I’ve noticed a lot of people either don’t use or don’t fully understand the usage of gender-neutral pronouns in writing or everyday language. However, there are multiple reasons to use these pronouns.
Not everyone is just a man or a woman.
Gender is social. Within society, there is a huge concern about what people do with their genitals, including using the bathroom. With this concern, there is a binary established between man and woman based upon sex at birth, which allows no room for anything else, even though people have existed as non-binary and transgender all throughout time. Gender based off of sex assumes personality traits, job opportunities and pronouns.
When referring to someone, you have no idea what their gender is. They may look like what society deems to be a man, but that person may not be a man. Same goes toward being a woman. The best way to avoid misgendering someone is to ask them what their pronouns are, or, if you don’t have the ability to ask right away, call them by gender neutral pronouns. Who knows? Those may actually be their pronouns. This also gives room for people to breathe who don’t exactly fit into the gender binary.
It’s not grammatically incorrect.
As an English major, I hear a lot about they/them pronouns, and how it’s “grammatically incorrect” to use these pronouns. It’s actually not, and people who have spoken English for a considerable amount of time know that when a person is mentioned but not a sex, gender neutral pronouns are used.
Example:
“The barista gave me the wrong coffee size.”
“Did you say something to them? Did they exchange it?”
Without realizing it, we use gender neutral pronouns on a daily basis. Refusing to use gender neutral pronouns on the basis that it is “incorrect” when it not only serves to reinforce the gender binary (that you must be a man or a woman), and thus acts a way to invalidate other people’s experiences is wrong. A good portion of people don’t realize that they do this, but becoming aware of this fact will make it easier to use these pronouns.
Using correct pronouns is a sign of respect.
Some people don’t know how it feels to be misgendered, but those who do can tell you that it does not feel good. When someone uses a set of pronouns, all that person is asking from you is that you respect them enough to refer to them correctly and to take their statement of their experience seriously.
It is a hard thing to question your gender when you grow up only having two options, and when neither or both of those options fit, there isn’t a space for you anymore in dominant society. They haven’t made one yet, and you have to constantly reinforce the idea that you exist not only to society but also to yourself.
In this case, validation is the hardest thing to obtain when it seems that you can’t get it from anywhere, and questioning is dangerous, almost a threat when people erase you once you stop using a popular label. To have that sense of understanding and for people to use correct pronouns (in even minute circumstances) shows that you respect the other person for who they are.
Gender neutral pronouns are used by a variety of people and are used often in the English language. They serve to give breathing room for when someone’s gender is unknown, when they don’t have a gender, or when someone uses those pronouns. They have a purpose, and sometimes that purpose is simply being respectful.
