Pronoun for an asexual humanoid being?

To everybody who helped. I passed along your suggestions to my friend (via online message) and I got this reply from her this morning:

I'm intrigued to find out what her dad suggested. He's a really cool dad ...and he's younger than me by a couple of years. Egad....

 

If anyone's still looking for similar answers, look up "spivak pronoun" on wikipedia. Tons of great options that are used by real people who identify as gender-neutral or the like. You can choose something that fits the mood and vernacular of your story while striking a blow for acceptance, equality, etc.​

 

Contrapoints just released a video about pronouns.

 

I imagine it may be harder for a reader to follow but I’d expect it to differ depending on who’s point of view your from. Your characters would probably assign a gender based on behavior or voice and a higher being doesn’t care what a lower being like a human calls it. Do you care what your cat calls you? Since our primary means of communication is language, I imagine it’d be the thing most people would let in on unless it happened to mention it’s laying eggs or pregnant or something.

 

Why not say
"The alien."
?

Like

"ARGH!"
"WHAT IS THAT!"
"RUN!"

If it was a scary looking creature.

If it's something friendly, just greet it.
And say it appeared asexual.
You could go

• humanoid
• tribble (Star Trek)
• gas cloud
• Alien (Ridley Scott)
• whatever predator is
• E.T.
• Carebears
• Darlic (looks like a robot to me, but IDK, ask Doctor Who).

Describe this creature

From Men In Black...
You'd say it's got big eyes, wet, and tentacles.
Nothing about gender needed.
But if you have to write it being asexual, then say 'asexual' or 'asexual alien' or 'asexual being'.

 

I’ve done something in my world with a humanoid species. Males and females but I got rid of the terms “girl”/“boy” and use “youngross”/“youngress” instead; plus people refer to each other as “brotheross” and “sisteress” rather than “man” or “woman.” Then I have various other species that have quite bizarre means of reproduction.

Two species I’ve written quite a lot about are only one. The torg and pefpefgar I simply refer to by name or say “the torg looked up at ...” other species I have shift from one sexual role to another so the speech used to address them alters due to this, but it isn’t necessary for this to be mentioned other than to express to the reader the alien nature of how these creatures interact and deal with societal roles - for example they have three leaders in all their “cities” one to represent each physiological phase; even though they all switch back and forth between these stages. There is also the complication of symbiosis within this particular species too so that intermedatory stages of the morphology require two beings becoming one for some period of time ... so as you can probably tell, things can get complicated so stick to what is the most simplistic way to express the situation.

If the species in your story look male and humans are interacting with them then it is perfectly fine to say “him” because that is what humans do. If that doesn’t work refer to the character by name or physical features (tall, darker, blue-eyed, lethargic, lively, etc.)

 

Of course all these words could be used to describe or refer to an alien being. But what we're looking for is a pronoun. So we don't have to keep repeating 'asexual alien' ten times per paragraph. The way we substitute 'man' or 'woman' with 'he' or 'she,' just to avoid repetition.

 

I see.

Would '?' be good for comedic satire?

Writing

? went down the corridor then to the right and stopped and went
"grahhhh!"
I didn't know what to do, was ? looking for something?

For example.

using a question mark might never take off, but it does convey a loss to explain what is seen.

 

Gender neutral characters aren’t a punch line. They are a regular type of person, within the normal range.

The singular they/them works fine.

“Mike walked to the store. They bought a coke.”

 

But they could be!
Equal rights man.
Don't be afraid to draw attention to it.
That's discriminating against their asexuality if you act all PC and try and blot it out IMO, and more importantly, it's less funny.
Always try and write a comedy, that's my ethos, unless it's serious.

 

Someone is on the fast track to being a Fox News contributor.

 

Well, they won't be with that attitude...

 

You've gotta learn to let go, loosen up a bit there fella @John Calligan

 

This is neither funny or makes sense.
Mike is a guys name.
?
What's your point?

I was saying they back in the 1990s being PC before it was cool, that's a fact.
I'm the Daddy of they're and his and her instead of resorting to race.
Don't confuse me with your Gender definition phobia and rob me from using comedy relief at an asexual monster, Hell, '?' the way I used it could be describing a boy alien with out saying it's a boy or a girl, just that it's a '?', the punchline isn't the gender not being known, it's the entire thing not being known leaving '?' the pronoun.

Hell, if you're too afraid to have a little fun, then, you're no comedy writer.
Do you think half the things
Stan

says is politically correct?
A: It sure as Hell isn't and that's why people love him, he's just him, if it's in someone's character to be themselves, then you don't have to make them PC.

 

What if it's short for Mikella?

 

I was giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming that you didn't know gender is a nuanced topic. I'd encourage you to read about it if you haven't.

 

Normally, yes, but, gender can be a punchline if it's asexual, so can a mystery if the humour comes from seeing the characters react the the unknown.

 

You get that there are genres other than comedy, right? Actually, I know you do, because I read a song you wrote about being displaced from a war-torn country. (That was you, right?) It was far from a barrel of laughs. Yes, there's comedy to be found in gender identity, but it should either be tasteful and respectful or subversive in a way that tackles either bigotry or oversensitivity (and even then, you're probably going to upset people who don't deserve it). More to my point though, making all references to gender identity a joke would be like turning every war move into "Stripes". I don't want to see the comedy remake of "Saving Private Ryan" or "Schindler's List".

 

He hasn't.

 

Unfortunately, 'they' doesn't work at all if there are more than one of these people or beings in the scene. That's actually the crux of my original post. If you use 'they' as the pronoun, and there are several of 'them' ...well, you can see what happens. If gender-neutral Mike and gender-neutral Fred walked to the store, and 'they' bought a coke—that could mean either one of them bought a coke ...or they both did.

I am trying not to focus on the PC aspects of this topic, but rather on how to make a piece of writing make sense, without creating the wrong impression. It's not easy to do. The last thing you want (I presume) your readers to be doing is scratching their heads, wondering what the heck you meant—or assuming they know what you meant, only to discover, several sentences later, that they were wrong. That's a sure-fire story killer.

 

Sounds tricky. I had an idea for a gender neutral character and was just going to write "they/them" but yeah, I guess you do run into that person standing next to any other character being unclear.

"Mike and Tim went to the store. He bought a coke."

Most people would assume "He" is "Tim." But if Tim is gender neutral:

"Mike and Tim went to the store. They bought a coke."

Edit: I mean, I feel like I could write around that, but that's annoying.

 

This came home to my writer's group very strongly, when my friend read her piece out loud. In short order, our eyes had glazed over and we gave up trying to figure out who was doing what. It may work in theory, but in practice? We are conditioned to read 'they' as a plural, unless the subject is of an unspecified gender. (As opposed to asexual or neutral gender. The unspecified person probably has a gender. We just don't know what it is.) As in 'Any shoplifter needs to realise they are flirting with going to jail and getting a criminal record.'

 

It depends on the creature doesn't it? They/them is a safe bet, but I've had sexless humanoid characters sometimes pick a gender they felt they preferred and felt they fit into. I think the latter is especially useful if the creature knows a lot about human cultures.

 

Here. This whole thing has been done for years in fiction as well as the rewriting of legal language and religious texts to edit out gender bias. Some of these terms have been invented or adopted by actual gender-neutral Americans. There's no universal standard, but Xe seems to have gained the most traction within the LGBTQIA+ community. Plus, it has a nice classic sci-fi alien language sound to it. Enjoy.

Gender neutral pronouns
E (Spivak, 1983) E is laughing - I called Em - Eir eyes gleam - That is Eirs - E likes Emself
Ey (Elverson, 1975) Ey is laughing - I called em - Eir eyes gleam - That is eirs - Ey likes eirself
Hou (Gom, 2017) Hou is laughing - I called hee - Hy eyes gleam - That is hine - Hou likes hyself
Hu (Humanist, 1982) Hu is laughing - I called hum - Hus eyes gleam - That is hus - Hu likes humself
Peh (Dicebox, 2012?) Peh is laughing - I called pehm - Peh's eyes gleam - That is peh's - Peh likes pehself
Per (Piercy, 1979) Per is laughing - I called per - Per eyes gleam - That is pers - Per likes perself
Thon (Converse, 1884) Thon is laughing - I called thon - Thons eyes gleam - That is thons - Thon likes thonself
Ve (Hulme, c. 1980) Ve is laughing - I called ver - Vis eyes gleam - That is vis - Ve likes verself
Xe (Rickter, c. 1973) Xe is laughing - I called xem - Xyr eyes gleam - That is xyrs - Xe likes xemself
Yo (regional, c. 2004) Yo is laughing I called yo — — ?
Ze, hir (Bornstein, n.d.) Ze (Zie, Sie) is laughing - I called hir - Hir eyes gleam - That is hirs - Ze (Zie, Sie) likes hirself
Ze, mer (Creel, 1997) Ze is laughing - I called mer - Zer eyes gleam - That is zers - Ze likes zemself
Ze, zir (unknown, c. 2013) Ze (Zie, Sie) is laughing - I called zir/zem - Zir/Zes eyes gleam - That is zirs/zes - Ze (Zie, Sie) likes zirself/zemself
Zhe (Foldvary, 2000) Zhe is laughing - I called zhim - Zher eyes gleam - That is zhers - Zhe likes zhimself

 

@jannert

Here is a suggestion, just like how we, and the author, is struggling to come up with a pronoun, couldn't the character within the book struggle with the same concept? This would make for an interesting dilemma.