Should you call anyone “it/its”?

Short answer: No. Long answer: Here’s a linguistically-minded trans woman’s candid commentary saying why not.

Short answer: No.

Longer answer: No, because English pronouns don’t work like that, and the social stigma for itting a person is highly undesirable.

(Itting isn’t in any dictionary I found, but I use the verb itting to mean “calling someone it/its”, in analogy with thouing, “calling someone thou/thee instead of ye/you”, like in “I thou thee, thou traitor!”.)

But who am I to judge? I’ll tell you who: Haley, a cisgender transsexual woman (Read my previous article if the phrase cisgender transsexual confuses you) who’s currently trying to get back on medical transition.

Descriptivism and sociolinguistics

I love languages. I speak Japanese and English at a native level and I’ve dabbled on many other languages. I especially love how native English speakers, each having their slightly different idiolect, have naturally coalesced to agree on how their mother tongue works without planning them out on spreadsheets and flowcharts and rulebooks, and yet, people smarter than I have written style guides, figured out the unspoken rules for adjective order, and mapped out many variances geographically and over time.

And that’s why I hate it when one group of native speakers decides that the way that another group speaks their native language is worse than theirs.

I hate that minority and/or indigenous languages like Ainu in Hokkaido, Hawaiian in Hawaii, Irish Gaelic and Welsh in the British Empire, and Breton in France, have been suppressed in favor of the majority language. This has also happened with ways of speaking better known as dialects—whether for linguistic or political reasons—like African American Vernacular English, and all languages in the People’s Republic of China’s claimed territory that aren’t Beijing Mandarin.

Crucially, this imposition gets applied from lower- to higher-class or lower- to higher-prestige dialects too. I hate that laymen have long complained that scientists and tradesmen don’t speak their language, even when, to these people and their peers, their precise jargon is exactly what gets their job done. You don’t need to know what type safety, phase and amplitude coding, or aperture are, but a programmer, radio signal technician, and camera engineer sure do, so that your smartphone works.

But wait! This is not to say that there’s no more socially acceptable ways of speaking, which often depends on the context. This is the aegis of sociolinguistics.

Politeness is one big part of that context. “You alright?” in the US is an expression of mild concern, but “Alright, mate?” in Scotland is just a way to say hi. “You must be tired!” in Japan to someone who just got off a long flight is an expression of empathy for the time and discomfort to get there, but “Man, you sure look tired!” in the US is a snarky insult for how disheveled and jetlagged you seem. (That’s not my personal experience, fortunately!)

And there are words that are deemed rude or harmful in one dialect but much less so in another: for example, Americans, never say “spaz” in the UK because that’s like their R-slur.

Politeness, harm, and clarity are sensitive to the consensus among native speakers regarding where to draw the line, often intuitively.

Let’s put that at the back of our mind as we establish the core point: There are no objectively good or bad ways of speaking. What is deemed “correct” or “appropriate” is determined by the intuition of native speakers. This is called linguistic descriptivism, and I’m sure we could all agree on this: you’re not lesser for speaking different, (or differently,) but you’ll still be consciously or automatically judged for the way you choose or don’t choose to speak.

Animacy and gender in the 3PS

Almost all English pronouns don’t change with animacy (i.e. whether the referent is perceived to be sapient) or gender. No matter who or what speaks or is being addressed, it’s always I/my/me, we/our/us, you/your/you, and they/their/them. The only exception is third-person singular: that is, when you’re talking about one person or thing that is neither the speaker nor the addressees.

Since grammatical gender doesn’t really exist in English (It hasn’t existed since Middle English.) unlike in, say, German or Russian, gender here is semantic. For example, the same word can be “he” or “she” by sense. Fill in the blank: “The student forgot _____ notebook.” You can’t pick his or her without further context. Is that particular “student” a he or a she?

And as of 2026, there’s a super strong and consistent consensus among English native speakers, which can be expressed as a simple 2-question flowchart.

Q1: Do you think that the referent is a non-sapient animal, a plant or fungus, an inanimate object, or an abstract concept that is not anthropomorphized?

• yes → it/its

• no → go to Q2

Q2: What gender do you think the referent is?

• man, male, or masculine → he/him

• woman, female, or feminine → she/her

• unimportant, unknown, or known to be nonbinary → they/them (and conjugate verbs as plural)

• hypothetical, or an example of people in general → one/one (old-fashioned; being replaced with you/you)

There are some weird edge cases, like how an organization of people is usually plural (a mass noun) in British English (“The committee are meeting today, but they’re divided in their opinions.”) but singular in American English (“The committee is meeting today, but it’s divided in its opinion.”). But when referring to one human, this is the overwhelming consensus.

And the consensus isn’t even a conscious decision! Even the transphobes who are committed to intentionally calling trans women he/him will often accidentally slip up and call us she/her before panicking and incorrecting themselves. The fact that they slip up only when speaking fluidly exposes that choosing a pronoun is an automatic decision.

Once again, I must interject: language isn’t objectively “right” or “wrong”, but speakers still expect and enforce norms for politeness, harm, and clarity. Having these shared norms is a fundamental part of speaking the same language, or feeling like you speak the same language. This third-person singular pronoun decision tree is one such norm, specifically for clarity.

The ethics of itting

I want to linger here a bit to belabor a point: it/its is inanimate. The anglosphere has a long history of bigots calling humans they hate it/its to justify cruelty to them. When one talks about non-whites (e.g. black people, indigenous people, Jews, Italians, Irishmen, or gypsies/Romani), disabled people (physically or mentally), sexual minorities, criminals (violent or otherwise), and other people one hates as it, one grammatically primes oneself into thinking that treating “it” as less than human is normal and deserved. (Perhaps, in analogy with “misgendering”, one could call this act “misanimating”.)

This kind of venomous dehumanization is the default connotation of itting a human. To demand that all native English speakers consciously suppress that subconscious ick in order to please the whims of one referent is unreasonable.

That’s not the case at all with they/them. Sure, binary transsexuals have been called them to deny their gender. But they, when referring to one referent, is firmly animate, while it is not.

And even if the speaker has accepted a private agreement about itting a referent, a listener doesn’t necessarily have that context:

• The best case scenario is that the listener thinks that the speaker’s talking about an AI chatbot or something, like Cortana or Claude.

• The average-case scenario is that the listener gets more and more confused, because the speaker seems to be talking about a person, but using it/its pronouns to refer to that person, which is ungrammatical and causes cognitive clashing.

• But the worst case scenario? The listener thinks that the speaker is a transphobe who doesn’t respect the humanity of a nonbinary referent.

Ay, there’s the rub! “Respecting someone’s pronouns” ends up sounding more transphobic! Using it/its on humans invites confusion and outrage, even potentially destroys the speaker’s reputation, even if the referent wants to be itted!

In short, in history, and in general, it/its dehumanizes, and in 2026, it’s generally considered discriminatory and harmful to dehumanize people. This doesn’t deny that “language evolves” or that “norms change”. This is just how English works today for a supermajority of native speakers, and what the social risks are for itting someone. These norms aren’t going anywhere soon, especially now that the singular they is this widespread and normal.

Whose preference determines pronouns?

My next problem is that the whole framing of “preferred pronouns” is inaccurate to how English pronouns work.

You can show your preferences using pronouns in some ways, like whether you still use one for generic statements or advice, or whether you still distinguish whom from who, but these have to do with age, cohort, and formality, and not with anyone’s gender, much less your own.

But unlike in Japanese (cf. Appendix 2), you can only reflect your own gender-related preferences in how you refer to one other person or thing, because—as previously stated—only third-person singular has multiple options. Is a boat it or she? Is your homeland her, a motherland like Russia; him, a fatherland like Germany; or just it? When does an Amazon Echo stop being it, a machine, and start being she, Alexa?

I’ve always said that “preferred pronouns” are a misnomer. You don’t “prefer” those pronouns; you grammatically take those pronouns because of your gender.

Validation and “validity”

When you say “My pronouns are (blah/blah)”, what it actually communicates is “Please categorize me as an element of the set of all the things that (blah/blah) can point to”. Men and boys take he/him because they’re elements of the “potentially valid deixis targets for he/him” set. Women and girls take she/her and nonbinary people take they/them for parallel reasons.

In other words, when I say “My pronouns are [he/him | she/her | they/them]”, it means “Please consider me [a man | a woman | neither a man nor a woman], so that you can validate the gender category I have put myself into”. And misgendering is bad because the categories represented by these pronouns correspond to the speaker’s views on gender, and the speaker is deciding not to recognize the referent’s own gender.

(In reality, I just say “I’m a woman” instead of saying “my pronouns are she/her” to cut out the fluff.)

The equivalent request is impossible for it/its for most native speakers, because the intersection of the sets “potential deixis targets for it/its” and “people” only contain “babies, toddlers, corpses, and people you want to invalidate because you really really hate them”.

Think about what the listener sees. There you are, clearly a sapient being, speaking what appears to be perfectly lucid English. Yet, you’re requesting that you be thought of as it/its—less than a sapient being, less than a pet hamster, less than a doll that doesn’t talk, less than some people’s boat. No wonder why both the knee-jerk response and the post-“I’ll think about it” response tend to be “no way”, as long as the listener empirically and emotionally observes that you are a sapient being.

This is entirely orthogonal to your personal opinions on whether you want or deserve to be itted. (cf. Appendix 1) “Validating someone’s it/its pronouns” is an oxymoron: the speaker is tasked to validate the referent, by means of itting them, an act of deep invalidation of their very soul. People don’t feel comfortable “misanimating” others. It’ll take more than a permille of the anglosphere to identify as it/its to undo the centuries-old ick and automatic taboo of itting someone.

Bringing back linguistic descriptivism: to prefer that others call you it/its means to prescribe your opinion on how pronouns ought to work and feel on strangers, invalidating their own understanding and emotional reactions. And since that demand requires bulldozing that speaker’s and every potential listener’s mental map of pronouns, it will likely be rejected for being unsafe (and/or be ridiculed). You can request that they agree with your worldview on gender, but they are just opinions. Those can’t override the assumption that came with your both speaking English.

The descriptivist notices that the English language has invented a way to validate nonbinary people, which is calling them the “singular they”. The sociolinguist remarks that fighting against that consensus and demanding “personal it” instead is uprooting plants to help them grow.

Conclusion: Don’t moralize grammar

When you request to be called it/its despite being animate, the healthy expectation is that you’ll be denied, and not because of “enbyphobia” or “genderphobia”—surprisingly a word I actually personally attested to describe this article. Almost all native English speakers recognize that itting a person deprives them of their humanity, personhood, and worthiness for compassion, and they stand by the good moral principles of never subjecting anyone to that harsh debasement.

So don’t impose your it idiolect on the English idiolects around you. The English language already has a shared nonbinary they and a polite aversion to itting people.

Appendix 1: But why? (Revision 2)

A critical reader may notice that I have not fully explored the specific motivations behind the use of it/its. This is because, from a linguistic standpoint, the reason for the preference doesn’t change what grammatical and sociological friction it creates. However, it is worth acknowledging the perspective of those who find these pronouns meaningful (while also gently guiding them towards healthier and less self-misanimating ways to look at the world).

I’ve sometimes heard described that it/its intends to show a stronger departure from the gender binary or human gender in general than they/them. Some feel that “personhood” itself is too restrictive a social category, and wish to jettison the expectations that come with being categorized as “a man,” “a woman,” or “a nonbinary person”. Flouting the animate/inanimate distinction, perhaps, represents a rebellious desire for further autonomy and uniqueness, specifically because the singular they is so common now.

The obstacle to that is that gender and animacy in English 3PS pronouns run on a shared, external observation of animacy and gender, rather than an internal expression of affinity to, say, robots, rocks, or cryptids. Even if one feels a deep internal disconnect from personhood, humanity, or social expectations, being autonomous, sapient, and communicating already qualifies one as “not it” in the English language.

When someone asks to be called it, they are asking the speaker to prioritize the referent’s self-expression over the speaker’s largely automatic linguistic processing and all potential listeners’ emotional response to overhearing dehumanization. This creates a disconnect, irreconcilable for overwhelmingly many: the speaker sees a person, but is asked to refer to the person as if they don’t see them as a person. Even for those who are compassionate towards people who find it/its personally liberating, the price to pay for misanimating them—such as the constant cognitive clashing and the risk of being perceived as dehumanizing—makes it a very difficult request for the broader English-speaking community to fulfill.

In my opinion, the solution to this problem is not to prescriptively impose a view of it/its that needs the anglosphere to simply “get over” a centuries-old taboo, but to sociolinguistically (and pragmatically) understand that the categories of he, she, and they aren’t rigid either. Gender-nonconforming people who proudly flout gender norms have long shared the same pronouns with gender-conforming people who also rock their gender with pride. Joan Jett has long shared she/her with Angelina Jolie. Lil Nas X has long shared he/him with Vin Diesel. Why not share they/them with all the other people who are—in some sense—more “typical” enbies?

Appendix 2: English pronouns aren’t Japanese

In Japanese, pronouns are a preference, big time. You have a whole menagerie of synonyms for I, that don’t only show gender but formality and personality.

Are you a businessman? Put on a suit, a tie, and a watashi. Are you a rebellious young-adult or a grizzled Harley-riding dude? Call yourself ore. Wanna go even more egotistical like an edgy teen? Bow down to ore-sama, bitches! But maybe you’re a soft-spoken, well-behaved boy or man, wearing a boku.

Are you a businesswoman? When you take your uniform and Service Smile off, your watashi might as well. What about atashi for a spritz of cuteness? You might even go Joan Jett and rock ore with pride! There’s also watakushi for a high-class dame feel, uchi for a more soft-spoken refinement, and boku for a slightly different kind of boyish-cute.

And that’s not even all the I synonyms there are! Don’t get me started on the you synonyms! If you want your pronouns to reflect your “relationship with gender”—or your personality, rather—you may as well learn Japanese, where that’s not only accepted but required!

Unfortunately, English pronouns don’t work like that. An I is an I is an I is an I. And that’s not gonna change any time soon. Pronouns are one of the hardest parts of speech to add, change, or remove in English. Unlike nouns, verbs, and adjectives, where you can just yoink them from anywhere and zhoozh them up into each other, pronouns are too core to the inner workings of the language to change.

But language still changes! Pronouns have changed in the last century or two through the grammaticalization of several plural-only forms of you (like y’all, youse, yinz, you guys, and you lot) and the broadening of they from indefinite (one person in general) to definite (one nonbinary person).

In contrast, any attempts to intentionally make up a new pronoun (and there have been many, like xe, ze, co, e, and thon) have predictably failed (cf. § Reception), especially in the continued presence of singular themself since the 14th century and the increasing publicity and support of “nonbinary they” since the turn of this century. English not having a central authority, unlike some other languages, makes the odds even worse for “personal it”.

This is the same for other languages, with more “naturally arising” forms being accepted over coinages. The German Gendersternchen and the verbal glottal stop before the -*innen ending are now widespread (albeit controversial), since it naturally arose by haplology from using both the masculine and feminine forms in a row, e.g. “drivers” going from Fahrer to Fahrer/Fahrerinnen to Fahrer*innen. The only remotely successful proposal that I know of making a whole new pronoun set is hen in Swedish—with other proposals like elle and -e endings in Spanish, iel in French, and Dukaist conjugation in Polish, having been dead on arrival.

English pronouns have changed before—and I opine that it will change more—but in the same way how a river meanders or leaves behind an oxbow lake, and not how it gets turned into a canal for freight ships.