From this trans mouth to all cis ears, we wouldn’t still be explaining pronoun usage if the general conversation about transness were up to us. If it were, there would be much more mainstream discussion about our community’s ability to access affordable housing, health care, and the ongoing legislative onslaught against trans youth. Nevertheless, since pronouns are still a point of confusion for so many (including in the LGBTQ+ community), we’re here to address one of the main lingering wrinkles of this subject: folks, like me (hi! she/they), who use multiple sets of pronouns.
Those of us who go by more than a single set of pronouns — whether she/they, they/he, or she/xe, for instance — often face a number of questions when introducing ourselves: But which should I use? Seriously, though, do you have a preference? Am I supposed to use them all at once? For starters, lots of folks who use multiple sets of pronouns are fine with them being used interchangeably, though not all. Gently asking if someone uses one set in particular contexts versus another is usually better than assuming. Some folks may even feel affirmed through using multiple sets simultaneously — i.e. “he/they went to the store.” Though since this latter example is a less common preference, it's probably safest to ask in advance if this approach feels good. Whatever answer you get, don't press folks if it's not totally clear to you — the reasons one uses one set versus another in certain situations can be personal, and sometimes we just don’t feel like getting into all that.
Before we get too deep into these questions, it’s essential to illuminate why someone would use more than one set of pronouns to describe themself. (Some folks, it should be noted, do not use pronouns at all and instead go by only their name; call them that.)
As for me, I do so to acknowledge the fact that my gender as a non-binary person cannot be reduced to being “a they.” In fact, it can’t be contained in any single word. The point isn’t that it can be contained in two words — she and they. Rather, in the murk of asking that folks shift between the two, I resist linguistic structures that prioritize classification and stability over expression and fluidity. I become a queer little problem for anyone — indeed any system — aiming to absorb the rupture wrought by non-binaryness by casting it as a third gender. This is all to say I locate my identity less within the pronouns she/they, and more through the conjunction that joins them: not or, but and. And affords an openness to multiplicity, to those changes upon changes that construct our ever-forming selves.
There are as many reasons for using multiple pronouns sets as there are binary-busting beauties who go by them. With that in mind, we knew that no conversation on the subject could come from one mind alone. So we sought the perspectives of writers, artists, therapists, drag performers, models, chefs, sex workers, and poets, including Brandon Kyle Goodman (he/they), Lexi Chandra (she/they), J. Teodoro (he/they), Summer Bedard (she/he), Kamil Oshundara (they/she), Christopher Ikonomou (he/xe), Bobby Sanchez (he/she/they), Silas Perry (he/they), Alex Jenny (they/she), and Chala Tyson Tshitundu (they/he).