If you think about how we use language to interact with people, pronouns are fundamental. If I’m introducing you to my friend, I’m likely to say something like, “Hey! This is Madison—they’re a good friend of mine.” We use these introductory moments to create relatedness, yet, inadvertently, something about identity gets expressed. If we aren’t attentive to what we express about identity, we are liable to lean toward our ingrained assumptions about who and how people are. That’s not to say that the identity we construct for people when we introduce them is inherently true or inescapable—we discovered that in the forum—but regardless we are accountable for the world that gets created about people when we open our mouths.
The way I see it, there are three fundamental aspects to share or, alternatively, learn about someone in an introduction: the name the person would like to be called, how to pronounce that name, and what pronouns they use. Undoubtedly, there are other aspects that may be more applicable depending on the context, but as a base, what it is to know someone is to be able to refer to them as they would like to be referred to.
2023 was a big year for me—it was the year I became a doctor. But let me clarify, no, not that kind of doctor. If I don’t insert myself quickly, I can find myself in way over my head. To be fair, I’m a smart cookie with a Biomedical Engineering degree, plenty of pre-med classes under my belt, and an above average MCAT score[i], but that doesn’t mean I can diagnose your rash.
What’s in a name?
For many people, their name may not be a particularly important part of their identity. Maybe their name connects them to their family because they were named after a relative or they’ve used different nicknames throughout their lives, but for the most part their name’s a given, because well, it was given. For many transgender and gender non-conforming people, the opposite is true—their name was chosen. Selected after many hours of researching names and testing them out in chat groups or with friends, their name was chosen by them.
I’ve never changed my name, but loved ones have. In the state of Wisconsin where I live, one must pay a $164.50 filing fee to file name change forms with the court, run an advertisement announcing the date of the name change hearing in the local newspaper, and attend a court hearing with a judge to change their legal name. It’s a burdensome process that somehow, every time I’ve borne witness to it, leaves people relieved. Relieved that their name is now recognized legally and the incongruence of living with a name that didn’t fit is gone. I can relate to that in terms of changing my pronouns.
During my PhD program, I looked forward to becoming a doctor so that I wouldn’t ever have to select between Ms., Mrs., or Mr. again (and for anyone who has done a doctorate, you know that it’s the little things that keep you going when it gets tough). Unfortunately, even with my doctorate there are places that force me to select between those limited options.[ii]
What’s in place of a name?
Pronouns are those “words we use instead of a noun to avoid repetition of it.”[iii] In the place of a name, they’re little words like I, we, she, they, or him. Like our names, our use of pronouns often goes unnoticed—until maybe someone uses the wrong pronoun for our pet or we hear a 3-year-old use “she” when referring to their brother. Typically, our use of personal pronouns is based on our perception of a person’s gender.[iv] For people whose outward expression of gender matches their sex assigned at birth and their internal experience of who they are, this perception might always be in alignment; however, for transgender or gender non-conforming folks this might not be the case.
I started using she/they pronouns in 2020. I can’t say exactly why, maybe because I could put it in my Zoom nametag and that felt low stakes enough. Or it may have started off as a nod to my queerness in an expression-constrained environment (Zoom)—the opportunity to say, “hey, I’m here and I’m probably not who you think I am.” Mostly no one used they/them pronouns to refer to me, but occasionally people would ask what it meant to have both “she” and “they” pronouns. Sometimes I would have that conversation with them.[v] I remember, once, recreating a Self Expression and Leadership Program[vi] classroom with a participant who called me out on that—“when you don’t know what you want me to call you, you just put that work on me when all I want to do is refer to you in a way that is comfortable for you.” I was taken aback but struck by the idea that I was making it harder for people to care for me.
It wasn’t until August of 2021 that I would start using they/them pronouns exclusively. I was deeply depressed at the time, grasping for ways to experience people’s care. For the first time, asking people to use they/them pronouns for me occurred as an invitation I could extend. I found I could invite people to meet me, newly.
Hi all, I’m Hanna Barton. I use they/them pronouns and am interested in a world where each of us is exquisitely cared for by community.
[i] The MCAT is the test you take to get into medical school. At one point I was applying for a joint MD/PhD program, eventually deciding to focus solely on the PhD—but not before I took the last in-person MCAT of 2020 on March 14th.
[ii] This is poor design that excludes people who do not use any of those prefixes.
[iii] https://www.etymonline.com/word/pronoun, accessed January 15, 2024
[iv] Judith Butler describes gender as a performance—something we learn how to perform “correctly” based on social scripts. See her 1990 book, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity.
[v] No one owes you an explanation for why they use the pronouns they use, nor do they owe you a “pronouns 101” lecture. It takes emotional work to educate around topics sensitive to one’s own identity, so my personal practice is to not ask people questions that I can google. If after my research I’m still curious about someone’s gender identity, I might ask them if they are open to a conversation about it; however, I will make it very clear that they do not owe me their time, explanation, or vulnerability.
[vi] The Self Expression and Leadership Program is a course offered as part of the Landmark Curriculum for Living. The conversation I am referring to happened during a program I head coached, where most of my interaction directly with participants was by way of “recreating” (re-capping) classrooms if they had missed them.
First published as a “Report from the Field” in The Journal of the 2024 Conference for Global Transformation.