By Jessie Yeung, CNN
Hong Kong (CNN) — Whenever high-profile non-binary activist Siufung Law did media interviews, journalists always asked: what pronoun would they like to use?
For a long time, the Hong Kong native, who uses they/them pronouns in English, had no easy answer because Chinese pronouns are largely split into two when referring to people – a male and female form – and neither felt right.
Finally, in 2017, Law came across a potential solution: an unofficial pronoun that had been invented by the intersex and non-binary community. The character looked similar to the existing Chinese pronouns but was altered with what looked like an X on the side, which reminded Law of Gender X – the “third pronoun” sometimes used on IDs and passports in other countries.
Despite having been around for nearly a decade, this invented Chinese pronoun has remained on the fringes for one reason: as an unofficial character, it doesn’t exist on our keyboards, and while it’s often stylized as X也, that’s a hassle to type and confusing to people who are unfamiliar with it.
That, however, could soon change. In September, the pronoun was added to Unicode – a global standard of symbols and characters used by web developers and tech giants worldwide.
This means users may eventually be able to type the character on phones and laptops, and search and display it online. The process could take several more years, but it’s been celebrated nonetheless as a major step toward broader recognition – especially in China, where conservative attitudes and government crackdowns have made life increasingly tough for the LGBTQ+ community.
“Having a pronoun that is more specifically addressed to people who do not want to be labeled or boxed within the male and female pronouns … could be a really good alternative,” said Law, also a PhD candidate in gender and sexuality studies.
It’s “the acknowledgement (that) people like myself do exist, and we are not erased within … those binary systems, whether it’s language or culture or history itself.”
Chinese pronouns weren’t always so binary. In fact, the language didn’t have gendered pronouns to begin with – what’s now considered the male pronoun, 他, was once used for all people.
That’s evident in how it’s written, too. Chinese characters are composed of building blocks that often offer clues about their meaning or origin; in the case of the once-universal pronoun, its building blocks simply mean “person,” without any indication of gender.
“For thousands of years, it seems that nobody felt the need to make this distinction,” wrote Chinese scholar Huang Xingtao in his 2009 book on the topic. But in the early 20th century, China came into greater contact with Western nations – pushing the country to “vigorously create new characters … to express certain terms in Western languages.”
That’s also when China’s early feminist movement gained momentum, with activists demanding women’s independence, education, and representation – including in the written word.
These concurrent movements birthed the new female pronoun, 她. It is pronounced “ta,” the same as the original 他, the new X也, and other Chinese pronouns used for animals and inanimate objects.
That’s why some people now argue that the creation of a new gender-neutral pronoun is unnecessary, as that’s what existed in the first place.
These linguistic evolutions have wide-reaching implications. Chinese has the highest number of native speakers out of all languages worldwide, and is used from Hong Kong to Taiwan to Chinese-speaking diasporas. Even Sinitic languages like