• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Cade Hildreth

Everything You SHOULD'VE Been Taught in School.

MENUMENU
  • Blog
  • Real Estate
  • Finance
    • Investing
    • Increasing Income
    • Real Estate
    • Cryptocurrency
    • Gold and Silver
    • Financial Q&A
  • Health
    • LGBTQ+
    • Fitness
    • Nutrition
    • Confidence
  • Podcast
    • "What You Should've Been Taught"
    • Audio Feed of the Website
    • Ask a Podcast Question
  • Gender Series
  • About
    • Testimonials
    • About Cade
    • Rugby Bio
    • Instagram
    • Contact
You are here: Home / LGBTQ+ / Gender Neutral Pronouns: The Rise of They/Them/Their
Gender Neutral Pronouns: The Rise of They/Them/Their

Gender Neutral Pronouns: The Rise of They/Them/Their

July 6, 2021 By Cade Hildreth Leave a Comment

Gender-neutral pronouns are those that don’t assume a male/female binary. After the recent change by the Merriam-Webster dictionary to add ‘they’ as a way to refer to nonbinary people who do not identify as male nor female, the most common gender neutral pronouns are ‘they, them, their, theirs, themself.’

In contrast, gendered pronouns would be:

  • she, her, hers, herself
  • he, him, his, himself

The Rise of Gender Neutral Pronouns

Today, a surging number of people are getting tired of the gendered assumptions that have crept into our culture over time, such as the high frequency with which heroes in movies are male, a pay gap between men and women in the marketplace, or a disproportionate amount of men holding the highest political offices, among other examples.

Thousands of people worldwide are also realizing they don’t conform to traditional gender roles and expectations. Others yet are embracing a range of gender identities, including for example, being nonbinary, transgender, intersex, genderfluid, or gender non-conforming (GNC), among other possibilities.

A few decades ago, it was difficult for people to imagine they could be something other than the gender they grew up as. Now, there are many people who are embracing varied gender and sexual identities.

The presence of transgender individuals proves that nobody has any right to permanently impose pronouns onto another person. The rise of nonbinary people reveals that for many, pronouns are limiting or exclusionary.

To learn more about why gender-neutral pronouns are the new normal, keep reading below.

Some Pronouns Just Aren’t Meant to Be

In describing the terms sex and gender, it’s important to note that within Western societies, the word “sex” generally describes biological differences between people (male/female/intersex), while the term “gender” is a broader term that reflects in how a person lives within society (that is, gender identity).

Nonetheless, sex and gender aren’t fully separate from each other. Alok Vaid-Menon, a gender non-conforming performance artist and educator, does a beautiful job of explaining that separating gender as “cultural” and sex as “biological” neglects that biological sex is also cultural. That is, many cultures don’t perceive adornment as a supplement to the body. In other words, ‘this is not my costume, it’s my being’.

This is relevant because many languages designate objects in terms of their gender. In French, for example, chairs are referred to in feminine terms. This function of language highlights an interesting characteristic of gender — that gender is a human invention and assigned through cultural norms.

Simply put, gender is an invention of the people around an individual, about the individual.

In some cultures, the sex a person is assigned at birth largely determines how they are allowed to present in society, the emotions they are allowed express, and the roles they get to play in society. Thankfully, most people now acknowledge that masculinity and femininity are separate from sex, and at best, loosely correlated with gender.

People assigned male at birth can be feminine, right alongside people who are assigned female at birth. The same is true in reverse. People assigned female at birth can be masculine, alongside people who are assigned male at birth.

With that understanding comes new kinds of pronouns to describe people outside of the binary gender system.

While some of the new gender-neutral pronouns may seem strange and foreign, like ‘Ze’ or ‘Xe’, these pronouns are gathering momentum. They are being embraced by people who live outside of the binary gender system, and therefore, challenge the norms of language itself.

‘They’ as a Gender-Neutral Pronoun

Not all gender-neutral pronouns need to be new words or additions to the lexicon. Rather, the most gender-neutral word in the English language is one you use with incredible frequency. It’s the word ‘they.’

On September 17, 2019, singular ‘they’ was defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as a way to refer to nonbinary individuals who identify as neither male nor female. Traditionally, ‘they’ had been restricted to referencing groups of people, but this is no longer the case.

The addition of ‘they’ as a pronoun for nonbinary people (along side ‘he’ and ‘she’) was a way to revise the dictionary to reflect changes within society. As Emily Brewster, Senior Editor for Merriam-Webster, explains, “We are always aiming to reflect usage. It’s very clear that this is fully established in the language at this point.”

Singular they

‘They” was also named Word of the Year in 2015, precisely because of how much it’s changed. It’s interchangeable between groups of people or a single gender-nonconforming person.

Not only is the word ‘they’ so robust, but the fact that’s it’s contextual is revolutionizing the ways people speak to each other. Naturally, people depend on the broader context of sentences to understand if someone is talking about a group or single person.

For this reason, the use of ‘they’ are a personal pronoun is a natural evolution of the English language to reflect and embrace society as it is today.

Why Pronouns Are Changing

People may prefer gender-neutral pronouns for a variety of reasons, including but certainly not limited to:

  • Wanting to be inclusive of both women and men
  • Wanting to be inclusive of all genders, including people who are nonbinary, transgender, intersex, gender expansive, or undefined
  • Not wanting to specify the gender of a person to whom you are referencing. (For example, “I am going out tonight with my spouse. They love to go out to eat at new restaurants in the city.“)

In my case, I feel that neither the pronouns ‘she’ or ‘he’ do a particularly good job of describing my experience as someone who regularly gets read as different genders. Often, within a single room or situation, people will make conflicting assumptions about my gender. In these situations, the use of the pronouns ‘he’ or ‘she’ can create confusion for the people involved.

Sometimes, these gendered pronouns also confuse me, as I wonder why a person would use them based on my particular attire or appearance that day.

Gender Neutral Pronouns

I also feel as though layers of expectations and assumptions come along with the use of the pronouns ‘she’ or ‘he’, which is why ‘they’ typically feels like a better pronoun fit. To me, ‘they’ just fits and it has ever since I was a kid.

I once asked my sister, Lisa, how she thought of me and she said, “You know, you’ve always just been my sibling.”

Her word choice wasn’t sister. Or brother. It was sibling, a gender-neutral term. (Thanks sis, for understanding my gender neutrality before it was even a “thing”!)

Change Pronouns to Change the World

Language is fundamental to how people experience the world; the words you use matter. Asking other people about their pronouns and using them is critical.

In a quote I love from an article written by Geoff Nunberg of NPR, he states: “It’s not a lot to ask — just a small courtesy and sign of respect. In fact, the accommodations we’re being asked to make to nonbinary individuals are much less far-reaching than the linguistic changes that feminists called for 50 years ago.”

To learn how to make the world a better place, one pronoun at a time, keep reading here.

Up Next: What Does It Mean to Be Nonbinary?

4.8/5 - (18 votes)

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)

Filed Under: LGBTQ+ Tagged With: gender, nonbinary, pronouns

Reader Interactions

Tell Us What You Think!Cancel reply

Primary Sidebar

  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • TikTok

“As an LGBTQ+ entrepreneur, real estate investor, former USA Rugby Player, and fitness fanatic, I’ll teach you what your parents and teachers should’ve taught you, but didn’t know themselves.” -Cade Hildreth

Want to know what I learned making my first few million? Subscribe here.

Or, listen to Cade’s articles on the go as a Podcast.

My parents were asking me about the #Biohacking Co My parents were asking me about the #Biohacking Conference I attended in Florida this summer and I realized I hadn’t shared much about my experience with them…or with you. 

I attended it with one of my very best and longest friends, Jeremiah, and we had an absolute BLAST. 

Whether you are in the #lgbtqia community or not, I believe it’s incredibly important to be empowered around your own health. 

From ice baths to cryotherapy chambers, vibrational bikes, PEMF machines, hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT), and beyond, the event was an incredible time. 

This is the first set of pics and I’ll share the rest tomorrow. (1️⃣ of 2️⃣)

When it comes to training and/or health, how empowered do you feel on a scale of 1-10? 

Let me know and I’ll try to share the main health lessons I’ve learned from this event (and life). 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈

#lgbtqpride #lgbtqiaplus #queer #nonbinary #trans
Well, that’s satisfying… 🏳️‍🌈🏳️ Well, that’s satisfying… 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️➡️ 

“The Lawmaker Who Wrote Florida's ‘Don't Say Gay’ Law Is Going to Prison for Fraud”

Source and Images: https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/19/ex-florida-gop-lawmaker-who-sponsored-so-called-dont-say-gay-bill-sentenced-to-prison-00122618

#lgbtqia #lgbtqcommunity #lgbtqiaplus #queer #queercommunity
Did some odds and ends at the beach house that we Did some odds and ends at the beach house that we AirBnB this week and it was unseasonably warm (about 72 degrees) so I finished up with beach time and and a walk along the sand… 🌊🏖

The beach was practically private…

Guess it pays to be from a cold climate (Minnesota) where you think low seventies is perfectly delightful. LOL. 

Where did you grow up and do you still live there? 🗺📍

#lgbtqia #lgbtqpride #lgbtqiaplus #nonbinary #trans #genderfluid
Heading to the hotel hot tub = gender joy. Leave Heading to the hotel hot tub = gender joy. 

Leave a 💛 in comments if you know this feeling … or, more importantly, support those who do!

#genderfluid #genderqueer #trans #nonbinary #lgbtqiaplus
There are real consequences to oppression. It affe There are real consequences to oppression. It affects ALL of us, not only those in the community being oppressed. 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

Please leave a “💯” in comments if you agree and share this with those who don’t understand why anti-LGBTQIA+ and anti-trans laws have far reaching effects. 🙏

—

Source: CNN, https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/01/us/jake-kleinmahon-doctor-leaves-louisiana-reaj/index.html
I used to believe, I can’t be myself because it I used to believe, I can’t be myself because it will hurt people. 

Now I know the truth, which is, I can’t not be myself because it will hurt people. 

Leave a 💯 if this speaks to your experience... 

Also, do you think the art in photo 2 looks like Erin? ➡️🤔🌈
Load More... Follow on Instagram

Recent Posts

Gender Spectrum

Gender Spectrum: A Scientist Explains Why Gender (And Sex) Aren’t Binary

real-estate-syndicators

Master List of Real Estate Syndicators for 2023

Bitcoin vs Ethereum

Bitcoin vs Ethereum: Everything You Need to Know

NFT market, NFTs

NFTs: 10 Things You Should Know about the NFT Market

Categories

  • Confidence
  • Cryptocurrency
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Exclude
  • Finance
  • Gender Series
  • Gold and Silver
  • Health
  • Increasing Income
  • Investing
  • LGBTQ+
  • Nutrition
  • Podcast
  • Real Estate

Ask a Podcast Question | Contact Us | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy

COPYRIGHT © 2019 · CADEHILDRETH.COM | PHONE: ‪(202) 660-4705‬  | 800 CORPORATE DRIVE, SUITE 301, STAFFORD, VA 22554, USA

 

*Disclaimer: Nothing on this site should be construed as medical, health, or financial advice. Before making any health decisions, you should consult with your doctor. Before making any financial decisions, you should consult with professional adviser, such as a financial planner or CPA.