Grammar Pronoun use for non-binary character

I think it's worth pointing out that the singular "they" has been in use for ages to refer to a person of unknown gender. "Whoever it was, I hope they got a good laugh out of it."

I agree that context can provide most of the clues - in the diner example above, if Sue then said something, the reader could assume that the others followed them in. Alternatively, as suggested above, I find that adding little clarifying words solves most problems. A third option is to use the character's name if it seems unclear. I think if sentences are ambiguous, an edit would be better than new pronouns. I've never written a non-binary character, so I don't know how it would work long-term, but I've occasionally had to think about it when I've talked about my non-binary friends, and my biggest piece of advice would be to get it in as soon as possible that they're non-binary, because then people are expecting a singular "they".

Also, I reliser that the OP is no longer here, but for future reference, their character sounds more like an intersex person than an enby. Intersex people often use binary pronouns, whether they match with the ones they were assigned at birth (for which the term is "ipsogender"), or not.

Although it is of course possible that language could have developed differently where OP's characters live.

 

I actually encountered this situation recently, in a novel excerpt which one of the members of our face-to-face writers' group wrote. My friend was very concerned about portraying an asexual character correctly, and she used 'they' as the pronoun, to test it out.

It did not work. It emphatically did not work. She read the scenes out loud, and after a few paragraphs we were so confused. There were three and sometimes four people in the scene she was portraying and it just didn't work at all. Even my friend ended up laughing because the whole thing sounded so ridiculous.

She then produced another version the scene using only the asexual character's name and no 'they' at all. That ploy worked slightly better, as far as reducing confusion goes, but it was still clumsy, because the asexual being's name had to be repeated more often than it would have been, if the character had been a he or a she.

My friend had a get-out-of-jail free card, in that her character was a guardian angel, and the angel's tutis (the POV character) saw the angel as a male. We suggested the tutis simply ask the angel how the angel wanted to be referred to, and the angel told her that if she saw him as a male, then it was okay to refer to him as a male, even though his nature was asexual. So that's how my friend resolved her dilemma.

However, the dilemma still remains. I don't know. I only know the 'they' thing is very very difficult to work. If I were doing this, I would definitely coin another pronoun. And why not? The non-binary character isn't a he or a she. Or an 'it,' if the character is human, or human-like. However the non-binary character isn't a group either. The non-binary character is a single individual, so I reckon this character deserves a special pronoun. Long overdue, in my opinion.

So, as writers, why don't we create one? Who knows? It might catch on.

 

I had a hermaphrodite character in a story, who I referred to as he/she. It worked alright for a short story, and the character did not have too many scenes. Since the character was not actually human, I don't have an issue with the way I did it.

I am also considering including a hermaphrodite in a scifi story. Again, a hermaphrodite is not necessarily non-binary. The character may be attracted to men, women, both or neither.

The problem with LGBT+ issues is that it can become very confused, with various different definitions and groups becoming conflated.

 

They did

 

Yeah, we knew my friend's asexual character wasn't binary and appeared as fully male when clothed (which suggested the solution she actually took.) But in terms of writing the story, the effect of the use of the pronoun 'they' for a single individual character was the same. Confusion reigned.

I like Xe, but how would you pronounce that? Zey? Would that get confused with 'they' if the story was read out loud? Might be an idea to choose another pronoun that would sound completely different ...something like 'jig?' Hmm. Okay, silly. But worth playing around with. I'm sure some kind of solution—one that doesn't appropriate a pronoun already in use for something else, and also makes the sexual orientation of the character clear—is possible.

It'll probably take time to catch on, but hey. What are writers for, if not for innovation?

 

I don't think it's really up to us as cis people to come up with a new pronoun for a group that actually exists. I've never come across a person who uses "xe". All my enby friends use "they". I'm not doubting that people do, but I would use "they".

https://public.oed.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-singular-they/# This article from the OED dates the use of singular "they" to the 14th century, and the backlash against it to around the same time. So it's not like this is an unprecedented reassigning of a word. A friend used singular "they" in a piece of writing, and none of the people he workshopped it to found it confusing.

Lastly, gender and sexual orientation are different things. Asexuality is a sexual orientation and has nothing to do with gender.

 

At the risk of sounding transphobic, this is a pet peeve of mine. I refuse to use the term "cis" and "cisgender". Before transgender was a thing, I was not cisgender, so I'm not cisgender now.

But as a writer and a historian, cisgender is not the opposite of transgender. Transgender is a portmanteau of "transition" and "gender", i.e. to move from one to the other, from the latin root transire.

Where trans and cis mean "on the near side" and "on the far side" respectively, as in the historic Roman provinces of Transalpine Gaul and Cisalpine Gaul. Caveat (see what I did there?) - the trans stem here may come from the same root as transire, I'm not sure, I'm not a linguist.

Derail over.

 

What would you call us, then? And "transgender" was always a thing, people just didn't have words for it.

I feel that this discussion is useful for cishet people who want to write about members of the LGBTQIA+ community, which is why I haven't taken this to PMs.

 

As in all writing, really the only bottom line is: does it work? If people can make 'they' work as a non-binary gender pronoun as well as a plural for number of individuals, then more power to your arm.

In the small experience I've had it didn't work. But that doesn't mean it can't. I'd be interested to hear from anybody who writes the non-binary pronoun as 'they' to give tips as to how NOT to make it confusing. How does that writer deal with multiple individuals in the same scene? How do they make these two uses of the pronoun 'they' work? So the reader is always sure who the pronoun refers to?

Mind you, a similar problem exists when folks use 'he' or 'she' in scenes where more than one person of the same gender is taking part. I've seen it quite often where we're not sure which of the characters the 'he' is referring to. So maybe the 'they' situation simply requires the same amount of care, to ensure the pronoun is used unambiguously.z

We already do use 'they' to refer to a singular person who is not specifed. For example: A writer who wishes to use 'they' as a non-binary gender pronoun as well as a multiple individual pronoun, needs to work on how they would make this distinction clear in their writing.

It's been suggested that the sentence with the non-specified subject COULD be re-written as: Writers who wish to use 'they' as a non-binary gender pronoun as well as a multiple individual pronoun, need to work on how they would make this distinction clear in their writing. That way the subject and pronoun will agree, in terms of number of individuals. But it can get tricky.

 

See, one of my friends came out as agender recently. I have no idea what that means.

 

I'm trying to recall older novels that had non-binary characters. I'm fairly sure the standard was simply to refer to the character by their physical gender. I recall at least one such character in Jack Vance's Lyonesse trilogy referred to in that way.

It should also be noted for historical novels set in Ancient Rome or Greece that they did not view sexuality in the way we do now, so it would be wrong to characterise, for example Zeus (who took Ganymede as a lover, as well as many women) as non-binary in the way we would now.

 

How about "ye" and "yea"?

 

This is exactly the issue I have with trying to create a new word for the singular non-gendered pronoun. Just written much more clearly than I could ever manage. There have been many attempts in recent years to invent such a word, but none of them managed to stick. Even though xe has some degree of popularity currently, I don't see it lasting long either.

It just seems far easier to make they both singular and plural, or even possibly to humanize it, than it would be to create a new word that could become prevalent enough to take on that role.

 

Whatever you do, don't do this:

From a Wikipedia bio about an actor who identifies as non-binary:

"Rebecca Edison 'Bex' Taylor-Klaus is an American actor. They rose to fame for their starring role as Bullet on the crime drama series The Killing. They gained further prominence with roles as Sin on the superhero drama series Arrow, Lex on the comedy series House of Lies, and as Audrey Jensen on the horror series Scream."

 

That would be poorly written no matter what pronouns they used.

Personally, I prefer they. If you want to single me out of a plural they, then use my name.

ETA:
Generally speaking a persons Sexuality breaks down into 4 components.

Sex is what you have between your legs

Gender refers to someones self perception

Preference, or orientation, is who you're attracted to

Presentation, or social-sex role is obviously how you show yourself to the world and what sex specific roles you take on in your day to day.

All of these things are rated on a spectrum rather than a binary and non of them are necessarily dependent on the other.

 

What about when the author is writing NON fiction?

I'm 46. I never learned this stuff in school. Not one science fiction book I ever read when I was a teen - Asimov, Herbert, Piers Another, Poul Anderson, etc - NONE of those authors ever had people born as one sex/gender and changing it as they grew.

I only remember vaguely C.S. Friedman doing something where a male character going to a sexual encounter was made aware he would "transition" (?) and experience the encounter as a female. I *think* the book was "In Conquest Born" but I am guessing. Anyways, the character was repulsed and backed out of the encounter.

This is absolutely fascinating.....confusing, yes but very, very eye-opening.