Personal pronouns and intersex lived experience in English: The bind of third person reference

This study examines the ongoing gendered negotiation of one person’s intersex identity and the challenges to intelligibility which are posed by a lack of widely used and understood epicene pronouns in English. Sources of data include; 1) my own written research articles, which focus on an intersex person’s lived experience, and 2) the transcript of a conversation in which participants repeatedly refer in the third person to an intersex individual who is co-present. Discourse analysis of these written and spoken case studies reveals attempted strategies for navigating (and avoiding) the use of pronouns for intersex third person reference. An ethnographic approach to research sits behind the data and also provides valuable insights via field observations. The avoidance of pronouns is marked in English, and so the repeated use of a referent’s proper name becomes a strained and socially distancing practice. Thus third person reference via pronouns is unavoidable in longer stretches of discourse, and this ‘bind’ is one of the primary challenges to intelligibility faced on a daily basis by English-speaking intersex-identified people. Speakers who refer to the intersex individual are forced to employ ‘her’, ‘him’, ‘she’ and ‘he’ in ways which can interfere with anaphoric reference on the one hand, yet sit in opposition to a referent’s gendered identity on the other hand. Finally, solutions to third person pronominal reference explored by intersex people in intersex communities of practice will be highlighted.