Neutral gender pronouns?

[Blind_Justice]

Here's a problem for you grammar and style experts. What's the most elegant way to refer to a person whose sex isn't known or readily apparent? Maybe for you native speakers it's a no-brainer, but English is only my second language and despite all my wordsmithy prowess, I'm struggling to get this sorted.

In my current story, a prison inmate is being accompanied by a heavily armored guard. The guard's armor is built in such a way that the wearer's gender isn't apparent and the voice is processed to scrub all identifiable traces. This is done to protect the guards should an inmate ever be released and seek retribution. The story is told from a first person POV and the narrator/protag has no clue what gender the guard is. How should he refer to the guard?

I find the "generic they" Wikipedia suggests a bit weird, but "generic he" seems odd too.

Ideas/suggestions welcome and "thank you" in advance.

 

[LoquiSordidaAdMe]

I think most English speakers accept the generic 'they' as a gender neutral pronoun. It's far from perfect, but no other gender neutral pronoun had managed to gain sufficiently prominent usage to be recognized widely. It's awkward, but it's the only thing we've got.

 

[Blind_Justice]

I think most English speakers accept the generic 'they' as a gender neutral pronoun. It's far from perfect, but no other gender neutral pronoun had managed to gain sufficiently prominent usage to be recognized widely. It's awkward, but it's the only thing we've got.

Then I shall edit it in. Thank you.

 

[LoquiSordidaAdMe]

Or, you could play up the character's uncertainty about the guard's gender and come up with a custom among the prisoners. The prisoners must talk about the guards, right? Perhaps they have started using the pronoun 'it' as a way to mock and dehumanize the guards.

Or maybe the small community of prisoners has agreed on their own gender neutral pronoun that you could use less awkwardly than 'they'.

 

[SimonDoom]

I would assume that in most situations like this one the prisoner would assume the guard is a male unless he had good reason to believe otherwise, and that the natural thing to do would be to refer to the unidentified guard with male pronouns. I think it may sound odd in the story if you use "they" instead. I'm not sure what you have in mind but if it turns out the guard is female then beginning with the use of the male pronoun creates a greater sense of twist and surprise. Use of they might tip people off.

 

[NotWise]

I would assume that in most situations like this one the prisoner would assume the guard is a male unless he had good reason to believe otherwise, and that the natural thing to do would be to refer to the unidentified guard with male pronouns.

This would be true unless we're talking about a women's prison.

Depending on the protagonist's attitude, the guard might also be called "it."

 

[SimonDoom]

This would be true unless we're talking about a women's prison.

Depending on the protagonist's attitude, the guard might also be called "it."

Agreed, but the OP used the pronoun "he" to describe the prisoner, so I assume we're talking about men's prison, in which case assuming the guard is a man would be logical.

 

[Weird Harold]

In my current story, a prison inmate is being accompanied by a heavily armored guard. The guard's armor is built in such a way that the wearer's gender isn't apparent and the voice is processed to scrub all identifiable traces.

The words used depend entirely on the character speaking/thinking them.

An older inmate (of my generation) would default to the traditional assumption of "Male unknown" and use he and him.

A younger inmate might use "dude" in the same way.

A yuppie inmate might use one of the gender-neutral terms, like Ve.

And an inmate might use "it" or "robocop" or some other de-humanizing term to fit the de-humanizing armor.

Whatever term your inmate uses, it is unlikely to be conventional, grammatical, or PC, so the "correct" usage is pretty much irrelevant.

 

[Blind_Justice]

Thanks for the insight. Having options is good. I'll go over what I've written and play with some of the things you guys offered.

Thanks!

 

[BiscuitHammer]

My gender-neutral pronoun of choice when addressing/referring to others is 'foolish mortal'.

#nohelpwhatsoever

But I do agree with that recommendations given above.

 

[Kojak01]

***Not English native either***

You could maybe use the word the inmates use for the guards or a derivate of it as pronoun. Or a visible trait of the uniform like the colour or a weapon.

guard
uniform / uni / form
bastard / bas / tard
asshole
warden
keeper
blue
taser / tas
baton / bat

A: "What did tas say?"
B: "Tas didn't say anything."

But that would be hell to write (and read?) and make sure that you get it right every time...

 

[HectorBidon]

Suppose you wanted to say something like this:

The guard shoved me against the wall. "Shut up," he articulated.

Here I think the only real option is "he." Using "the guard" again wouldn't flow like normal colloquial English. This is why we have pronouns in the first place. Using "they" doesn't sound right because there's only one guard. Using "it" would only work if the narrator didn't recognize any human agency in the guard at all and only thought of it as a machine.

So I agree with the previous posters who said that the most natural thing would be for the narrator to choose the pronoun associated with the human being he assumed to be underneath the armor.

 

[KimGordon67]

Suppose you wanted to say something like this:

The guard shoved me against the wall. "Shut up," he articulated.

Here I think the only real option is "he." Using "the guard" again wouldn't flow like normal colloquial English. This is why we have pronouns in the first place. Using "they" doesn't sound right because there's only one guard. Using "it" would only work if the narrator didn't recognize any human agency in the guard at all and only thought of it as a machine.

So I agree with the previous posters who said that the most natural thing would be for the narrator to choose the pronoun associated with the human being he assumed to be underneath the armor.

You could just say 'The guard shoved me against the wall, growling "Shut up" into my face.' Having said that, if the guard was talking you probably could make a fairly accurate stab at their gender ... but if you couldn't, my solution works fine.

I actually default to 'they' without thinking in these contexts. It only sounds weird in the singular if you're not used to it.

 

[Gentleman_G]

I'm not particularly familiar with prison, being such a goody-two-shoes myself -cough, cough- but in my understanding it was customary that men's prisons only had male guards whereas female prisons only had female guards to minimalize sexual relations or rape between inmates and guards.

Of course, there's still the well-known soap incident everybody knows, but that's the only alternative left if there's only the same gender in both inmates and guards.

So, in this case it doesn't seem all that necessary to keep the reader in shadows about whether the guard is male or female. As soon as your inmate's gender is known, the guard's gender is clear too. Unless I'm wrong, of course.
Doesn't seem to apply for supporting roles like psychiatrists or doctors though, but perhaps that's just me watching too much tv.

 

[KindofHere]

.................

 

[SimonDoom]

Suppose you wanted to say something like this:

The guard shoved me against the wall. "Shut up," he articulated.

Here I think the only real option is "he." Using "the guard" again wouldn't flow like normal colloquial English. This is why we have pronouns in the first place. Using "they" doesn't sound right because there's only one guard. Using "it" would only work if the narrator didn't recognize any human agency in the guard at all and only thought of it as a machine.

So I agree with the previous posters who said that the most natural thing would be for the narrator to choose the pronoun associated with the human being he assumed to be underneath the armor.

In this case, if the guard spoke, he presumably would give away his gender, because men's and women's voices are easy to distinguish, so the avoidance of using traditional male pronouns would be weird.

This particular hypothetical strikes me as one in which it's very implausible that a male prisoner is going to be uncertain about the gender of his guard, and where, therefore, the use of a neutral pronoun will seem strange to the reader.

 

[KimGordon67]

In this case, if the guard spoke, he presumably would give away his gender, because men's and women's voices are easy to distinguish, so the avoidance of using traditional male pronouns would be weird.

This particular hypothetical strikes me as one in which it's very implausible that a male prisoner is going to be uncertain about the gender of his guard, and where, therefore, the use of a neutral pronoun will seem strange to the reader.

Actually, it's not always easy to distinguish. From time to time, I get mistaken for a guy on the phone. (The short version of my actual name is genderless, and I have quite a deep voice for a woman.)

 

[Gentleman_G]

In this case, if the guard spoke, he presumably would give away his gender, because men's and women's voices are easy to distinguish, so the avoidance of using traditional male pronouns would be weird.

Mmmmh. No. People still mistake me for being female while I'm pretty sure I'm male. Funny though, since most people who know me always claim I have a very hard and low voice which is impossible to mistake for a female voice. Yet, people who don't know me well still make that mistake if they don't see me at first ...

It's frustrating enough that I nowadays greet the person on the other end of the phonecall with 'Mr' if I can clearly hear her introduce herself.
"Sorry, but I'm a Ms."
"Just as I'm a MISTER. Thank you for clearing up that misunderstanding. Did the name not give it away?"
"Oh, my apologies. We only have a first letter."
"Try requesting a gender radiobutton next time."

 

[Zeb_Carter]

A lot of times the prisoners use "Screw" as the name they use among themselves for the guards despite them knowing the gender.

Or they use "Boss" no matter the gender when talking to a guard.

In most cases even if a prisoner knows the guards name they still call them "Boss" when talking to them no matter the gender.

 

[KimGordon67]

Mmmmh. No. People still mistake me for being female while I'm pretty sure I'm male. Funny though, since most people who know me always claim I have a very hard and low voice which is impossible to mistake for a female voice. Yet, people who don't know me well still make that mistake if they don't see me at first ...

It's frustrating enough that I nowadays greet the person on the other end of the phonecall with 'Mr' if I can clearly hear her introduce herself.
"Sorry, but I'm a Ms."
"Just as I'm a MISTER. Thank you for clearing up that misunderstanding. Did the name not give it away?"
"Oh, my apologies. We only have a first letter."
"Try requesting a gender radiobutton next time."

It doesn't really worry me when it happens to me - it's more embarrassing for the person on their other end. I really don't care. (I'm also a 'Doctor', so that doesn't help.)

 

[SimonDoom]

Actually, it's not always easy to distinguish. From time to time, I get mistaken for a guy on the phone. (The short version of my actual name is genderless, and I have quite a deep voice for a woman.)

I don't mean to suggest that everyone is the same or that there aren't exceptions to the rule. In life there almost always are exceptions to the rule.

I can't speak for others' experience, but in my experience I can tell a man from a woman by the voice in the great majority of cases.

And the bigger point isn't the fact that there are exceptions and hard cases but the point of the view of the reader. If you tell your reader that prison guard A talks to prisoner B, the reader -- most readers -- will assume that the gender has been revealed. If as the author you want to make a point about the voice being difficult to identify, then use of a neutral pronoun might make sense to convey the prisoner's confusion. But in most cases, the prisoner is going to know, and the reader is going to assume the prisoner knows.

 

[KimGordon67]

I don't mean to suggest that everyone is the same or that there aren't exceptions to the rule. In life there almost always are exceptions to the rule.

I can't speak for others' experience, but in my experience I can tell a man from a woman by the voice in the great majority of cases.

And the bigger point isn't the fact that there are exceptions and hard cases but the point of the view of the reader. If you tell your reader that prison guard A talks to prisoner B, the reader -- most readers -- will assume that the gender has been revealed. If as the author you want to make a point about the voice being difficult to identify, then use of a neutral pronoun might make sense to convey the prisoner's confusion. But in most cases, the prisoner is going to know, and the reader is going to assume the prisoner knows.

The OP hasn't actually suggested that the guard has spoken, so it's really a moot point anyway.

 

[KimGordon67]

It was mentioned that the voice is processed

Oh - well spotted.

 

[lovecraft68]

If you have it from the inmate's POV and he is unsure of gender he could refer to the guard as 'it'

You could cheap out and just say "The guard said, did etc..."

I'm sure political correctness is going to force the English experts to create a gender neutral pro-noun soon so no one is offended there's not one, so maybe sometime soon you'll get an official answer.

 

[JasonClearwater]

I have this same issue with a gender-non-specific character in a sci-fi story I haven't finished.

It requires careful sentence structure.

"Well, that went well."

Peyton stroked Frolic's head while he gave me eyes filled with fury.

"Hey, kid, I hope you don't mind me asking, but are you a boy or a girl?"

Malcolm shook his head, bemused, but Peyton just smiled.

"No."

I nodded. "Okay then."

And from that point... lots of careful avoidance of pronouns.