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Paper Title: The Paradox of Progress in Pronouns

-- By AndyZheng - 23 Feb 2024

Section I: The Duality of Language

Language is expansive and enables precise communication. Part of language is synthesizing an individual’s essence into a noun. When we say “Beyoncé,” we summon a general image of a pop star in the collective psyche of individuals we are communicating with. Rather than describing all of someone’s essence, a name stands in the place for their accomplishments, personality, and history. While the specific details about Beyoncé that each person knows may differ, there is a collective image associated with the name that fulfills the purpose of communication. This is helpful to convey large amounts of information in a short period of time. Series of carefully chosen words can be strung together to deliver ideas and thoughts that would be difficult to express without language. Thus, language is a useful tool for expressing complex thoughts and feelings using prescribed words that have concrete meanings.

Language is also restrictive. We use language to express our thoughts, but we are simultaneously confined by language in our expression. When we describe a person as “she,” we inherently trigger each individual’s understanding of what a “she” should be. Through internalizing a large volume of data, and being told how to label each person we see as “she” or “he,” we each develop a paradigm that quickly and mostly accurately identifies individuals into one of the two buckets. Over time, our understanding of language becomes solidified. Rather than being fed information, we begin to predict information from what we see. We start to predict that the individual of shorter stature, long hair, lack of facial hair, and larger pelvis would be labeled as “she.” The problem is that the label is not necessarily reflective of how others think about themselves.

Section II: Language in the context of Pronouns

This restrictive understanding of pronouns rob an individual’s ability and opportunity to identify themselves. For many people, pronouns are words that ascribe various external characteristics onto individuals. For someone to be described as “she,” she likely has various feminine features like a softer jawline or the lack of facial hair. However, this exteriority takes away the ability for individuals to express their humanity and interiority. When individuals incorrectly assume someone’s pronouns, it is considered “misgendering.” However, more than a mismatch in label, misgendering someone forces a label on them for the presumed rationale of the convenience of language. In exchange for the convenience of language, society has erased the ability for pronouns to describe the interiority, which causes a key aspect of someone’s life to be ignored.

Language does not and should not live in a vacuum. It changes over time with ideas and conventions. What people think about when someone says “fashion” is different today than the U.S. a century ago. What constitutes “fundamental right” of bodily autonomy to abortion is no longer the case today. Similarly, gender and sexuality has the capacity to change with language. Rather than assuming “she” refers to someone who is traditionally feminine, language can adapt to a more progressive understanding of pronouns as a respectful shorthand to refer to individuals and their interiority.

Section III: Moving Forward

One pathway to evolving our understanding of language is to create misunderstanding and encourage empathy. When individuals continue to be reaffirmed in their language that their prediction about someone’s gender identity is foolproof, their paradigm of pronouns will continue to solidify in opposition to exceptions to their rules. To do so, individuals must occasionally be shown that their initial presumption of someone’s pronouns are wrong. On one hand, it requires individuals to be bold enough to see the possibility of using pronouns that society may not automatically prescribe to them. On the other hand, people must also be receptive to the proposition that something that they’ve established as a paradigm can be wrong.

Progress is glacial and nonlinear. It would be unreasonable to expect that transgender and non-binary individuals will have their pronouns respected overnight. However, the requirements for progress is clear. We must simultaneously change the way we understand pronouns as well as broaden our underlying conception of gender and sexuality. Just as meanings of words evolve overtime, our conception of pronouns must be abstracted from its roots of strict classification of individuals in a binary. We also must broaden our conception of gender and sexuality to consist of a complex spectrum of identities. However, this ask is almost as impossible as uprooting the machineries of society today. All I can expect is a continuous tug of war between the status quo and progress. Hopefully, one day, our conceptions of pronouns will change and we can respect each other simply as human.

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