You often hear that people’s politics can sometimes cloud their vision or logic. This happens in a lot of different cases over lots of politicized issues. One case that constantly confuses me is when people have such strong feelings about LGBTQ issues or gender identity they forget how basic grammar works.
If you have strong opinions on these issues, don’t worry. This post is not about politics, it’s about grammar. The politics that cause people to forget how grammar works will briefly be discussed, but whether or not you agree or take issue with them is not the point at hand.
Pronouns
Pronouns: any of a small set of words (such as I, she, he, you, it, we, or they) in a language that are used as substitutes for nouns or noun phrases and whose referents are named or understood in the context
- Webster’s Dictionary
Pronouns are a core part of many languages, including English. Despite the emergence of growing acceptance of representation of LGBTQ, pronouns function the same way they always have in English. We have not added any new pronouns, pronouns have not changed in usage.
Some people will say wild things like “I don’t use pronouns” (despite the fact the literal first word in that sentence is a pronoun), “I don’t like this whole ‘pronoun’ thing.”, etc. I’ve had discussions with multiple people who had some extremely basic confusions on what pronouns are and how they work, despite the fact they, like everyone else, use them every day. It’s a strange case where their usage is such a core part of every day communication that people don’t even think they use them because using them is so natural to them they don’t even think about it. And there’s one set of pronouns that causes more confusion than another other, they/them/their.
They/Them and Gender Neutrality
Grammar 101: They/Them/Their is the set of pronouns you use when referring to a group of nouns OR of nouns with no or unspecified gender. In the case of single nouns that are not living things such as locations or objects, the pronoun set It/Its is used.
To most people over the age of 7, this should be pretty obvious, but lets do some examples.
Johnny broke ___ leg when ___ fell of ___ bike.
My mom love all of ___ children.
The Bruins just won again, ___ doing so well lately.
My computer won’t boot. I don’t know what’s wrong with ___
So, how do we pick which pronoun we use? Pronoun usage is based on gender, number, and whether or not it’s alive or personified. So, in the first example, Johnny is a male name, so we can say “Johnny broke his leg when he fell of his bike”. Saying “Johnny broke her leg…” or “Johnny broke its leg…” would be incorrect because Johnny is not a female or an object. “its” can be a bit tricky sometimes because it is sometimes used for non-human living things that do still have a gender. Animals are often referred to as “it”, but can also be referred to with gendered pronouns or gender neutral pronouns (they/them/their). But it is always incorrect (and often seen as offensive) to use it/its to refer to a person.
Now, here’s where politics confuses people for whatever reason. Is it correct to say “Johnny broke their leg when they fell off their bike.”? Yes. Yes it is, full stop, no argument. Where people go wrong is often either “We know Johnny is male, so why would we not use he/him/his?” or “Johnny is just one person, they/them/their is plural.” The first answer is, we can. We absolutely can. Neither way is more correct than they other. The second answer is that that is 100% incorrect. They/them/their has never been (at least not in the last few centuries) exclusively plural. It has always been used to refer to singular subjects and it has always been correct to do so. Take a passage from The Great Gatsby, written in 1925, to show singular they is not a recent invention.
“Lots of people come who haven’t been invited,” she said suddenly. “That girl hadn’t been invited. They simply force their way in and he’s too polite to object.”
- The Great Gatsby
“They/their” is referring to “That girl”, a singular subject. Would it be just as correct to say “She simply forces her way in…“? Yes. But the beauty of language is there’s more than one way to say something.
So, where do the politics come in? As more people begin to identify as LGBTQ, the way they identify their gender may change. So, if someone wants to identify as a woman, they may want to use she/her pronouns. Sometimes people may not want to use gendered pronouns at all and want to exclusively use they/them. For some reason this request causes some people to forget 1st grade grammar. As said before, it’s so simple. In fact, it is so core to how we operate and communicate every day that some people only understand certain aspects of grammar unconsciously. The people who are confused about the fact that “they/them” can be and always could be singular 100% use singular they all the time. You think they never say things like “Someone almost hit me on the way to work. They were driving like a maniac.”, “I love my son, they’re the best.”, etc?
Pronouns in bio
It’s becoming more and more common for people to put their pronouns in their email signatures or social media bios. A lot of people (including me for a while) saw this as a bit silly or trying to be overly “PC”. If your name is John and I can see you’re a guy in your profile picture, your pronouns are almost certainly he/him. You don’t have to tell me. But, I have found pronouns in email signatures can have a purpose beyond virtue signaling.
At my work I work with a diverse group of people. When I work on tickets from people I don’t see pictures of them. If they’re not someone on my team or someone I’ve worked a decent bit with before I probably have never seen them before. If their name is “Zack” or “Jackson” or “Hannah” then I can know what pronouns to use. But if their name is an Asian or Indian or some other foreign name I’m not familiar with I don’t know what gender is associated with that name. The name might even be gender neutral. If you are talking to “Sam”, they might be Samuel or Samantha. But when people have pronouns in their signature I know how to refer to them. And of course, if there’s any doubt, I can always use they/them.
So, in conclusion, political arguments are ridiculous enough. No matter what your opinions on the LGBTQ community are, please just remember first grade grammar.