{"id":24861,"date":"2015-09-10T09:17:13","date_gmt":"2015-09-10T14:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=24861"},"modified":"2015-09-10T09:38:22","modified_gmt":"2015-09-10T14:38:22","slug":"gender-neutral-pronoun-on-the-rise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2015\/09\/gender-neutral-pronoun-on-the-rise\/","title":{"rendered":"Gender-Neutral Pronoun on the Rise?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In English, there are three main singular pronouns: he<\/em>, she<\/em>, and it<\/em>. When we\u2019re talking or writing about people, we eschew it<\/em>; after all, it<\/em> suggests a non-human subject. This leaves us with he <\/em>or she<\/em>, which often are easy to use. We use he<\/em> for male subjects and she<\/em> for female subjects.<\/p>\n

This is all easy enough, but there are two times when neither he <\/em>nor she <\/em>seems the right word choice. The first is where the gender of the subject does not matter. This situation comes up frequently in legal writing. In explaining a rule of law, we often need to include a pronoun. For example, For a plaintiff to maintain a cause of action for intentional infliction of emotional distress, he must prove the defendant\u2019s conduct is extreme and outrageous. <\/em>In that sentence, we want a singular pronoun to \u201cmatch\u201d our singular subject noun of \u201cplaintiff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Writers are conscious of which pronoun to choose. Many are afraid if they pick the male pronoun\u2014he<\/em>\u00ad\u2014they will be perceived as sexist. One easy fix to avoid picking a pronoun at all is to make the subject \u201cplaintiff\u201d plural so that we can use the plural pronoun \u201cthey\u201d (e.g., For plaintiffs<\/u> to maintain a cause of action for intentional infliction of emotional distress, they<\/u> must prove the defendant\u2019s conduct is extreme and outrageous.<\/em>). But sometimes that doesn\u2019t work well or we\u2019d rather keep the subject singular. What to do then? Many writers (and speakers) default to the plural they<\/em> even with a singular subject like \u201cplaintiff\u201d in order to stay gender neutral. But for a lot of us who are sticklers for such things, a plural pronoun with a singular noun just isn\u2019t right.<\/p>\n

Most of us recommend to our students that they choose the singular pronoun that \u201cmatches\u201d the gender of the person who would fill the role of, say, plaintiff (or defendant). Thus, if we have a female client who may have a claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress, we would write: For a plaintiff<\/u> to maintain a cause of action for intentional infliction of emotional distress, she<\/u> must prove the defendant\u2019s conduct is extreme and outrageous. <\/em>But it\u2019d be even better if we had a gender-neutral pronoun.<\/p>\n

The second situation where choosing only from he<\/em> or she<\/em> seems to fail us is where we don\u2019t know the gender of the subject or where the subject\u2019s gender identity is more fluid and thus rejects the he\/she<\/em> binary. Using a gender-neutral pronoun would alleviate speakers\u2019 and writers\u2019 concerns with having to choose between he <\/em>or she<\/em>, when neither seems appropriate. Sweden has recently added<\/a> such a gender-neutral pronoun\u2014\u201chen\u201d\u2014to its official dictionary. And while in this country we haven\u2019t officially adopted a gender-neutral pronoun, there are a couple of options on the rise: ze <\/em>and xe.<\/em><\/p>\n

In fact, the Office for Diversity and Inclusion at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville this fall encouraged<\/a> everyone on its campus\u2014faculty, staff, and students\u2014to think more broadly about pronouns and about adopting gender-neutral pronouns. The request is not official university policy; as a statement from the school said, \u201cThere is no mandate or official policy to use the [gender-neutral] language. . . .[W]e do not dictate speech. We do strive to be a diverse and inclusive campus and to ensure that everyone feels welcome, accepted, and respected.\u201d<\/p>\n

While ze<\/em> and xe<\/em> sound strange to us now, it\u2019s just because we\u2019re not used to the words. Like awsomesauce <\/em>and hangry<\/em> sound strange (to a good number of us, anyway), but those words, among others, have just been added<\/a> to the Oxford dictionary. So, it just takes some time and use, and ze <\/em>and xe<\/em> will catch on.<\/p>\n

For those of you, like me, wondered how to say such words and what their possessive versions were, UT\u2019s Office for Diversity and Inclusion has provided a useful guide (as copied from here<\/a>):\"GenderNeutral\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Hat tip to Mary Pucci and to 1L Tyler Pluff for bringing to my attention the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, story.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In English, there are three main singular pronouns: he, she, and it. When we\u2019re talking or writing about people, we eschew it; after all, it suggests a non-human subject. This leaves us with he or she, which often are easy to use. We use he for male subjects and she for female subjects. This is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal-writing","category-public","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24861\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}