It has become almost required, it seems, to include one’s “preferred pronouns” (he/him, she/her, they/them) as part of one’s profile blurb on social media, and there’s one thing about this that has poor Auntie puzzled.
Let me say first of all that I am 100% on board with this custom, and I hope it persists. For one thing, it helps the reader establish a human connection with an otherwise anonymous entity, whose avatar and profile text may not offer any clue about gender. But more important, I believe, is the recognition and respect that are conveyed with this simple practice. Words matter; signifiers matter; and misgendering someone, even unintentionally, is a signal to that individual that you are not an ally. Making the effort to validate another’s identity costs you nothing, and it makes a world of difference to someone who may be struggling to find acceptance.
When I was studying linguistics in the 1980’s, we were just beginning to raise awareness about inherent gender biases that lurk within our language, and how to counteract them. We were told to look for gender-neutral terms like “letter carrier”, “firefighter” and “police officer” rather than fireman, mailman, and policeman. At the time we were accused of “personipulating” the language for political reasons, and would therefore not succeed, because that’s not how language works. But I would point out that no one under the age of about—what? 50?—still uses terms like “stewardess” or “meter maid” or “male nurse” anymore. Progress is possible.
English, of course, does not have grammatical gender like Spanish or French. The only words that convey explicit gender are third-person, singular personal pronouns: he/him/his; she/her/hers. (There are some nouns that arguably are exclusively gendered, like brother/sister, actor/actress, bull/cow, etc. but you will find that more often than not, the “equivalent” opposite-gender term has some heavy-duty semantic baggage attached to it that conveys more about the differences between the terms than just masculine versus feminine. Consider: governor/governess, master/mistress, or major/majorette.) There is of course a gender-neutral pronoun available: “it”, but by custom this can never be used to refer to a human being. In fact to do so would more of an insult than simply misgendering them.
Which brings us to “they/them/their”. This seems like a perfectly reasonable compromise, and it is already used widely and unconsciously (as any element of natural language must) whenever the sex of an individual being referred to is unknown: “If anyone calls about the help-wanted ad I put in the paper, get their name and number, and let them know I’ll call them back.” No one hearing this sentence would be confused about the plural pronouns. They would assume (see what I did there?) that this would apply to any (singular) caller, regardless of gender. Once an individual’s identity is known, then ordinarily one would automatically switch to the appropriate (perceived) gender: “That reminds me: some guy named Dave called about the ad, and he said he would call back later when he gets home.” You switch pronouns without thinking about it, but you don’t have to. If you change the pronouns in the last so that it reads “...they said they would call back when they get home” it may sound a little odd to older listeners, but not really confusing. It seems like this might be the easiest way to satisfying all circumstances with one simple solution: Just eliminate altogether both sets of gendered singular pronouns, he/him as well as she/her, and refer to everyone with they/them, regardless of number or sex, period. Expressed or implied antecedents will have to provide the listener or reader with the context for recognizing the identity, quantity (and, only if relevant, the gender) of the individuals to whom the pronoun refers. It’s difficult to constructively change the way language is used and understood, but as I noted above, it can be done. What do you think? Would the solution really be that simple, or would one be in danger of somehow offending someone who for whatever reason insists on either being a “he” or a “she”?
But that’s not really my question. I have a much more mundane, perhaps less interesting question: why do we feel the need to include both the subjective and objective cases of these words in our profiles (but for some reason NOT the possessive)? If you want me to use “he” as a pronoun in some theoretical sentence I might utter or type about you, wouldn’t “him” be understood? Is there someone out there who honestly prefers she/him for some reason? For that matter, why take the time to write out which pronouns to use at all? Why not use the solution that’s already available, unambiguous, and familiar to anyone who has studied any romance language? Any noun in the dictionary for that language will have a simple “m”, “f” or “n” at the beginning of the entry to inform which grammatical rules to use with that word. Why can’t we simply adopt this convention to avoid confusion and save space?