GUILFORD — More and more people are using the third person plural - they/them - as their personal pronoun.
I understand why people would want to do this. Many of those who call themselves “they” are simply expressing that they do not want to be characterized by the rigid gender norms associated with either gendered personal pronoun. Others are re-defining their own gender identity by identifying as nonbinary or trans.
I get it. But I don't like it.
I first thought my difficulty with “they” as a personal pronoun was simply grammatical. It's awkward, especially for those of us who had grammar rules drilled into us as children.
But grammatical complication did not explain my discomfort - after all, I have no difficulty splitting infinitives or ending a sentence with a preposition, also rules that were drilled into me.
So I thought that maybe the use of “they” as a singular pronoun was merely confusing. I remember the time a friend's child went missing and I kept reading the plea to “tell me if you have seen them” as referring to at least two children. But again, confusion did not explain my discomfort.
In fact, it was the argument about the renaming of Negro Brook in Townshend that finally made me understand my discomfort.
Just a quick diversion: some understandably want to rename Negro Brook, and some advocated that the brook be renamed after an early Black settler - Susanna Toby Huzzy. Poor Susanna happens to have two very unfortunate last names.
I understood the reaction to “Huzzy,” but a Black friend had to tell me that “Toby” became a slur as a result of a scene in Roots. Clearly, we don't want to replace one racial slur with another.
* * *
I don't like “they” because as an old lesbian, it reminds me of the language I used to cope with homophobia.
For years, I worked in early childhood education. It was definitely not safe to be an out educator in this field in the 1980s, when Anita Bryant was running a national campaign to get as many anti-gay bills into state legislatures as possible, focusing primarily on gay teachers. Because, you know, gay teachers are all pedophiles.
This period of fear for gay educators was immediately succeeded by an attack on daycare programs, spurred in part by ultra-right-wing activist Phyllis Schlafly. The media seemed to believe that those of us who ran early childhood programs were abusive to children at best and satanic pedophiles at worst.
In other words, it was not a safe time to be an out lesbian working in early childhood education.
So, whenever I referred to my life partner in conversations with co-workers, supervisors, or officials, I convoluted my grammar so I could refer to her with the pronoun “they.”
“They” became synonymous with being closeted, something I believed I needed to do to keep my job and protect the child care centers where I worked.
I was not merely paranoid; we experienced a violent homophobic attack on our home during this time.
Just as it was true back in the 1980s, “they” is the easiest grammatical workaround in English to ensure you retain humanity without revealing gender. (“It” is simply unacceptable.)
It was an “easy” grammatical solution back then, as it is an easy grammatical solution now. But it was not easy at all.
Substituting “they” for “her” was painful; it was a constant reminder of how unsafe living in my true sexual orientation was.
And it was the language of oppression.
* * *
Throughout Pride Month in June, memes flooded social media in support of the LGBTQ+ community. Some of them spoke about respecting “our elders.”
So, as a lesbian “elder,” I have a request.
Consider the history of the use of the word “they” in the context of homophobia. Then, if you want to “reclaim” it, do so. We reclaimed the word “dyke.” Other oppressed minorities have also reclaimed words originally used to disparage them.
What I hope you would not do, is simply use “they” because it is easy and currently popular. I would hope you wouldn't think you are doing something new or revolutionary by using this word.
Or maybe you could use a different word: “xi/xir” and “zi/zir” have been suggested. Many years ago activist and writer Marge Piercy suggested “per.”
But mostly, I want people to consider the history of the word “they” in the context of a homophobic society.