Personal Pronouns: Who Owns Them?

In my blog article titled Love is Love, or is it?, I addressed some thoughts I have on LGBTQ matters and included a brief part on personal pronouns and non-binary issues. Just the other day, my 14 year old foster daughter spoke to me about her new boyfriend and said, "His pronouns are he/his and them/their." This got me thinking...

"Them/their" is generic enough that I am actually OK with using them for anyone. Maybe it's safest in today's day and age to use them for everyone. But the reliance on one's own definitions still baffles me. In my prior blog I explained that we generalize external descriptors like "he" or "she" based on obvious biology. It is a social shorthand and is not meant to convey one's personal feelings or readings of how they fall on the gender spectrum on a given day. Still, I think that this necessity of prefacing introductions actually creates far too much drama and qualification for general communicative use. I am deeper into being baffled. 

Just who owns "personal pronouns" anyway? 

You might think that personal pronouns belong to the person the pronouns are applied to, but that'd be wrong. They aren't personal because they are personal or some sort of intellectual property. Personal pronouns are personal because they reference persons. Personally, I don't call myself he, him, them, or they. I call myself "me" and I reference my thoughts using "I." This means that the pronouns of he or she or them or whatever are for external communication and not internal disposition. They are, after all, third person personal pronouns, which are never used by an individual. They are external reference points within language. And what do we do from the outside? We look at obvious sex traits to reference normative gender titles in people. It is not and should not be about addressing a person's fickle feelings or mood, but general types. Again, it's shorthand. So why introduce this new fad of catering to such finicky self-imposed categorizations? I believe this creates hurdles for simple speech. Frankly, I find the whole thing novel and a bit ridiculous. I believe a person can have their personal bent or feelings, but it ought not take away from normative speech that is quick and efficient. 

Just my 2 cents.