To most people, language, like life, is so much simpler if it is arranged into binaries.

Wrong/Right, Gay/Straight, Male/Female.

Things that are in between the binaries are often undervalued or ridiculed. We sometimes feel uncertain of the things that do not conform one way or the other. For example; Euthanasia, Bisexuality, and Nonbinary. Euthanasia is mercy-killing; killing is morally wrong, but putting someone out of their misery and ending their suffering is ethically right. Bisexuality means feeling sexual or romantic attraction to two (or more) genders. Nonbinary is a term for those that do not align with the gender binary and feel that they have no gender.

To those people that do not align with either of the gender binaries - male and female - it can be hard to try to find a pronoun that you’re most comfortable with. He and She don’t fit, but the problem here is that many people think that the English language is sorely lacking a third-person gender neutral pronoun. The closest that we have come to an almost universally accepted term is to refer to an individual of unknown gender simply as “They” or “Them”. Believe it or not, this is the English language's third-person gender neutral pronoun. People may argue that that isn’t proper grammar though, when using they you must be referring to a group of people and not a single individual, or you’re being grammatically incorrect. That is one of the main excuses to avoid using they as a singular pronoun. It may sound “wrong” because we’ve been taught and corrected in school to stop us from using they as a singular.

Despite being frowned on by many people, it’s actually a completely normal thing to do in Standard English. People have been using singular they to refer to a hypothetical person whose gender is unknown even before the term started being adopted by Trans (refers to all gender-nonconforming identities) communities. For instance, we say things like “Someone left their coat in the other room”, we could also say “Someone left his or her coat” but using “their” is more common, easy to understand, and not wrong. Nearly everyone can find that they can stomach the “they” in this sentence.

People with non-binary identities - like myself - repeatedly find themselves in situations in which the person they are talking to feels “forced” by the language norms they have internalized and have been taught their entire lives, to call them either he or she. Even if they aren’t sure which one is right, and sometimes even when they have been told that neither is correct. One of the worst things a person can do when told what a person’s preferred pronouns are is to say “I respect that, but here’s why it’s difficult for me.” Or when you make a mistake and accidentally misgender someone, just apologize and continue in the conversation. You don’t need to apologize and then explain why you made that mistake and how difficult it is for you. It is certainly okay to ask questions, please ask if you ever have any questions, but please avoid explaining why it’s so hard for you, it can be taken as insensitive or impolite.

It’s not as though we haven’t attempted to coin a third-person gender-neutral singular pronoun before. There have been over 100 (failed) attempts over 150 years to try to agree upon what the term should be. We’ve tried ne, nis, nim, and e, es, em, and ey, eir, em, and many others like hes, hem, ir, ons, ith, lim, ler, lers, etc. Some more popular pronouns within the MOGII (Marginalized Orientations, Gender Identities, and Intersex) community, but still mostly unknown in the general population are Ze, zem, zes, and I know somebody that uses Fay, Feir, Fem. There are many other languages that have a specific gender-neutral pronoun for individuals, such as in Icelandic they use það, and in Swedish they use hen. Hen was another pronoun that had been attempted to be adopted into the English language but ultimately failed.

It might sound complicated sometimes, but like with everything in life, practice makes permanent. Language is about respect, and we should all do our best to recognize how people wish to be identified, whether that means using their preferred name or a pronoun spelled any which way. Basically just do your best to adjust to changing times and terms and address people the way they ask you. The English language needs singular they because we don’t have much of any other choice. So go ahead – use they. At the least you won’t be an asshole to your genderqueer friends. At most, we may be able to change how society sees what’s in between the binaries.