“It” as a personal pronoun

[Sidestep]

Seeking advice. 
 

The young (pre-teen) child of one of my friends identifies as non-binary. And good for them, I say. However, they have recently started saying that although they usually use “they” as a pronoun, they sometimes feel like an “it”, and would like us to refer to them as such. There has already been at least one occasion when they have said that they felt like an “it” that day, and would like us to refer to them that way. 
 

When I asked them why they wanted to be called “it”, and whether it meant that they didn’t feel like a person, they said that they did feel like a person, they just felt like “it” was the right pronoun. They also said that although they sometimes feel male or female or both they sometimes don’t feel like any gender at all, and I can’t help but feel that associating non-gendered-ness with an “it” pronoun is incredibly dehumanising to genderless people. Being gendered is not the same thing as being a person. 

 

The prospect of referring to a child as “it” (even at their own request) makes me feel incredibly uncomfortable, and I think I’ve been able to lay down the main reasons, in no particular order:

 

1. It’s inaccurate. If you’re not stating that you feel like you’re not a person (and whether a sentient being can be not a person is another debate), then using “it” as a pronoun is just inaccurate. It’s like saying that you’re a cat, and you want to be referred to as a cat instead of a human. I feel like this is the weakest of he arguments, though, since transphobes might also say that referring to a trans-person by their correct gender is also inaccurate (although this is slightly different, because when a trans-woman says that their pronouns is are she/her, they are saying that they are a woman, whereas when the child says their pronouns are it/its they are not trying to say that they are not a person).  
 

2. It’s dangerous to them. The words people associate you with matter. That’s part of why it’s important to use people’s correct pronouns - because using a trans-person’s correct pronouns helps you to think of them as being the correct gender. Inviting people to associate the thought of you with non-personhood, to think of you as not being a person, feels dangerous. As an adult in this child’s life, I feel it would be negligent of me to let myself or others think of them like that. 
 

3. It’s dangerous to other trans and non-binary people. In the past trans and non-binary people have been dehumanised by being referred to as “it”. Encouraging the idea that non-binary people might not have personhood seems overall detrimental to the mission to get people who don’t understand to treat trans and non-binary people as people. 
 

However, they say that there are plenty of people who prefer “it” as a pronoun, and that if that’s what they feel most comfortable with, I don’t need to understand it, I just need to respect it. 
 

Has anyone ever met someone who uses “it/its” as their pronouns? Do you think my reasons for not wanting to refer to them as an “it” are legitimate? Does anyone know of any resources about why “it” is an acceptable pronoun, so I can understand, or why it’s not, so I can help them to understand? Any insight is appreciated. 

[Sidestep]

As an addendum, because of the accuracy thing, the harm of refusing to call them “it” seems less like the harm of misgendering and more like that “harm” of refusing to let a child change their name to “Poophead”. Since they’re not claiming non-personhood, it’s rejecting a word, not an identity. 

[Snao Cone]

I've casually seen people indicate that in profiles. I think a conversation with the kid about why it's seen as dehumanizing might lead to a change in mind. Otherwise you may have to wait for this to come as part of an overall maturing process. 

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[Rynn]

I have not met anyone in person who uses 'it', but I've seen people put that in their preferred pronoun box online before. I always thought it was some sort of a joke.

 

Calling people 'it' doesn't sit right with me either. I don't think I could do it if someone asked me to refer to them that way. It does feel dehumanising. There are trans people who've been called 'it' before and generally it doesn't come with good intentions, at all. I'd be afraid of hurting them even more inadvertently.

 

As a side note, I'm not sure how I feel about calling animals 'it' either. An animal isn't an object. But that's just how English works I guess. I don't think any other language that I know refers to animals as 'it'. I mean not even Mandarin Chinese, in which the word for 'animal' literally means 'moving thing' uses 'it' for animals.

[letusdeleteouraccounts]

My friend, who (previously?) identified as a trans man, recently came out to our friend group as wanting to use “it” pronouns. I hate the thought of dehumanizing someone in that type of way but I guess as long as it’s not in a negative context that the person is asking me to do this in. It simply just said to us that it doesn’t feel human. Species definitely isn’t a fluid or not explicitly clear thing like gender might be but I’ll respect this person’s feelings about not being a person and I’ll use its pronouns because it’s just feels like common decency if this is something it truly believes, identity wise. I also believe that just because it identifies as non-human doesn’t mean we have the right to treat it worse than a human. 

I’m making a discord server though and I plan on inviting it and my other friends. I have a thing where people select he/him, she/her, or they/them pronouns to help in conversations but I don’t like the thought of adding “it” or neopronouns to that list. I don’t know, I might make it so people can ask for pronouns like that if they feel like they need it

[Snao Cone]

I personally see "it" in the same way as other posters here, but I'm wondering if there is a reclamation in progress with some of the people who prefer it - to remove the dehumanization by adopting it voluntarily. People should definitely understand why it's perceived as negative, but they may choose to use it anyway with ultimately positive intentions. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

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[Snao Cone]

Just now, tony the trans man said:

All this is true when it comes to adults, but in the case of literal children, I worry that they wouldn't truly grasp the implications and consequences of adopting dehumanising language in society. Normalising this during a child's formative years could be dangerous. They/them would be the best way forward, I reckon. Androgynous, not indicative of maleness or femaleness, and more likely to be embraced by child peers.

Yeah, I think that's the lesson to teach this kid, but they might find solidarity among peers with a similar view of "it". They absolutely need to know the risks of disrespect and dehumanizing others and be aware of that when interacting (both with binary and enby people). But the word "queer" has basically been reclaimed within a generation, so I'm thinking of it in those terms. These are all loaded terms that everyone should understand and use with caution. (Generally with pronouns I think everyone should be somewhat comfortable or lenient with they/them being used in place of whatever they use, but more out of maintaining respectful dialogue than correctness.)

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[Sidestep]

2 minutes ago, tony the trans man said:

It's the strongest of arguments, tbh. There is a reason that people are transgender, both binary and non-binary. I believe being transgender comes from your brain and your soul, and science affirms at least the former. (Whether transphobes like it or not.) Most studies are binary-centric unfortunately, though I am 100% certain non-binary dysphoria would also be legitimised by science if investigators took the time to broarden their scope. Thing is though, science and nitpicking aside, gender diversity is naturally occurring and unavoidable. We don't need to dig any deeper into the "causes" of transgenderism to believe the plentiful anecdotal evidence that generations upon generations of trans people have exhibited. A transgender woman is a woman, in her heart. To compare that to being non-human or being an animal-identifying human being... That makes me very uncomfortable. 

I hadn’t thought about how being accepting of identities that seem illogical (such as identifying as non-human) would be dismissive of transgender concerns. Thank you for bringing this to my attention 

[letusdeleteouraccounts]

11 minutes ago, tony the trans man said:

While I agree with the good and humane intent of your comment, I think it's dangerous to normalise dehumanising speech, for all the reasons that OP listed. I'm massively upset by dehumanising language being used towards transgender people, so I'm probably biased here, but like... how on Earth can a human being identify as being non-human? Should we really be normalising this? Especially when it comes to children, who are so vulnerable?

I didn’t even see the part about the person being a child (my own friend that I was speaking of is 18). I don’t think it’s as simple as saying you can’t use these pronouns until you’re 18 though, but I don’t the solution to this whole thing. My mind is too cloudy right now to think about it. I do, however, agree that you have to be careful of not using the language of transphobes and homophobes, even for a topic such as this one. We should keep an open mind and look at all sides of the topic

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[Sidestep]

21 minutes ago, Star Lion said:

My friend, who (previously?) identified as a trans man, recently came out to our friend group as wanting to use “it” pronouns. I hate the thought of dehumanizing someone in that type of way but I guess as long as it’s not in a negative context that the person is asking me to do this in. It simply just said to us that it doesn’t feel human. Species definitely isn’t a fluid or not explicitly clear thing like gender might be but I’ll respect this person’s feelings about not being a person and I’ll use its pronouns because it’s just feels like common decency if this is something it truly believes, identity wise. I also believe that just because it identifies as non-human doesn’t mean we have the right to treat it worse than a human. 

Thank you for your reply. It’s good to hear about this from someone who knows someone who uses it as their pronoun. But I don’t think I quite understand. As I understand English, being a person isn’t the same as being a human. It’s more to do with being sentient. If we discovered talking, self-aware animals, like in movies like Zootopia, they would be people. If AIs reach singularity, they will be people. If we discover sentient alien life, they would also be people. It is by virtue of being people that all these theoretical beings should be treated as equals. Similarly, if a being is not a person, that means they’re not sentient, and therefore we should not have the same concerns for them. We may still consider their wellbeing, such as with animal rights, but it’s not the same. 
 

Is there a different usage of “person” that I’m not aware of such that it makes sense to treat non-persons as equal to persons?

 

(I agree that if someone identifies as an it, we should still treat them with the respect we would a person, I just don’t see how their self-identification could possibly be accurate, perhaps unless they are comatose).

[Sidestep]

Thanks to everyone else who has replied so far, too. 

[letusdeleteouraccounts]

@Abaculus

You’re probably right; I wasn’t thinking that deep into it and therefore was using person and human interchangeably

[Salmakia]

16 minutes ago, Abaculus said:

Is there a different usage of “person” that I’m not aware of such that it makes sense to treat non-persons as equal to persons?

Not that I'm aware of. But as we all know, persons certainly have a historical tendency to treat other persons as lesser than themselves. Persons aren't always the greatest. So I can understand how someone might have the urge to exist outside of person-hood. I'm not saying that's what individuals are doing when they adopt the pronoun "it," but it's something to consider, that persons aren't necessarily the epitome of existence. 

[Sidestep]

17 minutes ago, Salmakia said:

Not that I'm aware of. But as we all know, persons certainly have a historical tendency to treat other persons as lesser than themselves. Persons aren't always the greatest. So I can understand how someone might have the urge to exist outside of person-hood. I'm not saying that's what individuals are doing when they adopt the pronoun "it," but it's something to consider, that persons aren't necessarily the epitome of existence. 

This is the best argument I’ve heard so far for claiming non-personhood, but I still think there are a few problems with trying to distance yourself from personhood for this reason:

 

1. There is nothing inherent in personhood which says that one must have a tendency to treat other people poorly. He have historical evidence which shows that human people are particularly bad at being decent to one another, but that doesn’t seem like a reason to reject personhood in general. 
 

2. Trying to distance yourself from personhood denies the possibility that you are flawed in the same way. Lots of people have done lots of horrible things to other people in the past. What they did was wrong and harmful, but I find it hard to believe that all people who lived in those eras and did such harmful things were completely deplorable people. Rather, it seems more likely that they were people much like those that are around today: mostly decent, but capable of doing awful things because of social norms, ignorance, because authority figures tell them it’s okay, or just because doing otherwise is too difficult (although of course, there are some people today who are completely deplorable, and I’m sure such people were around in the past, too). If we want to do better, we need to acknowledge that we as human people are vulnerable to such things influencing them to treat others badly, so that we may be more aware of such things happening. 
 

Still, it’s interesting to think in the abstract about whether it’s possible that there could be non-persons who are different to people but equal in deserved concern, and superior in capacity. 

[Snao Cone]

36 minutes ago, tony the trans man said:

That's very open-minded of you. I don't think "queer" at all compares to the conversational assertion that you are an inanimate object. Thereby implying to uneducated cisgender people you come across that other transgender people are also objects to be addressed as such.

I get why this is a concern, and it's absolutely valid, with a lot of logic and context to make it clear. People should understand what these words mean to other people and respect that.

[LeChat]

I remember there was a thread, from at least a year ago, where someone else asked about what others thought of them or someone they knew, using "it" as a pronoun; I tried looking for it and couldn't find it, but I remember that in that thread, most responses were where others also mentioned not feeling comfortable using that for all the reasons others already mentioned here.

 

I've seen a couple of online forum profiles have "it" as their pronoun, but, usually, they also included other options, as well, like "they" or "she." Otherwise, it doesn't seem to be very common. It is interesting, though, that others mentioned that it could possibly be a reclaimed word, for some; it could be possible that that's what some of the younger generation are trying to do.

 

I agree with what others wrote; personally, "it" as a pronoun seems dehumanizing, to me, especially because I'd been called a "that," as a teen, when a couple of young adults were laughing because they were confused by my appearance and gossiping about what my sex might be.

 

You're right; this is a tricky subject to talk about to a child. I like the idea of talking to them about how "it" is seen as an offensive slur that has been used against trans people. Also, does the pre-teen know that they could have others use their name as a pronoun, instead, if they don't like the other pronoun options?

 

From https://uwm.edu/lgbtrc/support/gender-pronouns/

Quote

...Just my name please! (Ash ate Ash’s food because Ash was hungry) Some people prefer not to use pronouns at all, using their name as a pronoun instead.

 

Never refer to a person as “it” or “he-she”. These are offensive slurs used against trans and gender non-conforming individuals.

 

[Sidestep]

3 minutes ago, LeChat said:

Also, does the pre-teen know that they could have others use their name as a pronoun, instead, if they don't like the other pronoun options?

 

From https://uwm.edu/lgbtrc/support/gender-pronouns/

Thank you for this suggestion! Hopefully if they don’t feel like a “they” at any point they will be okay with their name being used. They did emphasise to me that no matter what pronoun they used they were still a person and still themselves.

 

I think in general they need some more guidance about how language can be safely used around LGBTQIA+ issues, and what language can feed into bigoted narratives. For example, they also said that they used to be gay. When I questioned them about this, they confirmed that they hadn’t changed, but rather the label they applied to themselves had changed as a result of them gaining a greater understanding of what labels are available and how they themselves are. They didn’t quite seem to understand that saying things like “I used to be gay” could further the idea that abominations like gay conversion therapy could be effective. 
 

I worry for them. Children (and supposedly responsible adults) can be cruel, and they’ve already faced bigotry. I want to arm them with the best language to defend themselves and their identity. 

[matt_lock]

I don't use 'it' as a pronoun myself, and do consider it dehumanizing.

 

However, IIRC, some people use it for themselves, finding it empowering to use the same pronoun one would use for the sun or stars or whatever. Additionally, voidpunk is a concept that some people embrace - discarding the label of human and going 'so what'? (links: https://lgbta.wikia.org/wiki/Voidpunk , https://arotaro.tumblr.com/post/181222514101/what-is-voidpunk )

 

My suggestion would be to explain that yes, using the pronoun 'it' can be harmful, explain why, and allow them to make an educated choice in the matter. If the kid has done so/does so, you should use whatever pronouns are desired after making that choice. If said pronoun is 'it' some of the time, go with it. Yes, maybe you know better than this kid. But maybe this might be adult man's burden ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Man's_Burden ), and they know better than you.

 

faux edit: found a place where someone talks about why it uses the pronoun it for itself:  https://archiveofourown.org/comments/278025178

(wow, that was uncomfortable to write)

[bug.]

Well- I go by She/It.

Why do i got by it? Its because its what makes ME comfortable. Some days i dont feel very 'human' like, almost like im supposed to be something other then my body. But, somedays i feel like a Female which is why i still do allow she pronouns during those times.

-- Its hard for people like me that go by It/Its pronouns to hear that people are deliberately using non-preferred pronouns that make us feel invalid.

It/Its pronouns are a thing and need to be treated respectfully. 

[cviii]

Another it/its user here! This response is gonna be in two parts: the reasons I like that pronoun set, and the limits on when and where I use it.

 

Mainly, I like it/its pronouns because they're the only ones that ever gave me a feeling like gender euphoria when they were used. It feels right to be referred to in that way, something that no other pronoun set entirely does for me. I don't know why this is; maybe because most nonbinary characters in media are robots or aliens and I'm trying to relate to them, maybe just because I've always enjoyed playing with the limits of language and this is a way to show that as part of who I am. Ultimately, what matters is that it doesn't bother me to be referred to by it/its; in fact, it feels right.

 

That doesn't mean that I don't understand how uncomfortable this can make others, or how those pronouns can be abused. That's why I continue to introduce myself with they/them, even after realizing what pronoun set I prefer. Only three people I know IRL know I use it/its pronouns, and none of us will use those pronouns for me if anyone else will hear. The last thing we want to do is to normalize using it/its for anyone who hasn't asked you to. I also use it/its in anonymous-ish online spaces, because as we all know, sense of privacy and the internet crisscross in odd ways.

 

In short, my position is that any pronouns are healthy if you've been asked by a person to refer to them as such. However, since in the case of it/its pronouns many people will find ways to be cruel, I find it best to use discretion about my comfort with those pronouns when in public. I hope this is at all helpful in understanding, at the very least, the thought I've put into using it/its pronouns!

[Oberon Jasper]

I've talked about this a couple times and while I prefer he/him or they/them to it/its I keep it more as something I use for myself that I don't care if others use for me. I usually only mention it online because I understand the discomfort and history with it. I know most people won't use it for me and I'm okay with that, but it's still a part of me. For me I use it as a way to calm myself down. It helps me see myself as an entity over a person subject to the human flaws and makes me feel almost transcendent til I can calm myself down and be okay with accepting myself as part of the human experience. It's not something I expect people to use comfortably or for it to be normalized... it just is a pronoun set that I use for myself and don't care if others do as well.

 

I'm open to discussion about it because I get it's a heavy and many faced topic so feel free to discuss this with me.

[Margot jane]

one of my good friends uses they/it prounouns im not sure if they would like me to use them in front of just anyone i am on here to better understand what they feel about those and why they chose those prounouns.

[Koriander]

I won't interact with anyone who uses that as a pronoun bc it was used to dehumanize me by a transphobe for a long period and it was used so often to hurt me that got to the point it was traumatising and it makes me feel very uncomfortable. if people decide to reclaim it's their business but i won't be interacting with anyone who uses something casually that was used to dehumanize me. i'm not an "it" i'm a person... not a thing.