#EngenderedWriting 19 — Do you use they / them / their / theirs (or it / its) ...

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2024-11-20 05:19:14

#EngenderedWriting 19 — Do you use they / them / their / theirs (or it / its) instead of the generic gender him / his, etc.? How do you feel about how it reads? Does pronoun choice telegraph a message, or it transparent?

I use they/them etc. in my narrative instead of him/her.

At first I thought it felt very nonstandard and it grated on me, but more and more I see it in media and in books, and having made a point of using it over the last 900K words of story, it feels right. Lately, the last couple of years, I use it whilst speaking, unless the subject of the pronoun is present. Neutral pronouns face-to-face seems rude, unless they use that pronoun for themselves.

What's difficult is to decide to use themselves of themself. Maybe I'll make a prompt for that one...

It helps that I read that They stopped being used as a neutral pronoun in English a few centuries ago,

Is it transparent? I think it is in most genres and in essay writing, but I think certain audiences might object, like the elderly and the conservative—but I don't write for my generation nor am I a Christian genre writer.

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2024-11-20 05:19:14

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