Pronouns as orientation devices: Critical-affective reflections on language and cisheteronormativity in higher education

Pronouns, particularly gender-expansive pronouns like the singular “they”, have become prominent points of contestation in public discourse. Right-wing public and political figures have fuelled the furore over pronouns as they rely on traditionalist notions of the gender binary to deny the legitimacy of (a)gender diversity and trans identities. At the same time, queer-trans scholars, activists, and (teacher) educators also use pronouns to trouble cisheteronormative spaces and interactions in complex ways and with variable effects. In this article, we draw on the work of Sarah Ahmed to argue that pronouns work as (dis-/re-)orientation devices with implications for doing queer critical literacies in teacher/higher education. Our discussion brings into conversation public discourses around pronouns and critical reflection on duoethnographic moments by the authors. First, we explore the contestation around pronouns on social media, particularly utterances by public figures and users on Twitter/X that seek to perpetuate cisheteronormativity but instead can enable queer critical approaches. Second, we present autoethnographic reflections about how declaring our pronouns and using pronouns in gender-expansive ways in our work as teacher educators can disrupt cisheteronormativity. As a function of a broader system of language and meaning-making, pronoun declarations are one dimension in maintaining, reproducing, disrupting, or transforming dominant ideologies of gender. As such, they then also contribute towards constructing the conditions for the inclusion and affirmation of (a)gender diversity where difference is represented positively in everyday ways, and normative assumptions about (a)gender identity are not taken for granted.