Do Pronouns Indicate Gender?
Some of you may have seen that people are starting to normalize the use of preferred pronouns on their social media accounts, placing it in nametags, and having them visible wherever introductions are necessary. And as many notice, women tend to have “she/her” pronouns, enbies (non-binary folx) tend to have “they/them” pronouns, and men typically have “he/him” pronouns. However, there is a misconception that you can assume one’s gender simply by their preferred pronouns, and it’s important to clarify it!
Pronouns are simply references that people use in place of their name for easy communication. For example, it is hard to say, “Jeeve is a student at MIT. Jeeve is a PLEASURE Educator. Jeeve likes to sing. Jeeve is doing badly in Jeeve’s classes. Please send Jeeve some coffee so Jeeve can feel better.”
Pronouns allow you to make this easier to say, “Jeeve is a student at MIT. They are a PLEASURE Educator. They like to sing. They are doing badly in their classes. Please send them coffee so they can feel better.” It’s much easier to say this and, given that my preferred pronouns are they/them/their, it becomes so much easier to communicate without the need to repeat my name like a gazillion times.
But, pronouns aren’t only restricted to the third-person; it’s easier for everyone to have grammatical references in both the first and second person as well. Like, I’d say. “I’m a student at MIT. I am a PLEASURE Educator. I like to sing. I am doing badly in my classes. Please send me coffee so I can feel better.” I use I/me/my pronouns as a placeholder for my name. This is purely a grammatical tool to make communication easier.
I.e. Pronouns = Grammar
On the other hand, gender identity is how you identify according to society’s realm of gender expectations. So, I identify as a non-binary demiguy because that’s what I feel best describes where I fall into society’s gender expectation. This is an identity I hold and it is a part of who I am as an individual.
Now, there is the link between third-person pronouns and gender identity with gendered pronouns. Gendered pronouns are simply grammatical tools used to facilitate easier communication, but having ties to one’s identity. For example, because of my gender identity, I feel rather uncomfortable with someone referring to me as he/him, so I ask people to use they/them pronouns in place of my name when referring to me in dialogue. That’s a gendered pronoun because it is influenced by my gender identity. However, one can choose to use gender-neutral pronouns in third-person speech because they do not feel the need to associate gender with whatever is being communicated. In fact, many allies to the LGBTQ community do exactly this to normalize the use of gender-neutral pronouns, and that is completely fine for them to do so!
For example, if I say, “Do you know my friend Mary? Yea, Mary loves ice-cream,” there is no point in gendering the second sentence, so some people choose to go with, “Do you know my friend Mary? Yea, they love ice-cream.”
Hypothetically, Mary can be a woman who is extremely comfortable in her identity as a woman, but chooses to use they/them pronouns because it doesn’t affect anything in the message being communicated there: at the end of the day, we find out that Mary loves ice-cream. This is because, even though pronouns are typically gendered in English, you don’t need to gender someone in communication. So using gender-neutral pronouns doesn’t mean you’re non-binary, using gender-opposite pronouns (like men using she/her and women using he/him) doesn’t make you trans, or even using any pronouns doesn’t make you the Avatar of genders; it simply means, “hey, use this arbitrary word to refer to me when you’re using third person speech because what you’re saying has basically zero connection to gender”. Pronouns are purely a grammatical tool.
I.e. Communication ≠ Gender (rather, communication doesn’t require gender)
So someone’s use of pronouns isn’t an indication of their gender identity. There are many men/women who use they/them pronouns. Yes gender identity can - and most times do - impact someone’s choice of pronouns, but that isn’t always the connection. To get very nerdy about it, there is a simple implication arrow alone between gender and pronouns:
Gender ⇒ Pronouns (Gender can influence pronouns) but;
Pronouns ⇏ Gender (Pronouns do not necessarily come from gender identity)
A fair disclaimer, this is a purely opinionated piece and I do not speak for all people who use non-gendered pronouns. You should definitely seek out more perspectives from others about this. But if you’d like to talk more about this, please feel free to email me at smahadeo@mit.edu and I’d be happy to talk more about it :)