Gender-neutral pronouns

Unsure how to refer to someone who is gender neutral? Here’s our top six appropriate pronouns and examples of how you would use them:

  1. HEN: used in Sweden
  2. Herm or they: in place of him or her
  3. Ne/nem/nir/nirs/nemself (Ne went to get nir hair cut)
  4. Spivak: Ey/em/eir/eirs/eirself (Ey likes to drink coffee when eir workload is tiring)
  5. Ze/zir/zir/zirs/zirself (I told zir that ze should stop giving zirself such a hard time)
  6. Xe/xem/xyr/xyrs/xemself (The sunglasses I’d found were xyrs so I gave them back to xem)

Fun fact: Futurama, a cartoon programme, used the pronoun Shklee to refer to a gender-neutral alien!

First published in issue 8 of We Are Family magazine alongside an article by Del LaGrace Volcano on genderqueer parenting. To order a copy click here

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