1975: Transgender = Cross-Gender

Chicago Tribune, Aug. 23, 1975

By Judie Black

AS WOMEN HAVE grown freer, the English language has grown more tan­gled: What’s a chairperson and who is a Ms.? But help may be on the way in the form of ey, eir, and em.

Those are the winning entries in the Chicago Association of Business Commu­nicators’ contest to find pronouns to re­place she and he[ey], him and her[em1, his and hers[eir].

‘ “It,” a neuter pronoun, already exists, but contest winner Christine M. Elver­son of Skokie says her words are “transgender pronouns.” She formed them by dropping “the” from the familiar plural pronouns, they, them, and their.

FOR EXAMPLE, a speaker might use these new transgender pronouns when ey addresses an audience of both men and women. Eir sentences would sound smoother since ey wouldn’t clutter them with the old sexist pronouns. And if ey should trip up in the new usage, ey would have only emself to blame.

“There’s a definite need for transgen­der pronouns,” says Mrs.,Elverson, edi­tor of the employe newsletter of the G. D. Searle Co.

‘ “It gets cumbersome when you don’t know whether you’re talking or writing about a man or a woman.”

A contestant from California entered the word “uh” because “If it isn’t a he or a she, it’s uh, something else.”

So much of eir humor.