A thematic analysis of attitudes towards English nonbinary pronouns

Abstract

The article provides a comprehensive overview of attitudes towards nonbinary pronouns, with the aim of better understanding why these pronouns are either accepted or rejected. Attitudes towards nonbinary they and the neopronouns ze and xe are explored with a thematic analysis of data derived from a larger online survey on pronouns (n = 1128). While the results demonstrate various polarized stances for both types of pronouns, the participants’ reactions highlight greater acceptance of and support for nonbinary they. In addition, the paper proposes that broader ideologies about gender are behind the participants’ overt reactions to nonbinary pronouns. Most notably, while some participants rejected the pronouns on the basis of a binary gender ideology, others viewed gender as a matter of self-identification, accepting any pronoun an individual chooses for themselves.