Hong Kong
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Whenever prominent non-binary activist Siufung Lo was interviewed by the media, journalists always asked: Which pronouns would they prefer to use?
For a long time, there was no easy answer for Hong Kongers who use they/them pronouns in English. This is because Chinese pronouns are broadly divided into two types when referring to people: masculine and feminine, and neither one feels correct.
Finally, in 2017, Lo found a potential solution. It is an unofficial pronoun invented by the intersex and non-binary community. This character resembled an existing Chinese pronoun, but was changed to look like an X on the side, reminding us of the gender law X. This is a “third pronoun” sometimes used on IDs and passports from other countries.
Despite being around for nearly a decade, this invented Chinese pronoun has remained in the corner for one reason. As an unofficial character, it does not exist on keyboards and is often stylized as X 也, as it is cumbersome to type and confusing for those unfamiliar with it.
But that could change soon. In September, the pronoun was added to Unicode, the global standard for symbols and characters used by web developers and tech giants around the world.
This means that users may eventually be able to type text into their phones or laptops and have it searched and displayed online. Although the process could take several more years, it is nonetheless being celebrated as a major step toward broader recognition, especially in China, where conservative attitudes and government repression have made life increasingly difficult for the LGBTQ+ community.
“Having more specific pronouns for people who don’t want to be labeled or boxed in between masculine and feminine pronouns can be a very good alternative,” said Lo, who is also a doctoral candidate in gender and sexuality studies.
It is “the recognition that people like me do exist, and that we are not erased within these binary systems, whether it be language, culture, or history itself.”
Pronouns in Chinese were not always binary. In fact, the language never had gender pronouns from the beginning. “Other”, which is now considered a male pronoun, was once used for everyone.
This is clear from the way it is written. Kanji are made up of component parts that often give clues to their meanings and origins. In the case of once-universal pronouns, their constituents simply mean “person” and do not indicate gender.
“For thousands of years, no one seems to have felt the need to make this distinction,” Sinologist Huang Xingtao wrote in a 2009 book on the subject. But in the early 20th century, China was called upon to deepen its contacts with the West and to “vigorously create new scripts to express certain terms in Western languages.”
It was also around this time that China’s nascent feminist movement gained momentum, with activists demanding women’s independence, education, and representation, including representation.
These simultaneous movements led to the birth of a new feminine pronoun, 她. It is pronounced “ta”, the same as the original “other”, the new “Xya”, and other Chinese pronouns used for animals and inanimate objects.
This is why some people argue that gender-neutral pronouns have always existed and there is no need to create new gender-neutral pronouns.
The evolution of these languages has far-reaching implications. Chinese has the highest number of native speakers of all languages in the world and is spoken by the Chinese-speaking diaspora from Hong Kong to Taiwan. Even Chinese languages like Cantonese are different from Mandarin in many ways, and they share many characters in common.
Huang, a 23-year-old Hong Konger, tried to adopt the pronouns “they/them” a few years ago when people started using them. After all, they thought, it was once a gender-neutral word and is still sometimes used that way.
However, they said that writing the character “I” felt “not really appropriate for me.” That’s because the word is currently too widely associated with being male, they said, and “we realize we are past the point where it can be used as a gender-neutral pronoun.”
Instead, Fan uses another method that has become popular among Chinese speakers. That is, write out the English letter TA in all uppercase letters. This captures how all Chinese pronouns are said aloud, but strips out the literal “components” that usually indicate gender.
Compared to Xya, which is still niche, TA is more prevalent, especially in mainland China. Kasper Wang, founder of Hong Kong-based transgender rights organization Gender Empowerment, said this has appeared not only on social media, but also in advertising campaigns and other mainstream materials.
But even those who use TA say there’s something strange about inserting English characters into a kanji sentence.
“Normally I use TA, but I found that having another Chinese (pronoun) was very important to me,” said Fan, who CNN identified by her nickname for privacy reasons.
Law agrees. They say that TA is “not very satisfying” because “it still looks like an English word to me”. “I’m really looking forward to being able to type (X 也) on my phone. I would actually prefer this pronoun over TA if it was easier to type.”
Adding Xya to Unicode was not an easy path. One of the key people in charge, Michael Bauer, works in translation and other language services and is himself half Cantonese. He and his partner submitted a Unicode application for the character in late 2020. Nearly five years ago, the character was approved and added to the standard in September of this year.
And challenges remain, Bauer said during a panel discussion on the topic earlier this summer. He said it could take months or years for technology platforms and font makers to update their systems and implement the new characters so users can easily search and type them on their devices.
Still, there’s work to be done in convincing people to actually use it. For example, in Hong Kong, most people speak Cantonese. Cantonese is an informal and colloquial language, and Cantonese has its own version of gender-neutral pronouns, reducing demand for new characters, said Wang, of the rights group Gender Empowerment.
But all CNN spoke to agreed that the move had symbolic power, regardless of the practical difficulties.
“Now that Unicode has this character, when you use it, people might say, oh, you’re non-binary,” Wang said. It gives weight and legitimacy to the pronoun. Rather than being an unofficial character created by a few individuals, it is now “part of the grammar, part of the language,” he says.
This is especially important given that Chinese-speaking cultures tend to be conservative towards LGBTQ+ rights and expression. In mainland China, the community has faced increasing repression since Xi Jinping took power more than a decade ago. Pride parades have been canceled, gay-themed movies and TV shows have been banned, and LGBTQ+ accounts have been shut down on the country’s most popular messaging apps.
Hong Kong, a former British colony and international financial hub, is generally more tolerant than mainland China, but has yet to legislate to recognize same-sex marriage or ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, despite a series of court rulings seeking greater equality.
The city has also been subject to a national security crackdown in recent years, suppressing dissent and capturing many leading LGBTQ+ activists, many of whom were also pro-democracy activists.
Taiwan is by far the most progressive country in Asia, being the first to legalize same-sex marriage.
In this context, “having pronouns that recognize us is so important at this time,” Roe said, noting the rise in homophobia and transphobia around the world, including anti-transgender laws across the United States.
Unicode’s adoption of X ya “opens up the space, the examples, to explore other gendered words,” Fan said. They pointed out that people casually use gendered language in a variety of ways on a daily basis. For example, the common expression for “children” in Chinese literally translates as “son and daughter.” Also, street vendors and restaurant staff may call out to you, “Miss!” or “Mr.”
“In fact, a lot of non-binary people struggle with this because no matter what people call you, you’re being misgendered,” Huang said. Perhaps X also could spark more conversation and inspire more gender-neutral terminology, they said.
At the very least, it provides often marginalized people with options they didn’t have before.
“When you have a choice, it tells you that your aspirations and your identity are valid options,” Huang says. “The very existence of this option is very powerful.”
