Gendered Pronouns in Mandarin
Notes de l’épisode
Today's episode is on gendered pronouns in Mandarin! Join us for a journey through thousands of years of Chinese language, featuring paleo-pronouns, neo-pronouns, and the complexities of expressing gender when your phone has a limited character set.
For those of you who would like a visual to go along with the Chinese characters we discuss in this episode, they are 他 (masculine/neutral tā), 她 (feminine tā), 牠 ("cow-tā"), 祂 ("God-tā"), and X也 (gender-neutral tā).
This episode was originally released on our Patreon in 2025.
Check out our website, where you can find our sources, as well as everything there is to know about Queer as Fact.
If you enjoy our content, consider supporting us on Patreon, checking out our merch, and following us on Instagram, Tumblr and Bluesky.
[Image: calligraphy of gender-neutral form of the Mandarin pronoun tā (X也)]