SPEAKING WHAT YOU WANT

THE CURIOUS CASE OF (PRO/NOUNS)

CORPORATE AMERICA HATES IT, EDUCATION LOVES IT YOU DECIDE

With over 100 pronouns, we break down the ‘why’ pronouns exist and the reason that this controversial trend is welcomed by some, but hated by others.

Written by DAVID CHRISTEL

David has been ghostwriting books for well-known people since 1995. He is also the author of Married Men Coming Out: The Ultimate Guide to Becoming the Man You Were Born to Be.

If there is one thing humans like to do, it’s to categorize and label everything, including people. We find it helps us organize our reality and create a sense of stability, something we can rely on. Therefore, we have a name for every person walking this earth. We also have additional designations called “pronouns” that help us distinguish and classify ourselves and that directly relate to our sense of gender identity.

Well, with over a hundred gender pronouns currently in use that are broken up into personal, demonstrative, relative, indefinite, interrogative, possessive, and pronominal adjectives — correct, non-offending pronoun use has become incredibly complicated. Why?

For thousands of years, the world and its two gender classifications seemed so B&W and without confusion. We all appeared to want to conform to this social convention. We also deemed the two genders as a biological fact that we all were supposed to fit our identity within. Not anymore.

All of this comes down to our identity and individuality — it’s the need to be seen for who we truly are. It means being able to live comfortably within our own skin, and our own emotional being no matter where we are in the world. Okay … so what’s the big deal? The simple answer is that each of us is an individual with our own sense of self. Since the day we were born, we’ve been guided, consciously or unconsciously, to fit within sociocultural norms. For most of us, we’re pretty much okay going along with that schema. So, everyday life within our family and society isn’t much of a strain. We don’t really have to think too much about “who we are.” Instead, we deal with the usual issues of peer pressures, puberty, hormonal changes, and everything else connected with the process of maturation even into our adult life. And our pronouns of choice — he/him, she/her — are what we’re comfortable living with. That isn’t the case for many people. First, for most of us, trying to fit in as we’re growing up is like running the gauntlet. We want so much to be part of the gang that we’ll try on all sorts of identities and personality characteristics. It’s somewhat like trying on different clothes to see which combination will gain us inclusion in whatever group we’re striving to be a part of.

Sadly, we’ll compromise our sense of self in order to fit in. We’ll subvert and suppress satisfying our inner need to express ourselves in a way that’s uniquely authentic to us. We’ll