Welcome to pronomsneutres!!

Our description above (in French mostly) tells you all you need to know about this blog’s goal, but I’ll repeat it here: since we’re sick of the lack of choices to describe ourselves in a language as gendered as French is, we nonbinary Francophones have taken up the challenge to invent forms that would suit us well and not make us dysphoric. We won’t set up a standard that’s meant to be used for everyone — quite the opposite, like in English, we encourage people to develop pronouns and grammatical forms that would make them comfortable.

That said, even though we think general neutrality and fighting the inherent sexism in French to be very important, this blog will be chiefly focused on the needs of trans people. We will not tolerate any discussion that treats this issue like some sort of thought experiment that has nothing to do with the comfort of marginalized people. If you’re cis and following this blog, you need to know when to listen (and frankly, when to shut up) if you want to be a good ally. On the other hand, this blog welcomes anyone who wants to find neutral pronouns in French for themself (since there are women and men who prefer neutral pronouns, not just nonbinaries!) or wants to learn more about neutral language in order to help and support their nonbinary Francophone friends!

I’m Cat, one of the mods, and my personal blog is hawtistic. You might already know me because of my famous post about French neutral pronouns, although I’ve somewhat changed the system. I use “ul” and “lo” for pronouns in French (the latter pronounced like “l'eau” or more loosely English “low”); “ul” works exactly like “elle” in every way and “lo” exactly like “le” or “la.” For adjectives and verbs that take être as the auxiliary, I use T endings (for example, “Ul est allet” for “They went”) except for if an adjective already ends in T, in that case you drop it.

Do know that I’m American and thus even though I speak French fluently and have studied it for a decade, I’m always capable of making mistakes or not totally understanding French/Francophone cultural aspects that would make the use of neutral language different than in the English-speaking world. The other mod, loutrem, is French herself (she’s nonbinary but uses she/her pronouns) and thus would be better-equipped than me to determine how useful a certain form might be.

While this blog will be chiefly in French, it will use English from time to time because some gender concepts are easier to discuss in English due to a lack of discussion in French, and also to be welcoming to those who are still learning French. Don’t hesitate to tell us how we can make this blog friendly to beginning-to-intermediate French learners and still keep a French focus here!