Gender-neutral pronouns

[Robinne Weiss]

I teach writing to a small group of 10 and 11 year olds at a local school--kids writing above their age level, who the classroom teacher doesn't have time to extend. (Yes. Lucky me! I know.) One of my students does not identify as either male or female. In her (she presents as female and everyone uses the female pronoun for her), writing, she often uses the pronoun 'they' to refer to a single person in a genderless way. That's fine until there's more than one character in a scene, and the reader can't tell who 'they' refers to. So I introduced her to the idea of gender-neutral pronouns, and showed her how to conjugate the pronoun ze.

But there are lots of options for gender-neutral pronouns, and I don't tend to use them myself. Do any of you Litopians know if there is an 'accepted' gender-neutral pronoun in literature? I know I'm going to face this issue again with my students, and it's something I feel as a writer I should become fluent with, too.

 

[James Marinero]

A quick google showed this but of course I sure you've seen it as you can conjugate 'ze'. Using one of the others does imply a specific type of sexuality, so probably not right quite yet for 10/11 year olds.