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.
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