My Pronouns Are: I / me / my

Abstract

     She danced with John.

     They danced with John.

Does the second sentence sound right to you?

If it does not, you are not alone, and you are not wrong. Your instinct is correct.

Now consider the following three words:

     I / me / my

Perfectly ordinary English. The most common words in the language. Nothing unusual, nothing contentious, nothing that could possibly cause difficulty in polite company.

Now consider the following email signature:

     'A Researcher'

     'Pronouns: I / me / my'

The colleague who reads this signature and attempts to comply will find that every sentence they produce either refers to themselves, refers to no one, or is not a sentence at all. They may not even notice — the pronouns are so familiar, so thoroughly first-person, that a native English speaker will pass right over them and reach instinctively for 'he' or 'she' without realising they have already failed to comply.

In many jurisdictions they have no choice: they are formally and legally required to use these pronouns. They simply cannot.

And this is where every mandate ends:

     Pronoun 1

     Pronoun 2

     ⋮

     Pronoun N

     ────── approved

     ────── cutoff

     Excluded pronouns

Pronoun mandates were designed to produce inclusion. This paper demonstrates that, in every form they can take, they produce the opposite. This paper is about why.