Learning about they and them

Sam Smith - The offspring of one of my nieces has decided to become her daughter rather than her son. As she put it on Facebook: "Pride month is coming up soon. I wanted to share a truth about me. I am a trans woman. I am changing my name ... please refer to me as such or by she/her and they/them pronouns."

I respect her choice and admire her courage, but must confess that, as a writer, I had failed to come to terms yet with using a pronoun like "they" for  sole individuals.  So I checked it out online with Merriam-Webster and found they had already faced this. (Note, for example, my use of "they" in the previous sentence to describe a singular corporation).

Here are several of their definitions

a —used with a singular indefinite pronoun antecedent

No one has to go if they don't want to.

Everyone knew where they stood …— E. L. Doctorow

b —used with a singular antecedent to refer to an unknown or unspecified person

An employee with a grievance can file a complaint if they need to.

The person who answered the phone said they didn't know where she was.

 c —used to refer to a single person whose gender is intentionally not revealed

A student was found with a knife and a BB gun in their backpack Monday, district spokeswoman Renee Murphy confirmed.

The student, whose name has not been released, will be disciplined according to district policies, Murphy said. They also face charges from outside law enforcement, she said.— Olivia Krauth

d —used to refer to a single person whose gender identity is nonbinary (see nonbinary sense c)

 

 I knew certain things about … the person I was interviewing.… They had adopted their gender-neutral name a few years ago, when they began to consciously identify as nonbinary—that is, neither male nor female. They were in their late 20s, working as an event planner, applying to graduate school.— Amy Harmon

The use of they, their, them, and themselves as pronouns of indefinite gender and indefinite number is well established in speech and writing, even in literary and formal contexts. In recent years, these pronouns have also been adopted by individuals whose gender identity is nonbinary