Why I Use Trans People’s Preferred Pronouns
Regardless of whether there will ever be any winners in the battle of the genders, I choose being kind over waging war.
Transgender civil rights are engulfed in a war of words—and a war over words.
First came the era of Peak Woke, when pronoun declarations became de rigueur in progressive circles and the very meanings of the words “male” and “female” were run through a postmodern nebulizer. Sex was now a spectrum and Ketanji Brown Jackson could only demur when asked to define the word “woman” during her Supreme Court confirmation hearing. “I’m not a biologist,” she protested. Meanwhile, actual biologists, most notably
and Carole Hooven, were summarily canceled for stating that sex is binary.Riding—and guiding—the pendulum of public sentiment as it swings furiously in the other direction, Donald Trump has unleashed a shock-and-awe counter-offensive against what he derides as “gender ideology.” Through a fusillade of executive orders, the president has sought to eradicate the very words used to characterize transgender identity throughout the federal government, schools, medical research, health care and sports. By fiat, sex is now binary and cannot be changed.
It was Hamlet who summed it up best when he said, “Words, words, words.”
As a reporter who has positioned himself within the sometimes lonely, circumspect spot between the fearsome factions warring over pediatric gender medicine, I am routinely subjected to slings and arrows from either side about my word choices.
Transgender activists and their allies excoriate me for using terms such a “gender-distressed child” instead of “trans child” or “gender-transition treatment” instead of “gender-affirming care.” They insist the words I employ are transphobic dog whistles, rather than purposefully neutral terms that don’t come pre-baked with any declarations about the wisdom of cross-sex hormone treatment or the essential nature of gender identity.
And from the no-less-determined opposing crowd—the gender-critical, trans-exclusionary radical feminist, or TERF, set—I am subjected to a ceaseless barrage of demands that I refer to transgender people only with the pronouns of their biological sex. Even in the sentence I just uttered, I have committed a grave offense; for the TERFs oppose the use of any qualifiers of a person’s sex, such as cisgender woman or biological male. To utter such adjectives, they say, is to validate a vast ideological project whose aims are anathema. There are only men and women and never the twain shall meet.
These determined factions—they are, simply put, the “woke left” on one side and the “woke right” on the other—are signature examples of the horseshoe theory of political polarities. Despite having opposite political goals, they share similar tactics. Both fixate on identity politics, are beholden to ideological purity tests, and engage in aggressive language policing to advance their cause in this wildly politicized battle of the genders.
But as much as the woke left claims I’m a shill for the gender critical crowd, and as much as the woke right is under the fanciful impression that they can work me as a puppet, I do not belong to, nor do I have any wish to belong to, any activist club.
I may write critically about pediatric gender medicine and the evidence base behind it. But that effort is distinct from my steadfast belief in treating people with basic human dignity.
That is why I call transgender women “she.” It is simply the kind thing to do.
Cue cynical sneering from the gender-critical crowd. For they subscribe to the slippery slope theory. As soon as we validate a biological male as female with a feminine pronoun, they say, this upends reality and flings open the door for men to invade women’s spaces.
I disagree.
Using a trans woman’s preferred pronouns need not amount to a sweeping philosophical declaration about whether sex can be changed and whether she should be permitted to undress in a woman’s locker room. Demanding so-called “right-sex pronouns” wrongly prioritizes ideological purity over kindness and turns every mention of a trans person into an act of war.
Here’s the thing: I don’t just believe, I know for a fact that sex is binary. Sex is defined by whether a person’s body is geared around producing the small or large gamete, regardless of whether the body is ever actually fertile. (Yes, even people with differences of sex development, formerly called intersex conditions, are one of either sex. And there is no third sex.) And I know that sex is unchangeable, just as I know that the surgery I underwent for testicular cancer three years ago didn’t reduce me to half a man. Trans people change their bodies to present as the opposite sex in an effort to make themselves feel more comfortable in their own skin.
It is far more important to me to honor a trans person’s preferred pronouns than to get hung up on any cognitive dissonance emanating from the subterranean conflict between their biological sex and their gender identity and presentation. Otherwise, you try looking at Buck Angel and calling him “she” and let me know what kind of cognitive dissonance you wind up grappling with.
Sadly, I’ve lost transgender friends due to my reporting about pediatric gender medicine. They think I am motivated by animus to cover the subject as I do. In one particularly distressing incident, I had the daughter of a family friend seek to eject me from her author mother’s book-launch party because she claimed my very presence made her trans friends unsafe. (I refused to leave.)
But I’ve also been fortunate enough to gain new trans friends thanks to my work in this field. Even as a gay man who had to reconcile with his sexuality during the height of the AIDS crisis and all the virulent homophobia of that era, these people have taught me new lessons about living authentically in the face of adversity.
I will never treat them with such disrespect as not to refer to them as they wish to be referred.
But I also believe it is important to listen to women and other feminists who are concerned about women’s safety in single-sex spaces and fairness in sports. Unlike with same-sex marriage, which posed no true imposition on heterosexuals, trans women’s needs in particular can indeed conflict with those of cisgender women in the context of bathrooms, locker rooms, prisons, domestic violence shelters and competitive athletics.
I believe these conflicts should be subjected to civil debate. But I disagree that my calling a trans woman “she” means I am foreclosing upon such debate, that I am dismissing the needs of women, or that am any less of a feminist myself.
Accusing people of misogyny who refer to a trans woman as “she” is as counterproductive as smearing anyone who raises concerns about pediatric gender medicine as a transphobe. Such invective doesn’t help anyone’s cause. It doesn’t help anyone reach consensus. It just causes a reactionary effect, driving people to dig in their heels, and can even radicalize people.
All this calls for compromise. It calls for dialogue and not invective. And it calls for choosing words carefully and conscientiously in an effort to turn down the heat in this woefully combustible debate.
I am an independent journalist, specializing in science and health care coverage. I contribute to The New York Times, The Guardian, NBC News and The New York Sun. I have also written for theWashington Post, The Atlantic and The Nation. Follow me on Twitter: @benryanwriter and Bluesky: @benryanwriter.bsky.social. Visit my website: benryan.net
I was looking forward to this piece because your comments on Twitter suggested (I thought) that it would contain a new and compelling argument for using preferred pronouns, but it feels like a bit of an anti climax. It's just the same old "be kind" line that we've heard a million times before. I'd hoped you would address the practical issue of preferred pronouns getting in the way of talking about the actual problem in many situations, ie; the reason *he* is excluded from the team is because *he is male*, which comes across very differently from *she* is excluded from the team because *she is trans* (especially to those not steeped in this issue). This is why pronouns matter in press reports and public discussions, we need to talk about the actual problem. Referring to your trans friends by their preferred pronouns is fine, do whatever you like, but that's a separate issue from accuracy in public discussions and in articles. Often preferred pronouns in the media serve to obscure the facts of a news story or issue and have nothing to do with courtesy. It's obviously up to you what pronouns you use in your own articles but I'd hoped you'd defend the choice with something more substantial than "I'm a nice, courteous guy, not like all you deranged terfs". Not your actual words obviously but it does come across as a bit insulting the idea that we're just being mean for the sake of it, rather than trying to shine a light on a real, practical problem. I do appreciate your work overall, which is I guess why I feel disappointed.
Respectfully, you're making an all-too-common, tragic mistake. You're framing "kindness" from the solipsistic, narcissistic viewpoint of the trans person—a POV from which the trans person is the only actual person with actual personhood, and everybody else is just scenery or NPCs who don't count.
Please, ask yourself whether you're being "kind" to everybody ELSE—especially children and English learners (whose command of fundamental boundaries WILL be compromised by the perpetual lack of clarity that's the main goal of these word games)...and/or Women themselves, especially those who've personally been traumatized by men in Their private intimate spaces and lives who were first and foremost emboldened by being "she/her"d by EVERYBODY in the media.
I think you'll find that there's a massive UNkindness that dominates here... once you snap back out of viewing everything through the eyes of exploitative narcissistic predators.
Please, also, ask yourself whether your "kindness" even counts as kindness at all, even to that one person!
Because remember, these are THIRD PERSON pronouns. Do you make a regular habit of using third-person pronouns for somebody you're directly interacting with? I'm guessing no... so... these pronoun choices don't even get the chance to have the superficial kindness you're positing here. But they definitely have ALL the unkindness for the most vulnerable persons around us.
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Finally.
Will you do the same thing for somebody whose preferred pronouns are fae/faer/faen, xi/zur/var, or ✨/💫/⚡️?
I feel safe assuming that's a hard no (where I would definitely want you to tell me if I'm wrong •________•)
but if those neopronouns are a hard no, then why isn't it the same hard no for opposite-sex pronouns—which are JUST AS RIDICULOUS, and far MORE harmful on the societal level?