When I left school some 40 years ago, I was awarded a D in my GCE English O level. I wouldn’t have known what a pronoun was back in those days if it hit me between the eyes.
Now we cannot escape from pronouns appearing everywhere. Surely knowing what someone uses for their personal pronouns is kinda tedious, don’t you think?
Let’s start with a quick recap on what a pronoun is. According to the Oxford English Dictionary: “A pronoun in English (I, you, he, she, it, we, they, me, him, her, us, and them) comprising a set that shows contrasts of person, gender, number, and case.” So basically that means instead of my name you can refer to me by my personal pronoun, which in my case is “she” – “Joanne wrote this” or “She wrote this”, if I am already in context.
READ MORE: Battle plans vital to winning the talent war
In fact the etymology of “pronoun” can be traced back to Late Middle English from pro – “on behalf of” – plus “noun”, or the Latin pronomen (from pro, “for, in place of”, plus nomen, “name”).
So what is all the fuss about, and why have people started adding these to their email signatures and social media profiles?
In fact LinkedIn has just released an update that allows you to have your personal pronouns as a separate field on your profile – wow!
The reason that this matters to many people is that they may not identify with the gender they were assigned at birth – they are transgender or non-binary, or do not conform to the stereotype of gender norms, in which case they wish to express their person gender pronouns to avoid being inadvertently “misgendered” by someone who may not know them well enough to understand their identity.
READ MORE: The hybrid recruitment journey has just begun
People who are non-binary don’t identify as either male or female and often use the personal gender pronouns “they/them/theirs” in the singular form. For example, “someone has left their cup on the table, I wonder who they were, when I see them, I will give it back” – simple!
June is the start of the Pride Celebrations, a time when the LGBTQ+ community comes together with its allies to promote inclusion for all people, regardless of their diverse sexuality or gender identity.
As an ally, you will understand the importance to some of sharing your own pronouns and being visible as a supporter. By adding pronouns to your own signature or profile it shows that you have thought about what it means to others, it opens you up as a safe and understanding person to anyone who is gender non-conforming in some way.
This is a personal choice - you should only express your own pronouns once you recognise this.
Joanne Lockwood is an inclusion and belonging specialist with SEE Change Happen
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel