Is “They” a Truly Gender-Neutral Pronoun?

The English language does not have a widely-used singular gender-neutral pronoun. Although "they" has been proposed to be a singular gender-neutral pronoun, some findings suggest that it carries a male bias, a phenomenon where a pronoun that is intended to be gender-neutral is assumed to reference a man (Lindqvist et al., 2019). Our study aimed to evaluate pronoun use on the perception of gender. We strove to: (1) investigate how people perceive different pronouns: “he or she,” “they,” and other (purportedly) gender-neutral identifiers — “the applicant,” “the student,” and “the older adult;” (2) understand whether the above listed pronouns and identifiers carry a male bias; and (3) examine whether perceptions of pronouns and other identifiers change in different topic areas. Preliminary results suggest that both "they" and other supposedly non-gendered identifiers such as "the applicant" show a male bias. Topic area may also play a role in the extent to which “they” and non-gendered identifiers elicit a male-bias.