When (& How) to Ask About Pronouns:

A Shy Enby’s Guide for Cis & Trans People

One of Target’s pronoun pins from last summer.

When should you ask a new person what their pronouns are? Should a group start with a “pronoun circle”, in which every person is expected to offer their pronouns up? Should you only ask people who look trans (whatever that means), or should you ask all people? Should you just call everybody “they” all the time unless told otherwise? Should you ask for pronouns directly, or just state what your pronouns are and give the other person the opportunity to do the same?

In a variety of settings, I’ve encountered versions these questions. They come up in activist spaces, university settings, play rehearsals, and even private gatherings. And it’s no wonder. Navigating this stuff is complicated. And if someone is, at their core, accepting of trans people, they usually want to get the pronoun thing right.

But no strategy for getting it right is always going to work. Every conversation about pronouns is happening in its own unique context, with parties who have their own unique relationships to gender and gendered language. And sometimes, the specifics of the context or the person being spoken to are such that pronouns should not be discussed at all. Put another way, a conversation about pronouns is only appropriate if a few preconditions have already been met. Here’s what a…