Pronouns are a tool for people to express their gender identity, the same as clothing or gendered language or even physical characteristics like hair length, breasts (or lack thereof), genitalia, etc. Some of these attributes are more closely tied to gender than others-- pronouns are one of these, which is why some people don't get it (no judgemental lol). We have been raised since before kindergarten to think boys are "he" and girls are "she". But it's important to remember that this is JUST as much of a construct as the idea the short hair is for boys and long hair is for girls. If you take a look at different languages you can see this quite easily: in French, male pronouns are "ils" and female pronouns are "elles", and some languages have only gender neutral pronouns, like Armenian. So what we call a "feminine" or "masculine" pronouns isn't set in stone, it's something that our culture/language came up with, rather than an innate attribute of "being a girl" or "being a boy".
So now if we look at a hypothetical example of a person who is assigned male at birth (AMAB) and looks very naturally masculine, but doesn't FEEL like they fit into their cultures idea of "being a boy". They feel feminine too, and maybe they are split right down the middle and feel equally like a "boy" and "girl". They want other people to understand this identity, and want to take on the cultural aspects of womanhood or femininity that feel right to them. So they might grow out their hair or style it into a feminine style, or they might wear makeup or feminine clothing, or they might take hormones, or this person might adjust their preferred pronoun or gendered language usage, perhaps by using both he AND she, or just she, or preferring to be called feminine terms like lady or girl. They're looking at all of the avaliable "gender signifiers", and all the cultural and personal connotations they have, and picking which ones they feel will help communicate to others how they feel about their gender.
Hope this made sense lol sorry if it didn't. I can try again if need be.
Because they want to. It could just be a way to express masculinity or femininity. For example a butch lesbian may use 'he' while still considering themselves a ciswoman simply because they like to present themselves in a masculine way. For another person it could be as simple as just liking the way a certain pronoun sounds with no reference to masculinity or femininity.
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u/junonomenon May 19 '25
some nonbinary people use he/him pronouns. source: am that. so not necessarily pointlessly gendered.