put it after your name in Zoom meetings, in your email signature, or when first introducing yourself in a meeting. For example, when I am introducing myself in a work meeting, I say, “Hi, I’m Karla, she/her, and I’m a senior librarian here,” or whatever the case may be. 
  5. Don't be a dick! When asked what pronouns you use, JUST ANSWER. You’re not being clever or owning a lib when you say you don’t have pronouns; you signal that you are not engaging in good faith. You're also contributing to the divisive environment that the left is often blamed for, even though in this case, we just want to be respected and to move on.

If you’ve read this article and you’re someone who still thinks you don’t have pronouns or that pronoun use is some big conspiracy, reread it. Read some of the resources below. Set aside your feelings about queer and trans folks long enough to understand that pronoun use has a long history apart from the LGBTQ+ community and that standardized English grammar is changing. Then you might see how little sense it makes to say you don’t have pronouns, and that if you believe in personal freedom and responsibility, one simple way to live that is to let people define themselves and use the names and words they ask you to use. 

If you or someone you know is in crisis, do not call the police; instead, call Trans Lifeline at 1-877-565-8860 (US) and 1-877-330-6366 (Canada). This service is provided by and for trans folks in English and español.

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