Pronouns, Interpretation, and Freedom of Conscience
I have joked that I acknowledge the existence of only one gender:
1. People who can extrapolate from incomplete information.
At risk of belabouring the obvious, the joke works for two reasons:
First, it appears to be heading towards a familiar culture-war punchline before abruptly changing direction.
Second, it is obviously false. If there exists one category – people who can extrapolate from incomplete information – the immediate question becomes: “what about people who cannot?”
The listener instinctively identifies a second category. But in doing so, they have already demonstrated membership of the first. They have performed the very act that defined the category – taken incomplete information and extrapolated a new classification. By identifying the obvious flaw in the assertion, the listener has demonstrated its validity.
I like this joke because it reveals something surprisingly important – human beings navigate the world through categorisation. We do not encounter complete information. We encounter fragments, signals, clues, appearances, and representations. We then use those fragments to construct categories that allow us to make sense of reality. And sometimes that reality is self-contradictory.
This process is unavoidable.
We infer trustworthiness from behaviour. Competence from performance. Confidence from mannerisms. Political affiliation from signals and symbols. We constantly place people, objects, and ideas into categories using incomplete information.
Pronouns are no exception.
Yet the contemporary debate over pronouns increasingly assumes that pronouns are somehow different from all other forms of categorisation, and all other human knowledge. One side insists they are fundamentally aligned with biological sex. The other increasingly treats them as an expression of personal identity, chosen by the individual and binding upon everyone else.
Both positions share the same hidden assumption. Both assume that pronouns are an innate feature of the person being referred to.
The debate over pronouns has become so polarised because both sides have misidentified the function that pronouns traditionally perform in language. Pronouns have never been instruments for discovering biological essence. Nor have they historically been possessions of the individual, available to be selected and distributed as an act of self-definition.
Pronouns are not declarations of self-identity. They are judgments formed and expressed by speakers.
Assessments made based on incomplete information in a social sphere.
Pronouns Are Not Biology
The claim that pronouns have traditionally been determined by biological sex appears plausible at first glance but becomes difficult to sustain upon closer inspection.
For most of human history, speakers had no direct access to the biological information that would be required to make such a determination. Chromosomes were unknown. Internal anatomy was invisible. Hormonal profiles were unavailable. Cases of trans-gender individuals existed but often went undiagnosed.
Pronouns were assigned long before such information could be known.
In practice, speakers relied upon what was available to them:
- Appearance.
- Dress.
- Voice.
- Name.
- Social role.
- Behaviour.
- Presentation.
In short, speakers relied upon the way individuals held themselves out to the world.
This does not mean that historical societies lacked beliefs about biological sex. They plainly possessed such beliefs. It means only that pronoun assignment did not occur through the direct observation of biologically determined sex or gender. It occurred through the interpretation of social representation.
The speaker never encountered the chromosomes.
The speaker encountered the person.
Pronouns Are Not Identity
There exists a modern movement which advocates for treatment of pronouns as expressions of self-identity.
Under this view, pronouns derive their legitimacy not from public representation but from an inner psychological reality known only to the individual or subject.
Yet this proposal encounters a different problem.
Language is a public activity. The speaker has no direct access to another person’s consciousness. Indeed, the entire social world operates under this limitation. We do not experience the minds of others. We experience their representations.
We encounter one another through language, appearance, behaviour, symbols, gestures, reputation, and countless other outward signs.
To require a speaker to choose language on the basis of information unavailable to them is to ask language to perform an impossible task. A speaker cannot refer to another person’s inner world.
A speaker can only refer to the person as they encounter them, through the manner in which they hold themselves out to the world in the form of numerous social cues.
Pronoun Declarations as Evidence
At this point, an objection naturally arises.
If an individual publicly declares their preferred pronouns, does that not become their public representation?
It certainly does become part of it.
A declared pronoun preference is a public signal. As is their name, honorifics, clothing, hairstyles, mannerisms, and countless other aspects of self-presentation. All contribute to the way an individual presents themselves to the world.
The mistake lies in treating this signal as authoritative rather than evidentiary.
A declaration of preferred pronouns provides information to observers. It forms part of the evidence available to them. But it does not eliminate their role as interpreters. Nor does it automatically outweigh every other aspect of the individual’s presentation.
Indeed, communication rarely works in this way.
People routinely make claims about themselves that others routinely evaluate against the broader context in which those claims are made. A politician may describe themselves as ‘a moderate’. A company may describe itself as ‘trustworthy’, or as “No 1 in Australia”. An artist may explain the intended meaning of their work. Such declarations are part of the evidence available to observers, but they do not extinguish the audience’s freedom to form their own opinion on the totality of the representations made.
The same principle applies to pronoun declarations.
Moreover, declarations of gender identity are often communicated imperfectly. They may appear in an email signature, on a social media profile, on a business card, or as part of an introduction. These signals may be encountered only briefly, perhaps once, and are easily forgotten. This is especially true where they conflict with other aspects of the individual’s public presentation that are continually reinforced through every day social interaction.
A speaker may therefore honestly and reasonably revert to the gender category suggested by the individual’s name, appearance, dress, voice, hairstyle, mannerisms, or broader social presentation. This is not necessarily evidence of hostility, prejudice, or bad faith. It may simply reflect the reality that some signals are more salient, more frequently encountered, or more often reinforced though repetitive exposure than others.
To characterise every such occurrence as “misgendering” is therefore misleading, and sometimes even rises to the level of being disingenuous. It assumes that the speaker has consciously disregarded information that may in fact have been forgotten, overlooked, or genuinely and appropriately outweighed by other aspects of the individual’s own self expression.
How someone holds themselves out to the world is more than their disclosed gender preference on an email signature.
The declaration remains evidence.
It does not become authority. Nor is it binding on all individuals who encounters it.
The Right to Self-Expression and the Right to Interpret
The crucial distinction is not between biology and identity.
It is between self-expression and interpretation.
Every individual possesses a right to present themselves as they choose.
They may choose their name. They may choose their clothing. They may choose their style, mannerisms, and public persona. These are acts of self-expression.
But there is no corresponding right to determine how that expression will be interpreted. Communication always involves two parties.
One transmits. The other receives.
One represents. The other interprets.
A company may spend millions constructing a brand identity. It remains unable to dictate what consumers think about it. An artist may explain the meaning of a painting. Viewers remain free to understand it differently. A politician may attempt to project strength, yet may instead appear arrogant.
Interpretation belongs to the observer.
The same principle applies to gender representation.
Individuals may influence how they are perceived. They cannot own the act of perception itself.
This principle is present in law. An upstart furniture retailer that erects a giant sign proclaiming “Freedom” cannot defend itself successfully against a claim of copyright infringement merely by claiming that it is not “using the name Freedom Furniture”, it’s merely espousing a philosophical ideal on its signage.
The law gives short shrift to strategic misrepresentation.
Similarly, the fact that totality of how a person holds themselves out to the world informs how observers think of them in terms of gender is simply a reality of our social world.
It’s how an individual holds themself out to the world that counts, not their private inner world.
Pronouns as Interpretive Judgments
This understanding reveals something important about pronouns.
Pronouns are not facts waiting to be discovered. Nor are they certificates waiting to be issued. They are interpretive judgments made by speakers.
The speaker observes. The speaker categorises. The speaker owns their own speech.
That judgment may be correct or incorrect. It may be thoughtful or careless. It may be perceptive or insensitive. It may be generous or malicious. But whatever its quality, it remains an expression by and of the speaker.
And because it is a judgment, it necessarily belongs to the person making it.
A pronoun therefore tells us something about the speaker as well as the subject.
It reveals what the speaker perceives. It reveals what they value. It reveals whether they are attentive, careless, respectful, prejudiced, thoughtful, or indifferent.
The language we choose is not merely a means of describing others.
It is also a means of revealing ourselves.
The Emergence of the Non-Binary Category
Nothing in this argument requires resistance to linguistic evolution.
For centuries, singular “they” functioned as a pronoun for indeterminate persons – “Someone left their umbrella.“
Today, “they” increasingly performs a second function as a pronoun associated with non-binary identity. Languages routinely adapt existing words to new purposes in this way.
As non-binary identity has emerged as a socially meaningful and widely recognised category, English has naturally adapted one of its existing linguistic resources to accommodate it.
The important question is not whether “they” exists as a pronoun. The important question is who chooses when to use it.
My answer remains unchanged. The speaker chooses.
The addition of a third category does not transform pronouns from judgments into declarations of self-identity.
It merely expands the range of categories available.
Misgendering and Misrepresentation
This perspective also changes the way we think about so-called “misgendering”.
A person may sincerely identify as one gender while presenting themselves in a manner commonly associated with another. In such cases, the discrepancy does not necessarily reveal a failure by the speaker. It may reveal a failure of communication by the subject.
If an individual’s chosen presentation consistently communicates one message while their private self-conception is something different, then it is not obvious that the resulting linguistic mismatch should be attributed to the observer. The observer can work only with the information available to them.
Because pronouns are interpretive judgments, they also function as feedback. Where there is broad social convergence regarding the pronoun assigned to an individual, that convergence reveals something about how the individual’s self-presentation is being perceived by others. Such feedback may be welcome or unwelcome, accurate or inaccurate, but it nevertheless provides information about the success of the communicative act itself.
To describe every such outcome as “misgendering” subtly assumes that the speaker had access to information they did not possess – perfect information regarding the self-identity of the subject.
The problem may not lay in hostility, nor in prejudice, but in the unavoidable limitations of human communication.
On the other had, hostility and prejudice are also forms of expression that can be chosen by speakers, and civil society remains free to judge and condemn such speakers.
Representation, Interpretation, and Judgment
Modern debates often confuse three distinct functions:
- The individual controls representation.
- The speaker controls interpretation.
- Society controls judgment.
The subject chooses how they present themselves. The speaker chooses how to interpret that presentation.
Society remains free to establish social norms used to evaluate both.
Why Pronouns Have Become Toxic
The hostility surrounding pronouns arises because a category historically belonging to speakers has been reconceived as belonging to subjects.
This triggers principled reaction from speakers who hold dearly their right to self-expression. But that historical right is contradicted by the asserted right to dictate use of pronouns as a feature of self-expression. This asserts that a pronoun is essentially the same function linguistically as a name or an honorific – it’s something chosen by the subject.
Once this occurs, disagreement ceases to be a disagreement about interpretation. It is asserted to be a violation. A linguistic judgment, even if honestly made, becomes an act of disobedience. A difference of perception becomes a moral offence. Every act of communication becomes vulnerable to accusations of bad faith.
The result has been a growing tendency to treat pronouns not as language but as loyalty tests.
The social consequences are predictable.
People become anxious. Conversations become performative. Judgment is displaced by compliance.
The goal shifts from mutual understanding to linguistic conformity, and compelled speech.
The Proper Path of Social Progress
None of this implies that pronoun use should be immune from criticism. Quite the opposite.
Careless language deserves criticism. Cruel language deserves criticism. Deliberately insulting language deserves criticism.
But criticism is not the same thing as compelled speech, or mandatory control of speech.
The appropriate response to poor language is the same response societies have historically applied to other forms of discourteous or harmful speech. Social disapproval. Argument. Persuasion. Education. Example.
This is the pathway that permits and encourages the gradual formation of social norms. That is how societies learn. That is how manners develop. That is how racial slurs became less acceptable over time. This is how the arc of history bends toward moral progress.
Not primarily through the transfer of authority over language from speaker to subject, but through collective moral judgment about what kinds of speech reflect good character.
A free society does not prevent people from revealing themselves through language.
It allows them to do so, and then permits everyone else to evaluate what has been revealed.
Freedom of Conscience and the Freedom to Interpret
The deeper issue is not grammar. It is conscience.
Every pronoun choice reflects an interpretive judgment about the world. That judgment may be admirable or contemptible. It may be wise or foolish.
But it remains a judgment.
To prohibit individuals from expressing such judgments is not merely to regulate language. It is to constrain the process of interpretation from which language emerges.
The freedom to express and to present oneself is important. But so too is the freedom to perceive, evaluate, and interpret the representations presented by others. A healthy society requires both.
Individuals must remain free to represent themselves as they wish. Speakers must remain free to interpret those representations according to their honest judgment, and to express themselves accordingly. And society must remain free to praise or condemn the resulting speech.
This is not a defect in communication. It is the process through which humans communicate.
Like conscience itself, language is valuable precisely because it reveals what people actually think. When interpretation is replaced by compulsory affirmation, we do not create understanding. We merely create performative compliance.
Current debate focusses on one of two extremes, both of which amount to denial of self-expression – either denial of self-expression of gender identity, or denial of self‑expression through honest speech.
I reject denial of self-expression in all its forms.
Human beings cannot avoid categorisation. We cannot avoid interpretation. We cannot avoid making judgments from incomplete information. The question has never been whether we will do these things. The question is whether we will remain free to do them honestly.
That is why there is only one gender:
People who can extrapolate from incomplete information.