Neopronouns – What Are They and Why You Care

Pronouns are a way of self expression and gender expression. There’s the common ones like she/her, he/him, and even they/them. However, there are some that are not used as much. These are known as neopronouns, neopronouns have existed for a long time; some believe even since the 1800s. They were originally created to avoid the endless debate against the singular use of ‘they’. They have gotten a lot more recognition recently so here’s some information about them so you know how to use them correctly, and how to respect them.

An example of a neopronoun is xe/xem, xe/xem/xyr is a basic neopronoun and is used like this for example “Xe went out to a friend’s today, do you want me to tell xem that xe need to be home by 8?”. Other neopronouns are things such as Ze/hir/hirs, ey/em/eir, ze/zir/zirs, and etc. Neopronouns can be difficult to adjust to at first but personally after a bit it gets easy and just rolls off the tongue. Every neopronoun user is different so I’d advise asking the user you know what they prefer and how they prefer them used. It’s important to ask for things like pronouns so you can respect everyone’s personal identity.

Almost all neopronouns users will have average pronouns like she/her, he/him, they/them, as well as their neopronoun. So if you’re not too sure, you should definitely ask them what they prefer. For the people who don’t know how to pronounce neopronouns, here’s a guide: Xe/xem/xyr can be pronounced as zee/zem/zeer. Ze/hir/hirs can be pronounced as zee/heer/heers. Ey/em/eirs can be pronounced as ay/em/heir.

As more people in our communities are most comfortable with the use of neopronouns, it is increasingly important that people know about this unique subcategory of pronouns. The majority of users are transgender, nonbinary or gender nonconforming people.