Gender Pronouns 101

Have you ever been called by the wrong name? Repeatedly?

How did you feel? Overlooked? Offended? Sad?

Now imagine you are called the wrong name every day, by coworkers, neighbors, family, and people with power over you.

Have you ever forgotten someone’s name?
How did you feel? Embarrassed? Frustrated? Worried about offending them?

Each of you here, today, has a nameplate, to spare people these experiences.

A pronoun is a kind of name. It’s a way we refer to a person.

Most of us have been taught to guess a person’s pronouns based on their body, clothes, name, and behavior. But, for some people, their pronoun may be hard to guess, or you might guess wrong.

Getting a pronoun wrong is a lot like getting a name wrong - uncomfortable, alienating. But it’s more than that, because misgendering someone can tap into deep feelings of gender dysphoria and trauma. Research has shown that using a person’s correct pronoun can reduce rates of depression or even suicide, particularly for youth.

Unfortunately, many people intentionally mispronoun trans, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming people, as a way to express disapproval or even hatred. So, if a person is misgendered, they wonder if it was accidental or intentional. And they have to wonder what other mistreatment might follow.

In English, we don’t need to know a person’s gender to speak to them - I, you, we - these are all ungendered. For most interactions, you don’t need to know the details about a person’s gender, but you do need to know a person’s gendered pronoun to speak about them - she, they, him, theirs, hers - these are all gendered pronouns.

To make it easier to know and use each person’s correct pronoun, many people are including pronouns along with names, in introductions, email signatures, and elsewhere. People whose pronouns are easily guessable are including their pronouns too, to normalize this practice. Sharing pronouns regularly, makes it a habit, so that it feels easy and natural when you run into a person whose pronouns you’re unsure of. And, sharing pronouns has become a small signal and act of allyship.

My name is Rae Goodman-Lucker, and my pronouns are he or she.

Now, it’s your turn. Please turn to a person near to you and introduce yourself with your pronouns.

If you want to learn more, check out mypronouns.org.