Gender-specific and gender-neutral pronouns

A gender-specific pronoun is a pronoun associated with a particular grammatical gender, such as masculine, feminine, or neuter, or with a social gender (or sex), such as female or male. Examples include the English third-person personal pronouns he and she.

A gender-neutral pronoun, by contrast, is a pronoun that is not associated with a particular grammatical or social gender and that does not imply, for instance, male or female. Many English pronouns are gender-neutral, including they (which in certain contexts can also refer to a singular antecedent such as everyone, a person, or the patient).

Many of the world's languages do not have gender-specific pronouns. Others, however – particularly those that have a system of grammatical gender (or have historically had such a system, as with English) – have gender specificity in certain of their pronouns, particularly third-person personal pronouns.

Problems of usage arise in languages such as English, in contexts where a person of unspecified or unknown sex or social gender is being referred to but commonly available pronouns (he or she) are gender-specific. In such cases a gender-specific, usually masculine, pronoun is sometimes used with intended gender-neutral meaning; such use of he was also common in English until the latter half of the 20th century but is now controversial. Use of singular they is another common alternative but is not accepted by everybody. Some attempts have been made, by proponents of gender-neutral language, to introduce invented gender-neutral pronouns.

Shemale

Shemale (also known as she-male) is a term primarily used in sex work to describe a trans woman with male genitalia and female secondary sex characteristics, usually including breasts from breast augmentation or use of hormones. Many transgender people regard the term shemale as offensive, arguing that it mocks or shows a lack of respect toward the gender identity and gender expression of transgender individuals; in this view, the term emphasizes the biological sex of a person and neglects their gender. Using the term shemale for a transsexual woman often implies that she is working in the sex trade. The phrase is commonly used in pornography.

The term shemale has been used since the mid-19th century, when it was a humorous colloquialism for female, especially an aggressive woman.

Academic use

Some biologists have used shemale to refer to male non-human animals displaying female traits or behaviors, such as female pheromones being given off by male reptiles. Biologist Joan Roughgarden has criticized the use of the term in the reptile literature, which she says is "degrading and has been borrowed from the porn industry." She writes that gynomorphic male and andromorphic female are preferred in scientific literature, adding, "I hope future work on these animals is carried out with more professionalism."

He & She

He & She is an American sitcom that aired on the CBS television network as part of its 1967–1968 lineup, originally sponsored by General Foods and Lever Brothers.

He & She is widely considered by broadcast historians to have been ahead of its time. Its sophisticated approach to comedy was viewed as opening doors to the groundbreaking MTM family of sitcoms of the 1970s, beginning with The Mary Tyler Moore Show in 1970. The character of Oscar was openly the pattern for the Ted Baxter character, for which creator Leonard Stern granted permission.

CBS aired reruns of He & She in prime time from June 1970 to September 1970.

Synopsis

He & She stars real-life married couple Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss as Dick and Paula Hollister, a successful cartoonist and his wife, a social worker. Hollister's cartoon "Jetman" had in fact been so successful that it was now a network television series starring egomaniacal actor Oscar North (Jack Cassidy) as Jetman. North constantly argues with Hollister over the interpretation and direction of the Jetman character. Folksinger-actor Hamilton Camp played the role of handyman Andrew Hummel at the apartment building where the starring characters lived, and Kenneth Mars played firefighter Harry Zarakartos, who would often drop in on the Hollisters' apartment by a plank connected to the firehouse across the street.