I am old enough to remember when Ms. was introduced as a way to refer to a woman when her marital status was unknown.
Before then, you could not address a woman in writing unless you knew whether she was unmarried (Miss) or married (Mrs.) and guessing wrong in certain business and social circumstances was a serious breach of etiquette (I am old enough to remember etiquette as well).
Ms. took a long time to be widely accepted. It was laughed at; it was called radical. But now it has been several decades since you had to know whether a woman was married or not in order to write her a business letter, and even the most stodgy stylebooks allow the use of Ms.
For decades, writers of speculative fiction and inclusive justice commentary searched for creative ways to get around the use of “he/him/his” as the default in English when a person’s gender pronouns were unknown. Some folks decided to go with the singular “they”, and that is still the best way to address someone you know to be non-binary, until they tell you they prefer some other pronoun.
Variants such as Ze and Te and Zir achieved niche acceptance, but nothing moved into general use and conversation in the same way as Ms.
Now we find ourselves in a gender expression revolution. People identifying as genderqueer and/or gender fluid are out and proud. Calling someone “out of their name” has always been a sign of disrespect; now more people and groups and speaking up for the right to be called what they want to be called, using the terms and pronouns they choose for themselves, instead of having labels imposed by others.
Misgendering someone intentionally is a serious and in some cases unforgivable insult.
After many years of thinking about this, wanting to be a good ally and wanting to make gender neutral language more common, I came up with some pronouns for my personal use and am sharing them here in the hope that they may catch on.
They are inspired by the Latinx designation that popped up quickly after people got tired of odd constructions like Latino/a and Latina/o. Latinx made sense immediately and it is everywhere now.
Xe for “he or she” is not original to me. I don’t remember where I saw it first but I am seeing it more frequently and I am using it more frequently so that more people will get used to seeing it. I used s/he in writing for a while but there was no easy way to say that out loud. Xe (pronounced “zee”) is immediately understandable in context, takes fewer syllables than saying “he or she”, and has the added value of driving conservatives around the twist.
But what to do about him/her, and his/hers? Again, in writing I used h/h for a while before getting frustrated that there was no easy way to indicate that in spoken language.
Then a few weeks ago an answer just popped into my mind.
Xmr (pronounced “IMMer“). Short for him or her.
Even sounds a little bit like “him or her” said quickly, so someone who has never heard it before will probably figure it out in context.
“Why are you worrying about that deadline? Give the assignment to Chris and let xmr handle it.”
Xsr (pronounced “IZZer”). Short for his or her.
Even sounds a little bit like “his or her” said quickly, so someone who has never heard it before will probably figure it out in context.
“What’s going on with Jordan today? I have no idea what xsr problem is, but xe is angry!”
Xsrs (pronounced “IZZers”). Short for his or hers.
Even sounds a little bit like “his or hers” said quickly, so someone who has never heard it before will probably figure it out in context.
“Whose backpack is this? It was on Alex’s desk, it’s probably xsrs.”
As a grammar patriot, I have long resisted the singular use of “they”, but when non-binary people tell me they prefer it, I definitely use “they/them/theirs” to show respect. And if I know for sure I am addressing a non-binary person, or if I know some other reason why a person would not want to use the words “him or her” at all, I would choose they/theirs in that situation as well.
Watching Billions, believe it or not, has helped with this. Watching episode after episode where characters use “they”, “them” and “theirs” to refer to Asia Dillon’s character “Taylor Mason” has helped me get used to it by hearing it over and over again. I have very few opportunities to hear the singular “they” used in conversation in real life. So I mean it completely seriously when I say that Billions has helped the singular they come to my lips more easily.
Xmr and xsr are NOT my attempt to avoid using they for people who prefer they. Instead it is a neutral form of address when I have no way of knowing or asking what pronouns a person would prefer. It is helpful on a blog like this where most of us don’t know one another’s preferred pronouns.
I fully realize that xmr and xsr perpetuate the culture preference of placing the male pronoun first in the “him or her” and the “his and hers” construction. I am open to anyone with a better answer!
If necessary, I am happy to fall back on the liturgical practice that, in a formal procession, the most important person is always LAST, so that being last becomes the place of greater honor (“the first shall be last and the last shall be first”, and all that).
So I am posting this to see what people think. Is this verbiage you think you could get used to?
I wanted to get it ready for last Sunday, but that would imply that gender neutral language is only for trans people, and that does not have to be the case. The culture as a whole may be moving away from needing to assign gender to anyone with a genderless name or gender fluid personal expression, just as the culture decades ago moved away from the need to know/decide/express whether every woman over puberty was married or single before sending mail or writing a newspaper article.
In a recent progressive gathering where I was facilitating the conversation and expected to call on people in the audience, I was specifically instructed to avoid saying “that man” or “that woman” or “give the microphone to her” or “he will speak next” and instead refer to people by other individualizing markers: “the tall person in the pink sweater”, “the person sitting on the aisle in the leather jacket”, “yes, you, wearing the striped shirt, please pass the mike to the person with the red hair”.
As another sign that the times they are a changin’, I recently heard about a new business letter convention of referring to people as Mx. instead of Mr. or Ms. when you can’t tell the gender from the name, or when you know the person in question has a preference for gender-neutral language.
Great! Just in time to write my fan letter! Dear Mx. Dillon—I really enjoyed the first episode of the fourth season of Billions last Sunday!
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