Dear Teenink Readers ,

In today’s day and age using certain or even all pronouns just isn’t working. As a teen in America I am faced with deciding who I am and how I want to live my life. I myself am not directly being affected by the use of the most common pronouns. Yet a few of my friends and fellow classmates face the problem of how they would prefer to be addressed. One of my closest  friends struggles with how they are addressed in public and what they prefer to be called by friends. Whenever we are in public I notice the sadness and dissociation that crosses their face. I want to live in a world where people can live and be happy as their true selves, but it is hard for some of the people from the LGBT+ community to find what works for them. For some of them, they have settled on gender neutral pronouns such as ze, xe and it, neo pronouns, or just go by their name. But what about those that don’t just want to go by their name or don’t feel comfortable with the other pronouns stated? What can we do as a country to help them figure out what is right for them?

To begin with, why do we even use pronouns to begin with? Well it mostly comes down to the languages we speak. Pronouns were used to address people, commonly she/her, he/him and they/them and were based on the gender assigned at birth. But when we use these today we assume what people are. According to mypronouns.org ; “the act of making an assumption (even if correct) sends a potentially harmful message - -that people have to look a certain way to demonstrate the gender that they are or are not”. This can create mental issues for people and send them spiraling into negative emotions. It can also leave them unsure about who they are. Not to mention what other mental identity and image problems people, such as those who are Transgender and Non-binary face daily. According to evolvetreatment.com; “...researchers found that when these teens were called by their chosen name at home, school, work, and among friends, severe depression decreased by more than 70 percent. This was compared to teens who were not able to use their preferred name in any of these contexts. Additionally, these teens’ suicidal ideation decreased by 35 percent, with suicidal attempts decreasing by 65 percent.” We need to start calling people by what they prefer. We can save many more lives if we were to do so. 

Certainly, others can argue that there isn’t a problem with the use of pronouns, that we do not need to change our use of them or even that people should just stick to the ones we were born with. While I can agree we still need a form of pronoun, we do not need one that will misaddress the person we are talking to or about.  We live in the twenty-first century where new words are being used and created. Why can’t we use ones that are less commonly used or create new ones? Ones that are more inclusive and depend less on gender. I want to live in a world that is accepting of who someone is regardless of factors that we can not simply change. I know that won’t completely happen in the next few years but if we start little and chip away at the bigger problems, one day this goal can happen. Yet one thing that we can change now is how we use pronouns and accepting how and what someone would like to be called by.