Pronouns Master Guide
Overview
Pronouns are words that have existed for many years. Everyone uses pronouns in their everyday conversation whether they realize it or not.
Pronouns are a third person way that can be used to describe a person without using a name. Most often binary pronouns have an implied gender but there are more types of pronouns than just simply the binary sets. Assuming a gender based on a pronoun can be very harmful in may ways. Becuase of this pronouns have evolved to be nearly anything and often act as alternatives to nicknames.
This rentry has resources and information about various types of pronouns as well as help to find the pronouns you may be looking for! If you click or tap on the images above the headers it will lead you to another rentry with further resources and examples.
Binary & Normative Pronouns
Binary pronouns are third person pronouns that have been around for all time. These pronouns are the She/Her/Hers and He/Him/His sets. Most oftentimes these pronouns are used by cisgender people however they are not limited to them. There are many nonbinary and GNC people who still use the pronouns assigned to them at birth or the binary pronouns that they prefer. Unfortunately these pronoun sets are the most socially acceptable and for that reason many people will use them, or will be forced to use them. It is perfectly fine to feel that you want no binary sets to be used to ever describe you.
Normative pronouns are pronouns that are more or less accepted by society. The main normative pronoun set is the They/Them/Theirs set. If pronouns or gender is unknow these are the pronouns that most people use as a default. The singular "they" has been used as a third person pronoun since as early as the late 1300s¹. Oftentimes they are used as the preferred pronouns of many nonbinary and GNC individuals. For a large quantity of people with use these as auxilary pronouns instead of trying to explain more complex pronouns, like neopronouns or noun pronouns.
Neopronouns
Neopronouns are third-person pronouns that have been deliberately created instead of evolving through language. Most oftentimes these pronouns are not considered grammatically correct or "accepted" within the languages used. Many times these pronouns are created by either replacing or adding letters to make them alternative forms of the binary He/Him or She/Her; such as Zhe/Zher or Vi/Vim; or using a random assortment of letters to make up completely new pronoun sets. The most popular neopronouns are created to completely deviate from the binary or normative pronouns. The most popular reporting to be: Xe/Xem, Fae/Faer, and Ze/Hir²
Neopronouns have been around for many years, with the first reported cases stretching all the way back to the 1920s³ when author David Lindsay created the pronoun set Ae/Aer for his fictional alien third gender. Throughout the 20th century the creation and use of neopronouns began to take off in popularity. Coming in the third and fifth places in the worldwide gender census for 2022 were the pronoun sets Ey/Em and E/Em created by Christine M. Elverson in 1975⁴ and Michael Spivak in 1990⁵ respectively. Many other pronouns have historical ties but far too many to cover here.
⇨ Click on the Image at the top of this section to link to another rentry with more details and examples of neopronouns. ⇦
Xenopronouns
e
Noun Pronouns
e
Emojiself Pronouns
e
Dehuman Pronouns
e
Resources
e