Understanding pronouns is hard

[mika.m]

Hi, in LGBTQ+ communities especially the Europeans are talking much about pronouns. I can understand genders somewhat but pronouns are difficult maybe because of native language grammar.
In Persian(my native lang) there is no gendered thing even pronouns:(او/آن)(pronunciation: ān/ū)
او is for people and آن is for objects or animals.
But in other languages especially European are genderd and I can remember that it was confusing and ridiculous to me when I finds out that you have to say he/him for men and she/her for women in English and there is not only pronoun for humans.

My question is that why pronouns are so important and European queers really like to test and choose some?

[Latha]

Hi Mika.m!

This is a great question. More can be said about this, but I think that people from cultures with gendered pronouns are reminded of how people see their gender quite often, through the pronouns that people use for them. They have to experiment to find language that is comfortable for them. Does that make sense?

[mika.m]

Yeah somewhat, but why people don't use pronouns based on grammar rules? For instance, why a trans girl choose they/them but grammar rules say she/her?

[Willa]

Hi Mika.m,

English grammer can be very confusing, english is my native language and I make mistakes all the time! One thing I can point out is that "they/them" is often used as a pronoun set for individuals in english, often times if you do not know the person you are talking abouts gender. One example would be "Where is the delivery driver? Oh, I think I hear them outside!" Another thing to consider is language is always evolving to serve the needs of different people. Some people do not feel connected to pronouns such as he/him or she/her so they instead choose to use they/them- whether they identify as non binary or feel outside of the gender binary in some way. It is always an individual choice about what makes that person most comfortable.

[GenderGay]

I feel you, I am nonbinary and pronouns suck. Something I really enjoy about my countries sign language is the lack of gendered pronouns. But my primary language is English and I use They/them pronouns because it is the closest English has to a universal human pronoun. You’re right it’s stupid that our human pronouns are gendered and idk why English is like that but- I would guess it has to do with English having a lot of Latin and Romance language roots. Languages like French and Spanish that are Romance languages and have more ties to Latin are highly gendered-
even objects are gendered! So I think it’s just a goofy linguistic thing from how English and other European languages evolved. As for why they eve loved to be gendered in the first place? I wonder if it could have to do with gender roles in historic cultures… idk maybe some reaserch has been done on it.

Anyway- At this point it’s just a quirk of the language, and we queer people are just trying to make the language as affirming as it can be since it doesn’t make much sense. Basically, our linguistic reality is gendered and so that makes gender more important to the culture so by finding ones that fit right we make the culture see us better. Does that help at all?