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Homepage Pronouns Dictionary of neutral nouns Examples from cultural texts Extra references Blog Queer community Contact Merch Your account Search
Homepage Pronouns Dictionary of neutral nouns Examples from cultural texts Extra references Blog Queer community Contact Merch Your account

My pronouns are:

ze/hir

(Neopronoun “ze/hir”)

Example usage in sentences:

  • I think ze is very nice.
  • I met hir recently.
  • Is this hir dog?
  • Ze told me that the house is hirs.
  • Ze said ze would rather do it hirself.
Hir was first proposed in 1920 in Sacramento Bee. Spelt as hier, it was proposed in 1910 in Baltimore Sun.

Table:

Subject Object Possessive determiner Possessive pronoun Reflexive
ze /zi/ hir /hɪɹ/ hir /hɪɹ/ hirs /hɪɹz/ hirself /hɪɹˈsɛlf/

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Examples from cultural texts:

Neopronoun “ze/hir” (ze/hir)

  • Levi C. R. Hord – Bucking the Linguistic Binary: Gender Neutral Language in English, Swedish, French, and German (Proceedings of Western Interdisciplinary Student Symposium on Language Research, Iss. 1, Vol. 3) , 2016

    • “Speaking from hir unique gender position, Feinberg highlighted what ze called a “crisis of language” (Owen 1996) which often results in clumsy dual constructions such as s/he, and which would be solved by abandoning binary language altogether in favour of specific language to suit complex gender identities. (p. 6)”

  • K. A. Cook – The Differently Animated and Queer Society (A short story from a collection called “Crooked Words” by K. A. Cook) , 2013

    • “Pat couldn’t help a slight frown as ze got out of hir car. It wasn’t likely that someone was going to try and mug a zombie, but even so, the neighbourhood didn’t seem all that prosperous. There weren’t even too many cars around, just one down the other end of the street and a rusty bike chained to a light post.
      Maybe ze shouldn’t have waited until ze’d be the last to arrive. What if everyone had come, decided that nobody was coming, and gone home already? What if ze was the only one to come at all?      ”
    • “This will be fine, Pat told hirself, in what felt like a ridiculous attempt to bolster hir courage. If ze had summoned up the courage for hir last job interview—and Pat thought ze would have gotten it despite being undead if ze felt remotely inclined to try and pass, something that annoyed hir job seeker support officer no end—then ze could summon up the courage to do this. This should be easier than a job interview!”

  • Susan Stryker, Stephen Whittle – Preface to a reprint of Leslie Feinberg's pamphlet in “The Transgender Studies Reader”, 2006

    • “Leslie Feinberg, whose particular style of being transgender helped non-gender-specific pronouns like “s/he” and “hir” achieve a limited popularity over the past decade, must be considered a founding f gure of contemporary transgender studies. Hir influential pamphlet, reproduced below, took an older (and apolitical) term — transgender — and infused it with a radical new meaning. (p. 205)”
    • “Though hir particular theory of history has not attracted widespread support in transgender communities, hir work has gained a devoted and grateful following for the powerful way it calls upon transgender people to recover their historical legacy, and to harness that knowledge to the current struggle for a more just society. (p. 205)”

What's the deal with pronouns?

Pronouns are those words that we use instead of calling someone by their name every time we mention them. Most people use “he/him” and “she/her”, so we automatically assume which one to call them based on someone's looks. But it's actually not that simple…

Gender is complicated. Some people “don't look like” their gender. Some prefer being called in a different way from what you'd assume. Some people don't fit into the boxes of “male” or “female” and prefer more neutral language.

This tool lets you share a link to your pronouns, with example sentences, so that you can show people how you like to be called.

Why does it matter? Because of simple human decency. You wouldn't call Ashley “Samantha” just because you like that name more or because “she looks like a Samantha to you”. Or even if she does have the name “Samantha” in her birth certificate but she absolutely hates it and prefers to use “Ashley”. And it's the exact same story with pronouns – if you don't want to be rude towards someone, please address them properly. The only difference is that we usually know names, but not pronouns. We introduce ourselves with a name, but not pronouns. Let's change that!

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