What’s my/your/their Pronoun? Invariability, Self-Determination and the Pronoun iel

What’s my/your/their Pronoun? Invariability, Self-Determination and the Pronoun iel – Les genres récrits: chronique n° 10

The introduction of the pronoun iel in the Robert dictionary (first in its electronic, then in its printed version) has aroused great interest – and much debate. If we compare the pronouns of the third person with those of the first and second person, we see a variability of gender that is not necessary in general: why not admit a pronoun that completes the series of invariable pronouns in French? Of course, the questions related to gender agreement are still open, but for non-binary persons, this was already an issue long before the appearance of forms such as iel.

Keywords:

• grammatical gender
• pronouns
• binarity
• non-binarity
• iel