The Pro Tips about Pronouns: Understanding and Improving They/Them Use

There’s a lot of misunderstanding about the use of gender-neutral pronouns they/them in the workplace and in the world. Many people in your organization or in your life, especially younger people, would be feeling a lot more inclusion if people used these pronouns correctly. In this episode, Michael Baran delves into the many ways that people are messing up – by ignoring people’s identities, by debating the grammar of it (or some other devil’s advocate position), by rolling eyes or pausing before using those pronouns, as if to communicate something about it not being “normal.” Michael also provides straightforward and actionable tips, for using the pronouns correctly and for sharing your pronouns as a simple act of allyship.

Have you struggled to understand why people share pronouns or what it means to use they/them pronouns? Have you noticed people making others feel uncomfortable by not using their pronouns naturally? What is behind all of this, and what can we do about it?

In this episode of The Culture Advantage, host Michael Baran explains multiple encounters with people messing up on they/them gender pronouns as he would mention that the co-author of his book used those gender-neutral pronouns. He started to wonder whether it was just really hard for people to make their brains do that work if they weren’t used to it. But then he describes a situation in which a swim team coach used gender neutral pronouns perfectly! And it wasn’t because they had a lot of practice; it was because they were announcing a big award and wanted to keep the winner a surprise. 

Michael gives some immediately actionable tips that everyone can follow: (1) use they/them pronouns naturally, without any extra eye rolls or tone changes; (2) give context if you think people need it;(3) understand that this use of they/them as singular has been around since the 1300s, according to Merriam-Webster; (4) speak up, even if it doesn’t affect you directly; (5) understand that using the pronouns that people want to be called does not threaten your own worldview; (6) don’t debate with people or play devil’s advocate, as they have thought long and hard about their identity; and (7) know that you will mess up sometimes and that the key is correcting it and moving on.

This episode will be useful for everyone, with tips that will be used both in and out of work. The lessons in the episode are especially important for those trying to build cultures of inclusion in their workplaces. Intentional attention to detail and to practice around these issues is vital to ensure that the many nonbinary people in your organization (and other LGBTQIA+ people as well) feel their best and can do their best at your organization.

Transcript

The Pro Tips about Pronouns: Understanding and Improving They/Them Use

Is your company struggling, navigating through high turnover, toxic leadership, or a culture that's holding your team back from reaching its full potential? Well, you're not alone. So here's your host and guide, Michael Baran.

Michael Baran: Hello everyone. I wanna start out today's episode with a story, this story that happened to me. So picture this. We are sitting in a large banquet hall eating fried chicken. This is the end of the year swim meat banquet for my kids. Right. This happened a few years ago, and so we're eating dinner.

There's probably about a hundred kids on this big swim team, eating dinner, moving on to dessert. And while we're [00:01:00] doing this, the coaches are giving out different kinds of awards, right? The final two awards came up. Eventually, they were gonna go to the swimmers, you know, who had excelled in their races and who had just been the best sports and the kindest and the most helpful.

No one knew who this was gonna be, and it's kind of a big deal for this team. So when the coaches were up there and they started describing who was gonna win these awards, I was completely blown away. Not because they picked my children as the winners. They're great swimmers. They just don't regularly win swimming awards like that.

I was blown away for another reason, for their use of gender pronouns. Why was I so surprised? And to explain that we kind of need to back up a little bit. So for the months leading up to the banquet, I had been co-writing a book with a friend [00:02:00] and fellow culture consultant, Dr. Tiffany, Jana.

Tiffany and I had known each other for a long time. And so Tiffany, when I first got to know them. Identified using she her pronouns and then they came out as using they them pronouns. So I had to get used to using they them pronouns for Tiffany. And as I was talking about the book that I was writing, lots of people wanted to know more about it, like.

Tell me more about your co-author. And so I ended up finding that I would have to contextualize talking about Tiffany by just saying something like, okay, yeah, Tiffany uses they them pronouns. So you're gonna hear me use those pronouns talking about them. I, realized quite quickly that this led to a bunch of conversations, before we even got to talking about the book, right?

I noticed that people that I kind of would've expected to just [00:03:00] say, oh, great. Okay, tell me more about the book. They didn't. Right. So they would maybe have questions about that. How does that work? Maybe they were open about that. Maybe they would kind of say, yeah, I get why people should be able to identify however they want, but it just doesn't make sense to me to use a plural pronoun for one person.

And so we'd get into some conversations. Sometimes those conversations got heated. Sometimes people would accept that, but they would not use they them pronouns. When they talked about Tiffany, they just kept going back to using she her pronouns, even though I already told them. That's how Tiffany identified.

Sometimes people would use they them pronouns, but they do this sort of extra meta communication about it. They'd sort of [00:04:00] pause a little before they did it, or they'd do some sort of eye roll or a little inflection in their voice as if they were kind of implicitly communicating like, I know this is not normal.

All those conversations were really interesting. There were very few where people just said, okay, cool, and use those pronouns correctly. So it was kind of fascinating 'cause I didn't necessarily expect that. I expected people might struggle sometimes, right? I struggled sometimes. It didn't necessarily roll off the tongue for me at first until I got used to it.

And so I started wondering like, is this just kind of too hard for people? What's going on here? Okay. Back to the swim banquet. What blew me away with the way the coaches were giving out the final two awards were that they wanted to keep the person that was gonna get the award a [00:05:00] complete surprise until they said the name as the very last thing.

They even wanted to keep the gender of the person a surprise. And so the coaches were saying stuff like, this award is gonna go to the person who was the fastest, you know, 50 meter freestyler. They were always such a pleasure to have around the pool. They always helped out the little kids. They were the, you know, the fastest in this race, in that race.

And they were using they them pronouns to talk about a single person perfectly easily. They had no challenges with it. Right? And so that got me realizing that maybe what we've got going on here with people's struggles. It is not a grammar problem. It's not a, can our brain do this kind of problem? It's more of a problem related to gender and worldview, and should we be doing this?

And so I [00:06:00] wanna talk about that because I know in all the workshops that I do, in the keynote talks that I do, I know people have a lot of questions about pronouns. A lot of people don't quite understand what it means to use they, them pronouns. A lot of people don't even under quite understand how it fits into LGBTQIA plus identity at all, right?

Sometimes people don't even know what those letters mean. When I say lgbtqiaa, that is the subject for another podcast. This one, I just, I really wanna focus on pronouns. Now they, them. Right is the most common gender neutral pronoun. So what that means is maybe somebody doesn't. Feel male or female, they just feel like a person or maybe they feel sometimes male, sometimes female.[00:07:00] 

Maybe they feel, both at the same time. All right, so this is a gender neutral way that you would like people to refer to you because that's how you feel. Right. So why does this matter for organizations? This is part of creating that culture of inclusion where people, all people feel valued, where all people feel respected and seen, and this kind of thing really matters and it's really common.

Especially for younger generations, there's research showing that in high schools with this young generation, 25% of people are identifying as LGBTQIA plus. Okay? That doesn't mean they're all using they them pronouns. But a lot are, it doesn't also mean that sometimes people aren't using a mix of pronouns.

She, her or [00:08:00] they them. That happens as well. So anyways, if you have a large organization, you've got people using those pronouns and in order to make them feel seen, we've gotta figure out how to. Use them in a way that is not making people uncomfortable. It is building it into the culture and just using those pronouns like they're normal and natural because they are.

So here are some quick tips first, and these are kind of individual tips. If you're gonna use they them pronouns, just do it naturally and normally, just like you would with any other pronoun. Anything else? Any sort of eye rolling or pausing or change of your, the tone of your voice is signaling something.

That would not be wanted. Something like, well, I'll say this, but I don't agree with it, or, this is [00:09:00] making me uncomfortable, or This is not normal. Don't do that. Okay? There's no need to do it. Don't do it. If you need inspiration. Maybe you've seen the show Billions. It's a TV show on Showtime and there is a character, one of the main characters who uses they them pronouns.

And I love the way the show just does it and doesn't comment even on it very much. They just use the pronouns. They show everyone using the pronouns. It's great. If you need an example of how to do it, take a look at that show now. If you're worried that you won't, that you're gonna use they them pronouns.

'cause you know, a person identifies like that, but you're worried that the person you're talking to isn't gonna get it. Like, isn't gonna know that you're not talking about a group of people or plural. You just give them a little context like I did when I talked about Tiffany. Hey, when I mentioned this person, I'm going to be using they them pronouns 'cause that's how they identify.

And then continue on with what you're saying. If [00:10:00] people are trying to tell you it doesn't make sense grammatically, you can tell them, right? You can talk about my swim banquet example. You can tell them that it is in the Miriam Webster dictionary, a definition of they as a gender non-binary pronoun. And you can tell 'em that Miriam Webster notes that this way of using they, them in a singular form has been around since the 13 hundreds.

Okay, this is not necessarily new. Now, also, even if you don't identify using they, them pronouns, right? You can still speak up when someone gets it wrong about someone else. Okay. That's just good allyship behavior. It's not, they're not talking about you. Right. Just like if someone was talking about Tiffany to me and they weren't using they, them pronouns, I would just remind them.

Right. Also, I. If you find yourself uncomfortable because you're really struggling [00:11:00] with this worldview, maybe because of religion or other reasons, you're really struggling with what that means, you can still call people what they want to be called. That's just kindness. It doesn't have to match your worldview.

Okay. Accepting people, calling them what they wanna be called. You would do that if they had a name and then they gave you a nickname that they preferred, you would use that. So just use this pronoun and it makes people feel like you see them and you value them. And then you can do some work about your own discomfort also.

These pronouns are really meaningful for people. They have thought long and hard about it, and it matters deeply to them. There is no place for debating with them about it. Playing devil's advocate. There's no place for that, [00:12:00] right? Just accept, okay? And also recognize you're gonna mess up. Right. It's not about being perfect all the time.

You just commit to trying to working on that muscle. You'll get better at it if you do it. I promise. When you mess up, just get it right and move on. Don't overly apologize. What happens when you overly apologize? Well, then you make that person have to take care of you, right? So just get it right. And move on.

Now you're gonna notice if you're not familiar with this kind of thing, you're gonna notice that people are using pronouns on their email signatures. You're gonna notice that they're using them on their, you know, their Zoom or their teams handles their, when they introduce themselves, sometimes I.

This is a really [00:13:00] great practice. Even if people don't mess up your pronouns, right? Like me, if you're watching this video, you can see what I look like. People never get my gender pronouns wrong. I look male. I identify as male. I use he, him pronouns. Nobody gets it wrong. Right, but I still put them on my email signature, on my Zoom handles.

Why do I do that? It takes the stigma out of it, right? It makes it just a practice that we all do. And then if you're someone who people do get your pronouns wrong for whatever reason, it doesn't feel like extra pressure like you're being put on the spot, like you're asking people to do something. That's a burden, right?

To pay attention to your pronouns. It just normalizes the whole practice, and it's really good ally behavior, even if [00:14:00] it's not something that affects you personally. So if you are looking for something you can practice or do this week, there's one thing that I recommend is start using your pronouns. If you're not already, put it on your email signature.

Put it in your name When you log, on to a Zoom or team's call, right? Introduce yourself using the pronouns. You can just say. Hey, my name is Michael. Identify with he him pronouns, and then whatever other introduction you wanna give. So that's one action you could take this week that I think would be really helpful.

What else? Notice other people doing it right, look out for they, them gender pronouns. If people are using them, they're not the only version of a gender neutral pronoun. It's just the most common. Okay. Thank you for listening, and I will talk to you soon. Have a great week.

[00:15:00] So that's it for today's episode and the Culture Advantage Podcast. Head on over Apple Podcast iTunes or wherever you listen and subscribe to the show. One lucky listener. Every single week that posts review on Apple Podcasts or iTunes, we'll win a chance in the grand prize drawing to win a $25,000.

Private VIP day with Michael himself. Be sure to head on over to culture advantage podcast.com and pick up a free copy of Michael's gift and join us on the next episode.