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Recapturing the Narrative: How the Left Is Winning the Pronoun Debate, Its Cultural Consequences, and What to Do About It
“All wars are fought over words, but what else is worth fighting for?”
— Most frequently attributed to H.L. Mencken
The words we use shape not only how we communicate but also how we think, perceive, and debate contested issues. In recent years, few battles over language have been as revealing as the fight over pronouns. Driven by academia, media, and left-leaning interest groups, what once would have been considered an absurdity — using “they” as a singular pronoun for a known individual — has quickly become mainstream. It is even pervasively used in government publications, though formal adoption of this convention has not been authorized. In fact, the infiltration of misapplied pronouns is now increasingly embedded (if sometimes reluctantly) in formal style manuals. (RELATED: Calibri, Times New Roman, and the Trump Administration’s Symbolic Battle over Symbols)
Not only did conservatives fail to see this coming, but many are also still blissfully unaware that they themselves have been co-opted by the other side. How? By allowing it to seep into the vernacular in reference to unknown singular individuals. That, too, is grammatically incorrect, but it is not as jarring. And this failure to contest the terms of the debate has meant inadvertently ceding the territory. The result is that radical Progressives have effectively captured the narrative high ground, creating subtle but powerful shifts in public discourse that extend far beyond grammar and fostering the normalization of what ought to be recognized as biased terminology in the discussion of hot-button issues such as “gender-affirming care.” Those on the Left will argue that this shift is merely an innocuous evolution of the language (“Nothing to see here, folks; move along”), but that is, in fact, a “motte and bailey” fallacy that deserves to be called out. In announcing the change at the Washington Post in 2015, for instance, Bill Walsh issued a memo to the Post’s employees explaining,
It is usually possible, and preferable, to recast sentences as plural to avoid both the sexist and antiquated universal default to male pronouns and the awkward use of he or she, him or her and the like: All students must complete their homework, not Each student must complete his or her homework.
When such a rewrite is impossible or hopelessly awkward, however, what is known as “the singular they” is permissible: Everyone has their own opinion about the traditional grammar rule. The singular they is also useful in references to people who identify as neither male nor female.
Note that the last sentence sneaks in allowance for those “who identify as neither male nor female.” That is decidedly not an innocuous evolution of the language; it is a thumb on the scale in the language debate. And by allowing instances where the subject identifies as neither male nor female, it lends credence to instances where the writer has no idea whether the known subject would approve or not, moving the language yet further in the desired direction of the Progressive language police. Indeed, programmers, whether lazy or partisan, have been writing code to automate the use of such errors, foisting it on unsuspecting subjects whether they like it or not.
Here are a few concrete examples. When using the Signal messaging app, if a user changes his or her profile name, the app notifies the other users in the chat group of the modification with a message saying, “Patrick changed their profile name to Pat,” or “Robert changed their profile name to Bob,” (emphasis added) as the case may be. On LinkedIn, when someone accepts a user’s invitation to connect, the user receives an automatic e-mail, the subject line of which reads, “Paul accepted your invitation, explore their network” (emphasis added). Now it is disappointing enough for private sector tech companies to do this, but it is simply unacceptable when it is the U.S. government doing it. Yet it is happening there, too.
These kinds of incidents are a seditious way of undermining the President’s intent, slyly indicating that Uncle Sam accepts misused pronouns as legitimate regardless of what directives come out of the Oval Office.
For instance, at the U.S. Department of State, employees submit their “timesheets” to their supervisors through an application on the enterprise computer system. Once that data is submitted, the supervisors receive automated e-mails notifying them that “Jeff has submitted their timesheet,” or “Marie has submitted their timesheet” (emphasis added). President Trump can and has issued executive orders to stop employees from misusing pronouns, but there is nothing in his executive orders to stop the government’s bots from mindlessly doing it anyway. These kinds of incidents are a seditious way of undermining the President’s intent, slyly indicating that Uncle Sam accepts misused pronouns as legitimate regardless of what directives come out of the Oval Office.
Moreover, in all of cases, neither Patrick nor Robert nor Paul nor Jeff nor Marie requested to be identified by the pronoun “their” (and it ought not have been done even if they had), yet the software programmers made the unilateral executive decision to code the software for the app that way without any input from the users about whom the messages pertain. The programmers have imposed their ideological biases on the users and effectively diagnosed every one of them as suffering from multiple personality disorder, whether he or she wants to be identified as such or not. And in the case of the latter example, U.S. government officials, using taxpayer funds, paid money for it. This is both a devious form of tech tyranny as well as the (mal)practice of psychiatry without a license (and a HIPAA violation to boot!). (RELATED: Non-binary Pronouns Are Conquering the West)
These grammatical infractions have become commonplace in everyday conversations, often going unnoticed even by the most ardent anti-woke activists. However unintended these errors may be, they still serve to advance the Leftist cause. The more widespread these mistakes are, the more normative the misuse becomes. This phenomenon parallels the singular use of “you,” which replaced the once-distinct second-person forms: “thee/thou,” “thy,” and “thine” for singular; “you,” “your,” and “yours” for plural. (The South has attempted to mitigate this ambiguity with the addition of “y’all.”) However, the contrast in the origins between the shift to the singular “you” and the singular “they” is relevant; today’s change stems from an ideological agenda rather than a mere linguistic devolution. While the singular “they” may eventually achieve normative status without recognition of its ideological roots, the nature of that origin ought, nevertheless, to be troubling. This process of language desensitization not only introduces imprecision into our discourse but also impacts our cultural consciousness, skewing our ability to recognize and conceptualize what should be contentious issues. Ultimately, we risk ceding the battleground willingly, conceding victory to the Left without ever taking up arms.
The Historical Baseline: Clarity and Precision
For centuries, English grammar had a perfectly serviceable way of handling the problem of an indefinite third-person singular subject whose sex was unknown: the generic “he.” Just as “mankind” refers inclusively to humanity as a whole, “he” (as well as “him” and “his”) functioned as the grammatically correct, precise, generic pronoun in sentences such as, “If anyone calls, tell him I’ll be back soon.” This rule is clear and consistent. Every student during most of the 20th Century learned this rule, and it is still reflected in the U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO) Style Manual even today. However, this rule fell out of favor in Progressive circles, and, through concerted effort, is no longer even recognized among large swaths of the American public, even if subconsciously so.
The alternative that has now been foisted upon us by the Progressive agenda — adopting “they” as the appropriate third-person singular pronoun for an indefinite antecedent — has been around in informal usage going back at least to the 14th Century, but it has long been resisted by prescriptive grammarians. In the latter part of the 20th Century, though, Second-Wave feminists began to challenge the supposed “bias” inherent (as they saw it) in the terminology of formal writing, such as the generic “he,” stigmatizing it as sexist and exclusionary. Indeed, not long ago, this reconception of generic pronouns as being solely sex-specific even led one Democrat U.S. representative, seeking to be “inclusive” in the opening prayer for a daily session of Congress, to end his petition of the Almighty with “amen and awomen.” By reframing the pronoun debate in terms of fairness and inclusion, the Progressives laid the linguistic groundwork for a more radical ideational shift: that individuals themselves might choose a non-he/she pronoun and that such a choice was entirely legitimate. Hence, Bill Walsh’s memo. In fact, the generic “he” is only considered sexist and exclusionary because those disposed to think it is think it is. It is a tautology that amounts to little more than a “heckler’s veto.”
The Liberal Strategy: Reframing Through Language Confusion
The wily genius (and danger) of the Progressive linguistic agenda was right out of the Leftist playbook: Use multiple arguments, however flawed or mutually contradictory, to appeal to different constituencies, and, if helpful to one’s own cause, to sow confusion. Their other argument, in the case of “singular ‘they’,” was to recast the discussion of pronouns as a moral issue rather than a grammatical one. The progression of the argumentation: The generic “he” excludes women; switching to “he or she” initially, and then subsequently to the singular “they” because “he or she” is too clunky… and too “binary” — a classic motte and bailey. Over time, this moral and cultural narrative came to dominate the technical one. Writers in media, academia, and even legal discourse began adopting “they” not merely as a neutral option, but as the expected form — ostensibly so as not to offend.
This move was not simply organic; it was strategic and insidious. It was never really about aiding the reader in reading the text more smoothly. It was about (a) pushing a deceptive agenda that contends it is a matter of respect and equality when, in fact, it is about (b) controlling the language as a way of asserting ever more ideological power, and (c) changing how people think about controversial issues without having to convince them openly — Sun Tzu’s classic strategy of winning without fighting. By normalizing the singular “they,” Progressives secured a rhetorical advantage: The pronoun debate would no longer be about syllables or syntax but about dignity, identity, and inclusion. Thus, the deeper claim — namely, that gender identity can be subjective and fluid — was cunningly legitimized through everyday discourse. (RELATED: The LGBTQ Conquest of America)
Style Manuals and Institutional Capture
Having seized the upper hand in the moral framing of the issue, Progressives then turned to institutionalizing the change through the standards that apply in academic and professional contexts — standards that would be taught to the next generation and that would be demanded of scholars wishing to advance their careers by being published in the most respectable journals of their disciplines. If grammar books once governed expression by appealing to clarity and logic, today’s arbiters of style — manuals, guides, and editorial boards — function as instruments of cultural enforcement. Tracing the evolution of institutional orthodoxy exposes how major style authorities have subverted the moral debate on pronoun usage and turned the issue into a rhetorical cudgel. In some cases, their revisions reveal not just acquiescence but endorsement, however tepidly or enthusiastically, of the Progressive orthodoxy.
Style Manual
Position on Singular “They”
Conditions / Caveats / Quote
CMOS
Accepts singular they for individuals who request it or for generic/unknown cases.
“While we recognize that ‘they’ is gaining acceptance as a singular pronoun, especially for individuals who identify as nonbinary, writers should use it with care in formal writing.”
AP Stylebook
Permits singular they in limited cases, including when an individual uses it or when rewording is awkward.
“Use they/them/their as a singular pronoun in limited cases, when referring to a person who requests it or when rewording is awkward.”
APA
Fully endorses singular they for both generic and specific individuals who prefer it.
“Use the singular ‘they’ to avoid making assumptions about gender. It is the preferred pronoun for individuals who use it and is appropriate in both generic and specific contexts.”
GPO Style Manual
Retains traditional pronoun usage and does not explicitly endorse singular they for known individuals.
“The GPO Style Manual does not explicitly endorse the singular ‘they’; it maintains traditional pronoun forms for clarity and formality.”
Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS): The CMOS 17 (2017) distinguishes between two uses of singular “they”: a generic use (for unknown or unspecified individuals) and a specific use (for individuals who prefer “they”). It states that the use of the singular “they” is “gaining acceptance in formal writing,” but “advises avoiding it if possible,” especially when clarity might suffer.2 For the specific case—someone who expressly uses “they” — CMOS says that a person’s stated pronoun preference “should generally be respected.” Importantly, CMOS does not mandate “they” for known individuals whose preference is unknown; it retains the recommendation to default to “he” or “she” or reword.
Associated Press (AP): In 2017, AP published a formal change in its style manual: “They”/“them”/“their” is now permissible in “limited cases” as a singular or gender-neutral pronoun, “when alternative wording is overly awkward or clumsy.” However, AP emphasizes that “rewording usually is possible and always is preferable.” AP also states that clarity is paramount, and that “they” is “unfamiliar to many readers,” underscoring that the usage is not yet assumed appropriate in every context.
American Psychological Association (APA): In contrast to CMOS and AP, the APA has been far more proactive in endorsing the singular “they.” In the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Seventh Edition (2019), the APA formally recognizes “they” as the “appropriate singular pronoun” when referring to individuals who use it and explicitly recommends it as the default solution to avoid presuming gender, as if that faux pas should be the greater concern. This was not a minor editorial tweak but a deliberate statement grounded in the association’s commitment to diversity, inclusion, and what it terms “bias-free language.” In effect, the APA reframed the pronoun question not as a matter of grammar or clarity but as an ethical imperative, arguing that using “they” affirms individual identity and promotes psychological well-being. By codifying this in its flagship manual — the standard for psychology, education, and social science writing — the APA entrenched singular “they” within academic and professional discourse, lending institutional legitimacy to a change that remains contested in other style authorities.
Government Publishing Office (GPO) Style Manual (United States Government): The GPO Style Manual (2016) continues to adhere to the proper rules of English grammar. While the Manual acknowledges that usage evolves, it does not capitulate to the ideological use of “they” for known individuals as a default. Its focus remains on clarity, precision, and consistency in federal documents. Because it does not embrace a singular “they” as a default, it serves as a kind of institutional bulwark against wholesale linguistic reform.
Through sometimes cautious, hedging policies, and at other times bold statements effectively announcing a fait accompli, these other style authorities have implicitly ceded the narrative ground. This “motte and bailey” rhetorical gimmick gives linguistic activists room to argue that “the style guides now allow ‘they’” — a half-truth that conceals how narrow those permissions actually are. But that is all they need. Because the guides avoid a blanket, non-partisan prohibition and entertain the prospect that third-person plural pronouns can, at least in some instances, be appropriate in the singular context, they open the door to the radical Progressive agenda of getting the entire society to reconceptualize gender according to the Progressive diktat.
The result is that agencies within the federal government itself have issued guidance contradictory to the GPO Style Manual in recent years. For example, in April 2024, the EEOC issued “Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace,” which includes language asserting that the repeated, intentional use of pronouns inconsistent with an individual’s known gender identity (i.e., “misgendering”) can contribute to a hostile work environment under Title VII. This guidance was then weaponized by other federal agencies to require employees to respect the pronoun choices of their colleagues under threat of discipline. No provision was made for employees who might have a religious or other conscientious objection to such a requirement being imposed in contravention of their religious freedom and freedom of speech rights. And to model this effort at not being “offensive,” federal agencies began incorporating the incorrect use of non-gender-specific pronouns in a wide variety of ways, including in official documents, training videos, and, as indicated above, even system-generated e-mail alerts.
Consequences for Broader Cultural Debates
By the time these style guides adjusted their rules to accommodate instances of the “singular ‘they’,” the battle was already thought to be over — a self-fulfilling prophecy in the editors’ minds, perhaps. The shift from editorial convention to moral expectation ensured that linguistic compliance became a proxy for ideological assent: What began as a matter of wording now defines acceptable belief. The implications reach far beyond writing manuals or workplace memos; they extend into law, policy, and the very way the public is taught to think about identity and truth. Because the definitions of the terms of the debate frame the arguments, the normalization of “they” as a plausible singular third-person pronoun primes the public for acceptance of ever more radical ideas — such as gender fluidity and medical gender transition.
Consider the discussion around “gender-affirming care.” The moment discourse assumes that pronouns like “they” are common, mainstream, or even morally correct, the framework of the debate tilts. The question is no longer “Should gender identity drive medical decisions?” but “How best to affirm someone’s identity?” The premise is assumed settled: Identity is self-determined, variable, and legitimate. Opponents find themselves disputing only the consequences, not the underlying premise. (RELATED: Is the Transgender Movement Really Backing Down?)
The shift from “he” to “they” was not simply linguistic; it was strategic, setting the stage for cultural transformation.
In effect, conservatives have been maneuvered onto the defensive, the prior battleground of grammar and precision forfeit before the larger ideological battles even began. The shift from “he” to “they” was not simply linguistic; it was strategic, setting the stage for cultural transformation.
But beyond all the ideological disputation, the simpler reason to reject the notion of a singular “they” is that it just does not work. The Progressive agenda would have you believe that this is a grammatically correct sentence: “When Bob went to the store, they bought a cake.” Who is the “they” in that sentence? If we change “they” to include only Bob sometimes, then what happens if “they” really means more than one person purchased a cake — perhaps even a group that does not include Bob? Perhaps, while he was out at the store, a group of Bob’s friends ordered a birthday cake for him over the phone from the bakery on the first floor of his apartment building and were hoping to surprise him with it when he got back. But if “they” means just Bob, then he will have to celebrate alone. Of course, we will never know because we cannot tell which scenario to rule out. It introduces vagaries and imprecision into the language, when what we should strive for is clarity — the very thing the style guides purport to be after.
Do not lose heart, though. While the battle may be over, the war is not yet lost; there is still time to fight back.
Reclaiming Precision
The Trump administration’s effort to rid the federal government of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion activities is desperately needed and well-intentioned, but it is doubtful that President Trump, his senior officials, or members of Congress realize just how pervasive and insidious the efforts to ensconce such modes of thought control into the federal government have been. The president’s Executive Orders 14151 and 14168 of January 20, 2025; his Presidential Action of January 21, 2025; and his March 18, 2025, memorandum to the Department of State, banning diversity hiring and promotion practices in the Foreign Service, were just the tip of the iceberg. Although the Executive Departments and Agencies no longer allow employees to indicate their preferred pronouns in their e-mail signature blocks, the practice of using improper pronouns continues unabated throughout the federal departments and agencies via the legacy of previous administration officials’ decisions that cleverly continue to subvert this administration’s goals without notice. (RELATED: 3 Major New Developments in Trump’s Battle Against Transgender Tyranny)
So, beginning with policing the very language used to communicate within their respective government institutions, executive branch leaders should commit themselves to adhering to the standards currently articulated in the GPO Style Manual (i.e., the official government standard) and excise any and all deviation. This will entail, inter alia, that they:
Require the use of the generic “he” in contexts of a singular individual of unknown gender; refuse the ideological push to adopt “they” as a default for a known or unknown individual.
Insist on “he,” “him,” and “his,” or, where appropriate, “it” and “its,” or “she,” “her,” and “hers,” but never allow “they,” “them,” or “their(s)” in reference to a single individual or entity, whether generic or known.
Draw attention to how language is being weaponized to control framing; include training on this in federal orientation courses for new employees and in government-sponsored writing curricula.
Offer a nominal bounty for identifying each instance of such errors in government documents published during this administration’s time in office, and then correct and reissue them.
Offer a nominal bounty for identifying each instance of such errors in government documents published during previous administrations that contain policies that remain in effect during this administration, and then correct and reissue those policies.
Offer a nominal bounty for each identified information resource management system that generates such errors in its operations and then fix those systems.
Offer a nominal bounty for identifying each such instance in federal online training modules, including legacy modules/videos still in use whose scripts include such errors, and then reedit or redo them altogether.
Be sure that all State Department — and Department of War — supported schools around the world teach English grammar as currently articulated in the GPO Style Manual.
Do not just eliminate DEI curricula in U.S. government-sponsored training, including in overseas schools; supplant them with “antidote-for-DEI” curricula. In federal government-sponsored or -run primary and secondary schools, teach students such things as:
People should be judged by the content of their character and not by their immutable characteristics or how they subjectively define themselves;
There are immutable, universally self-evident, natural law principles ruling the universe; those principles informed our Founding Fathers and undergird the American political system; and they serve to make the United States exceptional; and
In light of the above, radical change should be viewed with healthy suspicion, and where change is needed, it should be done in a non-violent manner that is consistent with the Rule of Law because that kind of change is far more sustainable.
Encourage the federal courts, Congress, and state and municipal governments to adopt the GPO Style Manual as their standard, and have public schools teach grammar in accordance with that standard.
This list is by no means comprehensive, of course. But simply by making grammar a contested terrain again, including incentivizing the assistance of the public to root out the corruption of the language, conservatives can resocialize the culture to revert to the non-politicized, more precise terminology that proper grammar demands. The Progressives’ surreptitious “terminology warfare” not only corrodes the precision of the language (and exacerbates conflict in the process), but it also corrupts the thinking of the body politic. The instigation of division akin to the ancient Biblical “City of Babel” may provide Progressives with a tactical advantage in terms of getting their agendas adopted, but such efforts deserve to be called out and cast out as illegitimate — because they are.
READ MORE:
Calibri, Times New Roman, and the Trump Administration’s Symbolic Battle over Symbols
Prepare to Say Goodbye to the Transgender Moment
Trump’s Executive Order Ends ‘Trans’ Tyranny and Protects Females
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