An overview of German genderneutral language
German is a complicated and gendered language: when a pronoun, noun or adjective references you, it most of the time requires which gender you are.
It’s problematic for nonbinary people, because we cannot simply switch one set of pronouns for another to express our identity. We need to come up with a system that also includes neutral forms for adjectives and declined forms of pronouns.
This website is an effort to put together in a structured and accessible way the existing ideas for less gendered pronouns and other forms. We create it in German (see: Pronomen and Substantive), but if you don’t speak it, yet still are interested in how this language tries to cope with the omnipresent binaries, we’ve prepared a short overview of those ideas in English.
Normative forms
Because of the limitations of Polish grammar, or simply because they just prefer it that way, many nonbinary people decide to simply use “he” („er”) or “she” („sie”) – either the same as their gender assigned at birth or the opposite. That doesn’t make them any less nonbinary! Pronouns ≠ gender.
| They read | This is their cat | I speak with them | I like them | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| er/ihm Masculine | Er liest | Das ist seine Katze | Ich spreche mit ihm | Ich mag ihn |
| sie/ihr Feminine | Sie liest | Das ist ihre Katze | Ich spreche mit ihr | Ich mag sie |
Neutrative forms
German has three grammatical genders: masculine, feminine and neuter. Why don’t enbies simply use neuter then?
The thing is, historically this grammatical gender has only been applied to inanimate objects, pets and kids (in a very limited way). To apply it for adults sounds dehumanizing for most cis listeners.
In a way, a parallel could be drawn between the Polish neuter forms and the English “it” pronoun. To call someone an “it” is offensive – unless it itself wants us to use “it/its” (and many do). The main difference is that English has singular “they”, while German doesn’t yet have any normative form that would fit better.
There’s one more issue with neuter, though: it is neutral in nominative (the “who?”), but in other cases (the “whose?”, “whom?”, etc.) if falls back to being identical to masculine forms. That’s why some enbies mix multiple forms, for instance using feminine or plural forms in other cases.
| They read | This is their cat | I speak with them | I like them | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| es/ihm Neutrative | Es liest | Das ist seine Katze | Ich spreche mit ihm | Ich mag es |
| es/ihr Neutrative with female declension | Es liest | Das ist ihre Katze | Ich spreche mit ihr | Ich mag es |
Plural forms
There is technically no genus in the German plural. Bad news is that there’s two gendered forms in plural when constructing nouns. By a very patriarchal logic in a binary world, a group which just one man receives the masculine plural, while a women-only group gets a suffix to make it a feminine plural. However, this problem does not show when just looking at pronouns.
There is still one small problem with using plural pronouns, as they are quite similar to the feminine ones. Some enbies avoid this by using the plural article. While also being the article of the feminine singular, this has not the heavy connotation of being a feminine pronoun.
| They read | This is their cat | I speak with them | I like them | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| sie/ihnen Normative plural | Sie lesen | Das ist ihre Katze | Ich spreche mit ihnen | Ich mag sie |
| die/denen Adjusted plural | Die lesen | Das ist deren Katze | Ich spreche mit denen | Ich mag die |
| die/denen Adjusted plural as singular | Die liest | Das ist deren Katze | Ich spreche mit denen | Ich mag die |
No pronouns
As in English, it is possible to ditch gendered language in case of pronouns and possessives by just using the name.
There are some forms that are not expressible that way, but most of the time it can be easily circumvented.
As German has its specials in grammar, names ending with s, x, z or ß will not follow the rule to have a s for their possessives appended apostrophe, but instead an apostrophe.
Neopronouns similar to “they/them”
“they/them” is quite popular in English, so a very popular idea is to apply it in German too. By combining a Germanized version of “they” and “them” for the respective cases and adding neutral plural forms, a neutral pronoun set can be constructed.
However, it has some shortcomings with some lesser used forms which might need to be replaced with our syntax constructs or resorting to a different pronoun set.
| They read | This is their cat | I speak with them | I like them | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| they/them English version | They liest | Das ist their Katze | Ich spreche mit them | Ich mag them |
| dey/denen Germanized version (A) | Dey liest | Das ist deren Katze | Ich spreche mit denen | Ich mag dey |
| dey/denen Germanized version (B) | Dey liest | Das ist deren Katze | Ich spreche mit denen | Ich mag demm |
Neopronouns with new stem
There are many ideas with entirely new word stems functioning as neopronouns.
They differ in how many forms they cover, but all of them are suitable for basic conversations. Some of them are even related to a neutral noun convention, covering nearly every aspect of gendering in German.
| They read | This is their cat | I speak with them | I like them | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| en/em | En liest | Das ist ense Katze | Ich spreche mit em | Ich mag en |
| nin/nim | Nin liest | Das ist nimse Katze | Ich spreche mit nim | Ich mag nin |
| mensch/mensch | Mensch liest | Das ist menschs Katze | Ich spreche mit mensch | Ich mag mensch |
Neopronouns by fusion
One can also take the two binary forms and fuse them together to build the different forms. They are pronounced differently to just chaining both normative forms.
Placeholder forms
Another approach is to take the part of the word that differs between the male and female form, and to either replace it with a placeholder, or use the placeholder to merge those parts together. For instance “dear reader” can be translated as „liebe:r Leser:in”, „liebe*r Leser*in”, „lieb* Les*erin”, etc.
The main usage of such forms is to address a group of people or an unspecified person (“dear reader”), however there are nonbinary people who use it as a specific pronoun. It's very easy to understand the intent behind using those forms, even to listeners unfamiliar with the concept of nonbinary. The main disadvantage is that in most cases they are only usable in writing, while some forms are hard or impossible to pronounce.
| They read | This is their cat | I speak with them | I like them | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| er:sie/ihm:ihr | Er:sie liest | Das ist seine:ihre Katze | Ich spreche mit ihm:ihr | Ich mag ihn:sie |
| er*sie/ihm*ihr | Er*sie liest | Das ist seine*ihre Katze | Ich spreche mit ihm*ihr | Ich mag ihn*sie |
| er_sie/ihm_ihr | Er_sie liest | Das ist seine_ihre Katze | Ich spreche mit ihm_ihr | Ich mag ihn_sie |
Interchangeable forms
Many nonbinary people use more than one form interchangeably and are fine with being called either of them.