Ask Matt: Gender-Neutral Pronouns Presenting a Problem
September 10, 2012 by Matt Kailey
http://tranifesto.com/2012/09/10/ask-matt-gender-neutral-pronouns-presenting-a-problem/ (http://tranifesto.com/2012/09/10/ask-matt-gender-neutral-pronouns-presenting-a-problem/)
A reader writes: "I am 15 years old and I just started my sophomore year of high school. I also came out as genderqueer a couple of weeks ago. To make it easier on people, I chose one set of pronouns and I give people little cheat sheets with my pronouns.
"My mom seems to be really supportive, but as it turns out, she is refusing to use my pronouns (subjective: e/ey, objective: em, possessive: eir/eirs, reflexive: emself) because she doesn't want to memorize them, and she also thinks that they're awkward and that nobody's going to understand what it is she's talking about. My dad and brother pretend that nothing is different.
"My teachers are really cool about it, but so far they haven't used any pronouns at all. My closest friends are mocking me a bit, and my friends still use the female pronouns and occasionally remember that I'm genderqueer and ask me what my pronouns are.
Well, they are kind of awkward and I'm not recalling even hearing those particular ones before. I just tend to use they, them and theirs when I want to leave gender out of it. I imagine my ex wives would be happy to know that I always refer to them that way if much of my past comes up in conversation, but it helps with not outing myself, lol.