Searching for a Singular, Nonbinary-Gendered Reflexive Pronoun
A recent human service (HUMS) course has a lesson about using critical reflection to uncover and deconstruct assumptions. The lesson explores how language is changing to acknowledge nonbinary-gendered people through pronouns.
For example, a writer might choose “they” as a singular pronoun instead of “he” or “she”. Using “they” as both singular and plural pronouns shouldn’t seem that remarkable. “You” is another pronoun that works as singular and plural.
It gets a bit more tricky to decide on the reflexive singular pronoun. Canadian Oxford Dictionary and Chicago Manual (17 ed.) list both “themselves” and “themself” as disputed non-standard options for the reflexive singular pronoun.
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