AS Lang Holiday Homework

Audience: Centre-Left Politically inclined individuals (Readers of blogs such as: Crooked Timbers and The Daily Howler and perhaps The Guardian)

Gender Neutral Pronouns - Are 'They' the Future?

In today's society, gender politics are as prominent an issue as they have been at any other time in history, if not more so than in the past. If you spend any amount of time, particularly on the internet, and have come across any gender-related circles or sites, you'll more than likely be familiar with the large amount of people that are campaigning for gender-specific, and gender-neutral pronouns. While there have been people campaigning for the recognition various alternative attitudes to gender for a very long time, these points of view are becoming more and more prominent in recent years, with the rise of the internet offering a platform for many people to express their views on the matter and interact with like-minded people. One of the issues at the forefront of this movement is to do with the acknowledgement of various pronouns that could be used to refer to people of 'alternative' genders.

Now, in terms of coming up with a pronoun for use by gender-neutral individuals, there are several ways in which you could view this issue.
On one hand, from a socially progressive viewpoint, it is easy to see where the supporters of this movement are coming from. You could say that it is hard for people like you or me, who have always applied to the standard gender binary, to understand what it might be like to not have an applicable pronoun which could be used to describe you. Most of us have more than likely never even considered anything other than he or she as something needed in everyday language. I'm sure it isn't a particularly pleasant feeling to be an individual uncomfortable with how they are being referred to in every day life, but having never experienced such a thing, I can only imagine.
Another viewpoint from which you could support the creation of a gender-neutral pronoun is from a linguistic perspective, for those who wish to add a new dimension of accuracy to their writing, and to simultaneously include gender-neutral concepts and people. From this angle, many people would be content to use 'them/they' to refer to a gender neutral individual, however this, from a language perspective, feels grammatically odd when saying something such as 'Riley thought they would be late'.

Because of these two stances, and various others besides, people have taken it upon themselves to campaign for recognition of various gender-neutral alternatives.
Some examples of these proposed alternatives include:

• 'Ze' (e.g. 'Ze is over there', 'I called zir/zem')
• 'Xe' (e.g. 'Xe is over there', 'I called xem')
• 'Ve' (e.g. 'Ve is over there', 'I called vem')

These alternative pronouns are just some that have been proposed for many, many years now. With the internet helping them become more popular in the modern age than ever before, these words are certainly picking up in terms of use in wider society. However, despite the blatant demand for a pronoun to be officially recognized, the Oxford Dictionary (as of April 2016) has yet to add such an alternative to its dictionary. This seems interesting to me. The Oxford Dictionary adds new words and such to its ranks four times a year. In the most recent addition, March 2016, words such as 'antrin' (an adjective of Scottish origin meaning 'strange' or 'rare') and kilig (a Tagalog verb meaning to 'experience shivers and pangs from strong emotions, such as fear or desire') were added. While I have no doubt that someone will find use for these words, surely there is a much clearer demand for gender-neutral pronouns to be officially recognized.

Now, from where I stand, I can certainly see the need for words such as these to be recognized for these groups of people, and grammatical accuracy. However, most words introduced are small, niche terms that the majority of us wouldn't ever come across in our everyday lives and use of language. The same cannot really be said for adding a new set of pronouns altogether. Younger generations are certainly better at adapting to rapid changes in the world around them, with language being no exception, despite this, I do question the viability of immediately phasing in such a large term into everyday use. This would be harder, i'm sure, for the older generations to incorporate, having been set in their ways for so long in terms of language. The fact that most people would be content to use 'they', myself included, is due to the fact that alternative pronouns are not something that many people would need to use on a regular basis. This would make it hard, no matter how many times people are told, to incorporate them regularly and consistently. It is well known that Transgender individuals often feel very uncomfortable when being referred to as the wrong pronoun, and i'm sure that gender-neutral individuals feel much the same. After all, the reason we have gone so long without a gender-neutral pronoun is due to the fact that the English language in particular is very binary, and things 'in the middle' are often uncertainly or broadly defined, gender being no different. It is for this reason that, with both wider societal reception of change, and the thoughts and feeling of individuals affected that I will, and would personally encourage, the use of the 'they/them' set of pronouns. This eliminates the requirement to educate society, and every non-native speaker a whole new set of pronouns and while grammatical issues will no doubt occur, it is a mere matter of subtly skirting around them to adapt. Some would argue that I have no right to tell people this, to represent gender-neutral individuals in such a way, and perhaps they may be right. That said, this is opinion is mine, and very well may be mine alone, if that is the case, then so be it.