In late 2025, discussions resurfaced across social media, academia and digital standards bodies about introducing a gender-neutral pronoun into Chinese language. The new gender-neutral pronoun (ta) approved by Unicode Standards, the universal character encoding standard designed to represent text and symbols around the world, is a major step for non-binary and gender-diverse Chinese speakers to gain digital recognition and easier typing. Though widespread tech implementation will take time, the inclusion of this pronoun isn’t just about words, it’s a revolution in how millions express themselves.
While supporters frame this as a step toward linguistic inclusion and modernisation, critics see it as unnecessarily changing a language equipped with neutral forms. But there is a global conversation on how languages evolve, or resist, in response to changing understandings of gender identity.
As for China, spoken Mandarin has always had a quirk. The familiar third-person pronoun ‘ta’ sounds the same regardless of gender. In speech, it can be used for ‘he’, ‘she’ or ‘they’. Yet contemporary activists and language users, particularly within queer and non-binary communities, have argued and proposed new character forms that visually signal a gender-inclusive identity in written Chinese. These characters are far from mainstream and not widely recognised; technological hurdles also remain, because they would need to be added to the Unicode Standard to be typable and display correctly on keyboards and devices. Meanwhile, the informal Latin-letter form ‘ta’ has become widely recognised online, particularly among younger speakers and LGBTQ communities.
Bridging the Digital Divide
However, there is a debate around whether a ‘new character’ isn’t just about typography or Unicode — it’s about identity, visibility, and language as a tool for self-description.
Critics dismiss the change as superficial, or unnecessary in a language that sounds gender-neutral in speech. Advocates counter that written forms matter, especially in formal contexts like legal documents, identity documents, and everyday social media use because written distinctions shape social reality and visibility. But China is not the only country wrestling with gendered language forms. Around the world, languages have taken diverse approaches.
How the World Redefines Gender in Language
Take for instance, Sweden. It added the gender-neutral pronoun hen to its official dictionaries in the 2010s alongside han (‘he’) and hon (‘she’). Hen was originally popularised by gender equality advocates and nursery educators and has since gained broader acceptance, becoming a legitimate alternative in everyday use.
In English, the use of the singular ‘they’ stretches back centuries but gained renewed prominence as a pronoun for individuals who don’t identify as male or female. Mainstream style guides from the Associated Press to the Chicago Manual of Style now accept singular ‘they’ in both general and non-binary contexts. It has even been named ‘Word of the Decade’ (2010-19) by linguistic societies such as the American Dialect Society.
In French, speakers and activists have proposed iel as a merge of il (‘he’) and elle (‘she’), and major dictionaries have even included it. Yet its use is contested with linguistic authorities and some political leaders rejecting it as an artificial imposition. In Italy, the tension over gender-neutral writing led the education ministry to ban gender-neutral symbols like the schwa from schools in 2025, framing them as threats to traditional grammar. In languages like Spanish and Portuguese, which embed gender into almost every noun and article, activists creatively insert characters such as @, x, or new endings like -e, to indicate inclusivity. These remain informal and contested but point to active grassroots experimentation.
Language is never neutral. It’s bound up with power, culture, and identity. Gender-neutral language movements aren’t stylistic trends, they reflect societal shifts in how gender is understood and lived. But these changes provoke resistance. Some see them as unnecessary or driven by a Western agenda, especially in cultures with different historical approaches to gender in language. In Chinese, many argue that because ‘ta’ is neutral in speech, there is no practical need for new forms. Others see new pronouns as a trend, rather than a substantive cultural evolution.
However, opponents sometimes argue from a preservationist stance: that languages should remain rooted in tradition and clarity, with official institutions like academies, governments or linguistic authorities, deciding what is legitimate. These tensions play out across societies from France to Italy and beyond. So whether new pronouns become widespread or remain niche will only vary by language and cultural context, because the push for inclusive language points to a dynamic process, one where speakers shape their language to fit evolving understandings of identity and community.
