# Transgendered Dopers - A Question about pronouns **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 22, 2004, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgendered-dopers-a-question-about-pronouns/276156 "2004-11-22T19:35:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2004, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgendered-dopers-a-question-about-pronouns/276156/21 "2004-12-21T15:44:22Z")
Attempts to reform English to meet political requirements is a sure and certain sign of madness. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2004, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgendered-dopers-a-question-about-pronouns/276156/22 "2004-12-31T17:04:20Z")
You know, a majority of languages in the world use gender-free pronouns. Only the Indo-European, Afro-Asiatic, and Dravidian language families use gendered pronouns. Nearly all the others in the world use the same pronoun for both men and women. Some examples off the top of my head: Chinese, Estonian, Fijian, Finnish, Guaraní, Hawaiian, Hungarian, Malay, Manchu, Mongolian, Quechua, Swahili, Tagalog, Turkish, Uzbek, Yoruba… OK, I’ll admit Japanese is one of the rare nongendered languages that uses separate pronouns for ‘he’ and ‘she’ (_kare_ and _kanojo_). But it’s an exception. Korean, another nongendered language, _did not have_ gendered pronouns until recently. The same pronoun _kun_ traditionally worked for ‘he’ and ‘she’ alike. Only recently, under English influence, did the Koreans invent a special pronoun for ‘she’: _kunyo_. But Japanese and Korean don’t use these pronouns much. They’re usually omitted. Chinese uses one and the same pronoun for both ‘he’ and ‘she’: _ta_. The written Chinese characters have a purely orthographic gender distinction: when it means ‘she’, the character has the “female” radical added. This does not affect the pronunciation. Persian and Hindustani are exceptions the other way: Indo-European languages that use nongendered pronouns. In Persian, _u_ means both ‘he’ and ‘she’ equally with no distinction. Persian is entirely, absolutely gender-free, more so than English. Hindustani doesn’t have gendered pronouns, but it does have gendered verbs. This is because the verb forms incorporate participles which, like adjectives, have subject noun gender agreement. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2004, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgendered-dopers-a-question-about-pronouns/276156/23 "2004-12-31T17:16:47Z")
If someone I meet refers to themselves as “female,” I use “she.” Male, “he.” I don’t do a DNA test or check out any body parts to confirm that I’m using the correct genetic/biological pronoun. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2005, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgendered-dopers-a-question-about-pronouns/276156/24 "2005-01-04T16:41:35Z")
> [@KellyM](#): > > I can accept their “chosen gender identity” (although in my experience you don’t choose your gender identity, but that’s neither here nor there) without agreeing that their gender identity makes them transgendered. Actually, the usage that seems to be current in the community around here is such that a person such as you describe could identify as transgendered, because they\* have transitioned from the gender identity they were assigned at birth to their present identity, whatever that may be; with transsexual being reserved for those who transition specifically from male to female or vice versa. I think everything is so completely up in the air at this point that things still need some time to settle. \*My preference for gender-neutral pronoun: singular they. If it was good enough for Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Austen, it’s good enough for me. At any rate, one thing I don’t get at all is “Don’t use any pronoun - just use my name.” But what does Alex call Alexself in the reflexive? ---
**Author:** ![Kaitlyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/73ab20/32.png) [@Kaitlyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaitlyn)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2005, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgendered-dopers-a-question-about-pronouns/276156/25 "2005-01-04T21:47:45Z")
Of course, the English language needs gender neutral pronouns for people of indeterminate sex or when used to identify unspecified individuals from a group of mixed sex. And we have one, one that is perfectly functional in everyday speech, natural in it’s use and easily understood by the listener. “They” “You” can be used both as a singular and plural noun. “They” already is used as the default gender neutral singular pronoun in casual speech, and is much preferable to the more awkward “he or she”. For individuals, they should be identified by whatever method they prefer. I prefer “she”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgendered-dopers-a-question-about-pronouns/276156.md?page=1)