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Q&A What pronoun should a hermaphrodite species use?

You have a number of options: If the narrator of the book is a human, it would be entirely acceptable to use "he" or "she" (no point in switching between them) throughout the book as standard, wi...

posted 6y ago by Craig Sefton‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

Answer
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T08:21:41Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/34465
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar Craig Sefton‭ · 2019-12-08T08:21:41Z (over 4 years ago)
You have a number of options:

- If the narrator of the book is a human, it would be entirely acceptable to use "he" or "she" (no point in switching between them) throughout the book as standard, with an explanation for this usage by the narrator. Ursula Le Guin's "The Left Hand Of Darkness" used "he" throughout the book, and referred to her androgynous species as pretty much always male. I think the key point is to mention that you're writing for a human audience, so it needs to be understood easily by them first.
- You could attempt to use "they" as a singular, this was used by Shakespeare, amongst others, when referring to indeterminate gender.
- Since it's a fantasy novel, there's nothing to stop you from creating terms that they as a species would use as replacements for him and her, and using those instead. Some examples could be pronouns related to social standing, age etc.
- Related to this, even though they're hermaphrodites, it's plausible that many may naturally adopt a particular outlook that we'd consider to be male or female, and then they can be addressed as he or she accordingly (or, as I say, perhaps they have their own terminology for this). And, for those that routinely change this outlook, that could have a specific term as well.
- You could take some tips from the transgender community in real life, and look at gender-neutral terms that they use.

For a good discussion on this topic, I recommend having a look at this article entitled [Pronouning Your Hermaphrodite](https://whatever.scalzi.com/2008/04/28/pronouning-your-hermaphrodite/) that I came across. The article and subsequent discussion covers a few of the points I've made above, as well as gives some excellent references to other books that have tackled this issue.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2018-03-21T08:00:14Z (about 6 years ago)
Original score: 30