Introducing a gender-neutral pronoun in a natural gender language: the influence of time on attitudes and behavior
Open accessAbstract
The implementation of gender fair language is often associated with negative reactions and hostile attacks on people who propose a change. This was also the case in Sweden in 2012 when a third gender-neutral pronoun hen was proposed as an addition to the already existing Swedish pronouns for she (hon) and he (han). The pronoun hen can be used both generically, when gender is unknown or irrelevant, and as a transgender pronoun for people who categorize themselves outside the gender dichotomy. In this article we review the process from 2012 to 2015. No other language has so far added a third gender-neutral pronoun, existing parallel with two gendered pronouns, that actually have reached the broader population of language users. This makes the situation in Sweden unique. We present data on attitudes toward hen during the past 4 years and analyze how time is associated with the attitudes in the process of introducing hen to the Swedish language. In 2012 the majority of the Swedish population was negative to the word, but already in 2014 there was a significant shift to more positive attitudes. Time was one of the strongest predictors for attitudes also when other relevant factors were controlled for. The actual use of the word also increased, although to a lesser extent than the attitudes shifted. We conclude that new words challenging the binary gender system evoke hostile and negative reactions, but also that attitudes can normalize rather quickly. We see this finding very positive and hope it could motivate language amendments and initiatives for gender-fair language, although the first responses may be negative.
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In Gustafsson Sendén et al. (2015) and Renström et al. (2022), women consistently expressed more positive attitudes toward the pronoun hen than men.
“Regardless of this distinction, women consistently expressed more positive attitudes toward the pronoun than men.”
From What affects people’s use of and attitudes toward gender-inclusive language? A literature review (2025) · cites this paper as Gustafsson Sendén et al., 2015
The Results (‘Predictors Associated with Attitudes and Use’; page not specified) report that women were more positive toward hen than men in an initial model. However, gender became an insignificant predictor after sexism and political orientation were included, and the passage does not establish a consistent difference across years. (LLM, conf=0.86)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredGustafsson Sendén et al. (2015) reported that gender identity strength was an even stronger predictor of attitudes than biological sex.
“Gustafsson Sendén et al. (2015) reported that gender identity strength was an even stronger predictor of attitudes than biological sex.”
From What affects people’s use of and attitudes toward gender-inclusive language? A literature review (2025) · cites this paper as Gustafsson Sendén et al., 2015
The Results state that strength of gender identity was a stronger predictor than gender itself, including for attitudes toward the pronoun. But the Methods say participants reported their gender in a free-text response; the study did not identify its comparison variable as biological sex. (LLM, conf=0.86)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredGustafsson Sendén et al. (2015) reported an even stronger correlation between attitudes and self-reported linguistic behavior in users of Swedish.
“In a similar study, Gustafsson Sendén et al. (2015) reported an even stronger correlation between attitudes and self-reported linguistic behavior in users of Swedish.”
From What affects people’s use of and attitudes toward gender-inclusive language? A literature review (2025) · cites this paper as Gustafsson Sendén et al., 2015
In Gustafsson Sendén et al. (2015) and Renström et al. (2022), the effect of gender on hen use lost statistical significance when other factors-such as sexism, cisgenderism, or general interest in gender-related issues-were accounted for.
“However, the effect of gender lost statistical significance when other factors—such as sexism, cisgenderism, or general interest in gender-related issues—were accounted for.”
From What affects people’s use of and attitudes toward gender-inclusive language? A literature review (2025) · cites this paper as Gustafsson Sendén et al., 2015
In Gustafsson Sendén et al. (2015) and Renström et al. (2022), women reported using hen more frequently than men.
“In both studies, women reported using hen more frequently than men.”
From What affects people’s use of and attitudes toward gender-inclusive language? A literature review (2025) · cites this paper as Gustafsson Sendén et al., 2015
In Gustafsson Sendén et al. (2015), respondents' levels of modern sexism were negatively correlated with their attitudes toward the Swedish gender-neutral pronoun hen.
“Similar results were also found in a study on the Swedish gender-neutral pronoun hen, where respondents’ levels of modern sexism were negatively correlated with their attitudes toward hen (Gustafsson Sendén et al., 2015).”
From What affects people’s use of and attitudes toward gender-inclusive language? A literature review (2025) · cites this paper as Gustafsson Sendén et al., 2015
In Gustafsson Sendén et al. (2015), self-reported use of the gender-neutral pronoun hen was negatively correlated with levels of sexism.
“Also, in the Swedish-language study by Gustafsson Sendén et al. (2015), a negative correlation was found between self-reported use of the gender-neutral pronoun hen and levels of sexism, measured by the Swedish version of the Modern Sexism Scale (Ekehammar et al., 2000).”
From What affects people’s use of and attitudes toward gender-inclusive language? A literature review (2025) · cites this paper as Gustafsson Sendén et al. (2015)
In the 2015 study, interest was found to be the strongest predictor of hen use.
“In fact, in their 2015 study, this interest was found to be the strongest predictor.”
From What affects people’s use of and attitudes toward gender-inclusive language? A literature review (2025) · cites this paper as Gustafsson Sendén et al. (2015)
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“First, we test the part of the hypothesis found in previous research that men report more negative attitudes, and less use of hen compared to women (Gustafsson Sendén et al., 2015, 2021; Renström et al., 2022).”
Influential
- Authors
- Gustafsson Sendén, M., Bäck, E. A., & Lindqvist, A.
- Affiliations
- University of Gothenburg (SE)
- Lund University (SE)
- Venue
- Frontiers in Psychology
- Publisher
- Frontiers Media SA
- Published
- 2015-07-01
- Volume
- 6
- Pages
- 893-893
- ISSN
- 1664-1078 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC4486751
- OpenAlex
- W1937808414
- Cited by
- 211
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 9 · 2025: 67 · 2024: 20 · 2023: 22 · 2022: 18 · 2021: 15 · 2020: 38 · 2019: 11 · 2018: 5 · 2017: 2 · 2016: 4
- FWCI
- 8.56
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- Frontiers in Psychology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Lund University Publications (Lund University) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Vetenskapsrådet (2014 -1150)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Gender Studies in Language
- Social Sciences › Linguistics and Language › Linguistic Variation and Morphology
- Social Sciences › Linguistics and Language › Linguistic and Sociocultural Studies
- Keywords
- gender-neutral pronouns, hens, Swedish language, gender-inclusive language, language change, gender binary
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