In English, because gendered pronouns only exist in the third person and the vast majority of adjectives are neutral, a pronoun is generally something bestowed on you by others. You can do little to contest it, since—with the exception of direct statements—it mostly happens when someone is speaking about you to someone else. When chosen with care by a person who loves and respects you, a pronoun can be a gift. Otherwise, it is a weapon.
“Compared with French,” Nino S. Dufour writes in the translator’s note to the French edition of my novel The Thirty Names of Night (Les Trente Noms de La Nuit, Rue de l’echiquier, 2022), “the English language is much less gendered on the grammatical level: articles are neutral, even pronouns—with the exception of the third person singular.”
