Pronouns: Difference between revisions
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==Non-binary people's pronouns== | ==Non-binary people's pronouns== | ||
In a 2016 survey of over 3,000 [[non-binary]] people, the top five pronouns participants were happy for people to use for them were:<ref>''[http://nonbinarystats.tumblr.com/post/141311159050/nbgq-survey-2016-the-worldwide-results NB/GQ Survey 2016 - the worldwide results]'', Nonbinary Stats, March 2016</ref> | In a 2016 survey of over 3,000 [[non-binary]] people, the top five pronouns participants were happy for people to use for them were:<ref name="NBGQ2016">''[http://nonbinarystats.tumblr.com/post/141311159050/nbgq-survey-2016-the-worldwide-results NB/GQ Survey 2016 - the worldwide results]'', Nonbinary Stats, March 2016</ref> | ||
* Singular they/them: 77.5% | * Singular they/them: 77.5% | ||
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The most popular [[neopronouns|neopronoun]] was ''xe/xem/xyr/xyrs/xemself'' at 9.7%. | The most popular [[neopronouns|neopronoun]] was ''xe/xem/xyr/xyrs/xemself'' at 9.7%. | ||
==Pronouns and transition== | |||
During transition it's fairly common for transgender and non-binary people to ask others to change which pronouns are used to refer to them. | |||
For example, a trans man has probably been called "she" and "her" from birth based on his [[female]] [[assigned gender|birth assignment]], but would prefer to be called "he" and "him". Part of transition for the trans man may involve him asking his friends and family to refer to him as "he/him" instead of "she/her" from now on. | |||
Nonbinary people tend to have a harder time if they decide that they prefer pronouns that reflect their non-binary gender. Many people complain that the most commonly accepted pronoun among nonbinary people, singular they, is grammatically incorrect. Many people struggle to use singular they, a pronoun usually used to refer to someone of unknown gender, for someone whose non-binary gender is known. | |||
==Neopronouns== | |||
If a non-binary person's pronouns were created after singular they, ie: within the last 400 years, it's known as a neopronoun. | |||
For most people neopronouns are very difficult to learn how to use. This is because in English pronouns are a closed class, meaning that our use of them is very difficult to change. Contrast with nouns, which are an open class; it takes longer to learn to use a new pronoun in English than learning a new noun. The most recent pronoun we learned was the second person personal pronoun ''you'', which has been used for hundreds of years to refer to everyone with plural verbs regardless of the number of people you're speaking to. Compared to nouns, an open class in English: dozens of nouns are added to the Oxford English Dictionary each year. | |||
In a survey of 3,000 non-binary people in 2016,<ref name="NBGQ2016"></ref> the five most popular neopronouns were: | |||
* Xe - xe/xem/xyr/xyrs/xemself - 9.7% | |||
* Zie - zie/hir/hir/hirs/hirself, or variation - 8.7% | |||
* Spivak - e/em/eir/eirs/emself, or variation - 7.4% | |||
* Fae - fae/faer/faer/faers/faeself, or variation - 4.1% | |||
* Co - co/co/cos/cos/coself - 1.2% | |||
==References== | ==References== | ||