I identify as nonbinary and use they/them pronouns, primarily because those are the most succinct ways to describe my current relationship with gender. That’s not to say they are the best or most accurate terms. No matter what the options are when I need to select my gender on a survey or form, I always end up feeling a bit uncomfortable, a bit unsatisfied. I can describe my gender as such: When I’m asked to choose between male and female, I choose female. When asked to choose between male, female, and nonbinary, I choose nonbinary. When I’m able to select one or more, I will select female and nonbinary. But, if given the option, I will always turn to my old friend, “Prefer not to say.” Because the truth is, I don’t know how to describe myself, at least not with one or two checkmarks. I’d rather just not say anything, than say something incomplete.

I was born in the United States and grew up speaking English with my family. When I was in first grade, I had to make the choice between learning French or learning Spanish for the foreseeable future. I chose French because my older sister had, and it became my second language as simply as that. I learned French in a classroom setting for twelve years, and I still try to review it from time to time in conversational settings to keep my skills sharp. Since I was about five years old when I started, I had absolutely no knowledge of nonbinary identities, much less my own. Therefore, I was fine with being referred to as elle and with the feminine forms of nouns and adjectives. This lasted throughout my formal education in French, as I did not start using they/them pronouns until around the end of my final year of French classes. However, my nonbinary identity has definitely affected my thoughts about returning to French in the future.

The possibility of taking more classes in French and developing my fluency in the language is tempting, but also fraught with complications. How will I ask others to refer to me? Neither elle nor il feels particularly comfortable, and both forms of they are gendered as well. There have been movements to create gender neutral pronouns in French, but none have become as widespread as they in English, and I have no guarantee that a future French teacher would respect my right to use them. Furthermore, it’s unclear how I could refer to myself using other words. I am aware of the new convention of nonbinary French speakers adding “(e)” to the ends of adjectives in order to demonstrate their gender fluidity, but this is not always something that can be translated into the spoken language. I also don’t know how it works for nouns or adjectives with more complex transformations from masculine to feminine. It’s an imperfect system at best. Ultimately, it feels as though I may have to choose between losing my French and being misgendered, and neither of these options is desirable.

My second foray into learning a new language gave me slightly different options. It happened during my sophomore year of high school, after I discovered the Norwegian TV show SKAM and decided to learn Norwegian on Duolingo. Norwegian is also a gendered language, with masculine, feminine, and neuter forms. However, there are a few dialects of the language that ignore the feminine markers and use masculine markers for both feminine and masculine nouns, distinguishing only between neuter and “common genders.” You can write the nouns using either form on Duolingo. Norwegian is also the only language that I’ve studied in which speakers have gathered around a single gender-neutral personal pronoun, hen. Unfortunately, this pronoun is neither widely used nor accepted. Similarly, according to a friend who is fluent in Norwegian, most speakers still use the traditional feminine, masculine, and neuter forms of nouns. The language is far from moving past its gendered structure, although it has taken more steps than French has. I never had enough experience speaking Norwegian to figure out which pronouns I prefer, as I dropped the language after about six months. However, the presence of a gender-neutral pronoun and less gendered language definitely makes the possibility of returning to it in the future feel more promising, less painful.

The most recent language I’ve decided to learn is German, and I recently completed the elementary German course at Smith College. I chose this language because my family is German, and I thought it would be a nice change from French. Like Norwegian, German has a gendered system with feminine, masculine, and neuter forms. Unlike Norwegian, however, there hasn’t been any movement to consolidate gendered nouns in German, and there is no unified movement around a single gender-neutral personal pronoun.

Fortunately, at this point I have not been in many situations in which someone has had to refer to me in the third person in German, or in which I’ve had to describe myself using adjectives or gendered nouns. When those situations do arise, I’ve adopted the French method of adding the feminine endings in parentheses. If people ask me how they should refer to me in the third person, I generally just tell them to use sie, which is the German word for she. However, the main reason I’m comfortable with this is because it’s also the German word for they, just with a different verb conjugation. This works well enough to address my complex relationship with nonbinary and female identities. It’s possible that this will change as my German develops, but that’s where I’m at now.

However, what I’ve realized throughout my journey is that no matter how many new words are created for me to use, or how many modifications of adjective endings I find, it’s only a temporary fix. Even if a language has begun to adopt more gender-neutral language, it’s only a small step towards trying to capture an experience that’s very difficult to pin down in such a simple way. I use the word nonbinary to describe myself, but there are many aspects of my life that have led to my decision to identify in that way, and that are inseparable from how I experience gender. One word cannot encapsulate the levels of self-reflection and personal history that have formed my gender identity, and therefore using only that word tells an incomplete story of myself.

Creating more inclusive terms is definitely an important step. But we need to go further. Changing language is one thing, but it means nothing if people are unwilling to put those changes into practice, or unable to do so without serious backlash. It is the beginning of acceptance, not the end. It does nothing if it is not accompanied by a distinct movement towards furthering the rights and voices of nonbinary people in other ways. Only by creating a safer, more open, and accepting environment will people feel the freedom and safety to be open about their experiences with gender and to tell their whole story.

Zoe Koeninger ’23 is a rising sophomore at Smith College, and hopes to double-major in theatre and Russian studies.

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