The
English language has gender-specific personal pronouns in the third-
person singular. The masculine pronoun is
he (with the related forms
him,
his and
himself); the feminine is
she (with the related forms
her,
hers and
herself); the neuter is
it (with the related forms
its and
itself). The third-person plural
they (and its related forms
them,
their,
themselves) are gender-neutral and can also be used to refer to singular, personal antecedents, as in (7). (7)
Where a recipient of an allowance under section 4 absents themself from Canada, payment of the allowance shall ... Generally speaking,
he refers to males, and
she refers to females. When a person has adopted a persona of a different gender (such as when
acting or performing in
drag), pronouns with the gender of the persona are used. In
gay slang, the gender of pronouns is sometimes reversed (
gender transposition).
He and
she are normally used for humans; use of
it can be dehumanizing, and, more importantly, implies a lack of gender even if one is present, and is usually, thus, inappropriate.
It is sometimes used to refer to a baby or a child in a generic sense as in response to the question
What is it? when a baby has been born: '''''-It's a girl/boy
. However, when talking to parents of intersex babies, some doctors are advised to use your baby
instead. It
is often used for non-human animals of unknown sex, but he
or she
is frequently used for a non-human animal with a known sex. He
or she
are also for a non-human animal who is referred to by a proper name, as in (8) where Fido'''
is understood to be the name of a dog. At least one grammar states that he
or she'' is obligatory for animals referred to by a
proper name. When dealing with clients or patients, health practitioners are advised to take note of the pronouns used by the individuals themselves, which may involve using different pronouns at different times. This is also extended to the name preferred by the person referred to. LGBTQ+ advocacy groups also advise using the pronouns and names preferred or considered appropriate by the person referred to. They further recommend avoiding gender confusion when referring to the background of transgender people, such as using a title or rank to avoid a gendered pronoun or name. For English, there is no universal agreement on a gender-neutral third-person pronoun which could be used for a person whose gender is unknown or who is a
non-binary gender identity; various alternatives are described in the following sections.
Singular they as a gender-neutral pronoun Since at least the 14th century,
they (including related forms such as
them,
their,
theirs,
themselves, and
themself) has been used with a plural verb form to refer to a singular antecedent. This usage is known as the
singular they, as it is equivalent to the corresponding singular form of the pronoun. (9) ''There's not
a man I meet but doth salute me''
As if I were their well-acquainted friend i indicates
coreference; moreover, examples such as (15) and (16) are sometimes referred to as 'referential they'. (14) a.
Anyonei who thinks
theyi need more time should ask for an extension. Work by Keir Moulton and colleagues, published in 2020, has also found that the presence of a linguistic
antecedent — which is the case for examples (14), (15), and (16) — significantly improves the acceptability judgments of singular
they. In sentences with a linguistic antecedent, such as (17a), the use of singular
they is judged to be equally acceptable whether or not the hearer knows the (binary) gender of the referent. In sentences where singular
they is purely
deictic and has no linguistic antecedent, such as (17b), the use of singular
they is judged to be less acceptable than the use of a singular gendered pronoun (such as he or she) when the hearer knows the referent's (binary) gender. The authors suggest that the use of a gender-neutral antecedent (e.g. server or reporter) may signal the irrelevance of gender in the discourse context, making singular
they more acceptable. Additionally, having a linguistic antecedent clarified that the speaker was referring to a singular antecedent, rather than a plural one. In the deictic case, without a linguistic antecedent, these signals were not overt, and the speakers' judgment depended more on their experience with the pronoun itself. Usage was judged to be more acceptable when the speaker was not personally close with the referent, compared to use for referents with whom the speaker was personally close. An early example of prescribing the use of
he to refer to a person of unknown gender is Anne Fisher's 1745 grammar book
A New Grammar. Older editions of
Fowler also took this view. This usage continues to this day: (18) a.
The customer brought his purchases to the cashier for checkout. b.
In a supermarket, a customer can buy anything he needs. c.
When a customer argues, always agree with him. This may be compared to usage of
the word man for humans in general (although that was the original sense of the word "man" in the
Germanic languages, much as the Latin word for "human in general",
homo, came to mean "male human"—which was
vir, in Latin—in most of the Romance languages). (19) a.
All men are created equal. b.
Man cannot live by bread alone. The use, in formal English, of
he,
him or
his as a gender-neutral pronoun has traditionally been considered grammatically correct. For example,
William Safire in his "On Language" column in
The New York Times approved of the use of generic
he, mentioning the mnemonic phrase "the male embraces the female". A reader replied with an example of use of the gender-neutral
he, as in (20). Such examples point to the fact indiscriminate use of generic
he leads to non-sensical violations of semantic gender agreement. (20) "
The average American needs the small routines of getting ready for work. As he shaves or blow-dries his hair or pulls on his panty-hose, he is easing himself by small stages into the demands of the day." (C. ,
The New York Times (1985); as quoted by Miller and Swift. In some contexts, the use of
he,
him or
his as a gender-neutral pronoun may give a jarring or ridiculous impression: (21) a. "
... everyone will be able to decide for himself whether or not to have an abortion." (Albert Bleumenthal, N.Y. State Assembly (cited in Longman 1984, as quoted in ''Merriam-Webster's Concise Dictionary of English Usage'' b. "
... the ideal that every boy and girl should be so equipped that he shall not be handicapped in his struggle for social progress..
." (
C. C. Fries,
American English Grammar (1940), quoted in ''
Reader's Digest'' 1983; as cited in ''Merriam-Webster's Concise Dictionary of English Usage'' However, these stem from the ignorance of the basic principle that in English, words can have more than one meaning. Avoidance of the generic
he is seen by proponents of non-gendered writing as indicating that the gender-neutral
he is in fact not gender-neutral since it "brings a male image to mind". With the exception of
(s)he and
s/he, a writer does in principle have the choice of which pronoun to place first. However, usage indicates that the masculine pronouns is most often mentioned first. (23) a.
If any employee needs to take time off, s/he should contact the Personnel Department.''''' c.
Each employee must sign the register when she/he enters or leaves. d.
Read to children and let them participate from time to time by telling them what they think the author would add if she or he was present with them.'''' (24) a.
How often do you perform small acts of kindness for your partner (
like making him or her coffee in the morning)?. b.
Clearly, no one in the entire United States simply meets someone, talks with him or her a while, and falls in love any more. (25) a.
We must fight the tradition that forces the actor to accept poverty as a precondition of his or her profession. (26) a.
... at the collegiate level the student must advocate for himself or herself. b.
... no student, of any background, should be expected at the outset to recognize him or herself in it. c.
Everyone will improve him/herself in his/her area ...
Alternation of she and he Authors sometimes employ rubrics for selecting
she or
he such as: • Use the gender of the primary author. • Alternate between "she" and "he". • Alternate by paragraph or chapter. • Use
she and
he to make distinctions between two groups of people.
It as a gender-neutral pronoun Old English had
grammatical gender, and thus
commonly used "it" for people, even where they were clearly female or male: • (meaning 'child') had grammatical neuter gender, as did compound words formed from it, e.g. 'male-child' and 'female-child'. All three were pronominalized by the neuter pronoun
it (). • (meaning "female", modern "
wife") had grammatical neuter gender, and so were pronominalized by the neuter pronoun
it "it". When
wif was the non-head member of a compound — as with 'female-person', modern 'woman' — the gender of the compound was determined by the head of the compound, in this case , which had grammatical masculine gender, and so was pronominalized by the masculine pronoun
he. Over time, English gradually developed a system of
natural gender (gender based on semantic meaning) which now holds sway in
Modern English.
For human children In Modern English, pronouns referring to adult humans are typically gendered: feminine
she, masculine
he. However, in some contexts, children may be referred to with the gender-neutral pronoun
it. When not referring specifically to children,
it is not generally applied to people, even in cases where their gender is unknown. The 1985 edition of the Quirk et al. grammar observes that whereas
he and
she are used for entities treated as people (including anthropomorphized entities), the pronoun
it is normally used for entities not regarded as persons. But the pronoun
it can be used of children in some circumstances, for instance when the sex is indefinite or when the writer has no emotional connection to the child, as in a scientific context lsuch as (26). According to
The Handbook of Non-Sexist Writing (1995),
it is also sometimes the "obvious" choice for children. Examples given include (27a), and the more colloquial (27b).
It may even be used when the child's sex is known: In the passage given in (27c), the characters refer to the boy-child at the center of the narrative as a
he, but then the narrator refers to it as an
it. In this case, the child has yet to be developed into a character that can communicate with the reader. (27) a. A
child learns to speak the language of
its environment. (Quirk et al.,
A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language (1985), p. 316–317, 342) b. To society, a
baby's sex is second in importance to
its health. (Miller & Swift,
The Handbook of Non-Sexist Writing (1995), p. 58) c. "
He looks like nobody but
himself," said Mrs. Owens, firmly. ... It was then that ... the child opened
its eyes wide in wakefulness.
It stared around
it ... (Neil Gaiman,
The Graveyard Book (2008), p. 25)
For non-human animals The Quirk et al. 1985 grammar states that the use of gendered
he or
she is optional for non-human animals of known sex. It gives the following example, which illustrates the use of both the gender-neutral possessive
its and the gendered possessive
her to refer to a bird: (28)
The robin builds its nest in a well-chosen position ... and, after the eggs have hatched, the mother bird feeds her young there for several weeks ... (Quirk et al., A comprehensive grammar of the English language (1985), p. 316–317, 342)
One as a gender-neutral pronoun Another gender-neutral pronoun that can be used to refer to people is the
impersonal pronoun, one. This can be used in conjunction with the
generic he according to the preference and style of the writer. •
Each student should save his questions until the end. •
One should save 'one's'
questions until the end. •
One should save his questions until the end. In
colloquial speech,
generic you is often used instead of
one: •
You should save your questions until the end. Historical, regional, and proposed gender-neutral singular pronouns Historically, there were two gender-neutral pronouns native to English dialects,
ou and
(h)a. According to
Dennis Baron's
Grammar and Gender: Relics of these gender-neutral terms survive in some British dialects of Modern English — for example
hoo for 'she', in Yorkshire — and sometimes a pronoun of one gender can be applied to a human or non-human animal of the opposite gender. •
hoo is also sometimes used in the
West Midlands and south-west England as a common gender pronoun •
er can be used in place of either
he or
she in some
West Country dialects, although only in weak (
unstressed) positions such as in
tag questions •
hye could refer to either
he or
she in
Essex in the south-east of England, in the Middle English period •
yo: a 2007 paper reports that in some schools in the city of
Baltimore,
yo has come to be used as a gender-neutral pronoun. Since at least the 19th century, numerous proposals for the use of other non-standard gender-neutral pronouns have been introduced: •
e, (
es,
em) is the oldest recorded English gender-neutral (ungendered) pronoun with declension, coined by Francis Augustus Brewster in 1841.
E,
es,
em, and
emself were also proposed by James Rogers in 1890. The aim was to provide a neutral, ungendered pronoun because the link of pronouns to sex was considered a major flaw. Donald G. MacKay (1980) experimented with the use of
e,
es,
em, and
eself. •
thon, proposed by Charles Crozat Converse in 1884 — other sources date its coinage to 1858 — received the greatest mainstream acceptance. A contraction of 'that one',
thon was listed in ''Funk and Wagnall's Standard Dictionary
from 1898 through to 1964, and was also included in Webster's Second New International Dictionary'' (but not in its the first and third editions). •
co was coined by the feminist writer Mary Orovan in 1970. It is in common usage in
intentional communities of the
Federation of Egalitarian Communities, appearing in the bylaws of several of these communities. In addition to using
co when the gender of the antecedent is unknown or indeterminate, some use
co as
gender-blind language, where
co replaces gendered pronouns. •
ze has several variants (see table below) and is used to meet the needs of unspecified gender situations and
transgender persons.
Kate Bornstein, an American transgender author, uses the pronoun forms
ze and
hir in the 1996 book
Nearly Roadkill: An Infobahn Erotic Adventure.
Jeffrey A. Carver, an American science fiction writer, used the pronoun
hir in the 1989 novel
From a Changeling Star for a different-gendered nonhuman.
Table of standard and non-standard third-person singular pronouns == Emergence of gender-neutral pronouns in languages with grammatical gender ==