essay on neuter gender

• English Grammar
• Gender In English Grammar
• Neuter Gender

Neuter Gender - Explore Meaning, Definition and 100+ Examples

When learning about gender in English grammar , you should also build your knowledge on neuter gender. While many other languages classify both animate and inanimate objects as belonging to the masculine or feminine gender, it is not the same with the English language . This article will help you with all that you need to know about neuter gender. Furthermore, you can also go through the 100+ examples given.

Table of Contents

What is neuter gender, list of 100+ neuter gender examples, frequently asked questions on neuter gender in english grammar.

Neuter gender refers to the grammatical category of words which are neither masculine nor feminine. Most inanimate objects seem to have no gender. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, neuter gender is defined as those words “relating to, or constituting the gender that ordinarily includes most words or grammatical forms referring to things classed as neither masculine nor feminine”, and according to the Oxford Learner’s Dictionary, it is defined as “belonging to a class of nouns , pronouns , adjectives or verbs whose gender is not feminine or masculine”. The Cambridge Dictionary defined neuter gender as “being a noun or pronoun of a type that refers to things; not masculine or feminine”.

Check out the table for more than 100 examples of the neuter gender.

What is neuter gender?

Neuter gender refers to a grammatical category of words which are neither masculine nor feminine. Most inanimate objects seem to have no gender.

What is the definition of neuter gender?

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, neuter gender is defined as those words “relating to, or constituting the gender that ordinarily includes most words or grammatical forms referring to things classed as neither masculine nor feminine”, and according to the Oxford Learner’s Dictionary, it is defined as “belonging to a class of nouns, pronouns, adjectives or verbs whose gender is not feminine or masculine”. The Cambridge Dictionary defined neuter gender as “being a noun or pronoun of a type that refers to things; not masculine or feminine”.

Give 10 examples for the neuter gender.

Given below are 10 examples for the neuter gender for your reference.

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Neuter is a long-established word for a sex or gender outside of the gender binary . Various dictionaries generally give it these two relevant definitions, among others:

1. A gender neither masculine nor feminine. Genderless . Gender neutral . An androgynous person.

2. Without sexual organs, or with incomplete sexual organs. In biology and zoology, this can mean animals that were artificially spayed, castrated , or otherwise sterilized , as well as animals who were normally born in that condition, such as worker bees. In botany, neuter can mean plants without pistils and stamens. [1] [2] [3]

Although the word "neuter" has existed in English with these meanings for hundreds of years, surveys show that it hasn't been common for contemporary nonbinary people to call themselves neuter. [4] However, neuter was mentioned as one of many valid nonbinary identities in the 2013 text Sexuality and Gender for Mental Health Professionals: A Practical Guide . [5]

The word in English usage dates back to the 14th century neutre , used in the grammatical sense. The English language borrowed this word from Latin neuter meaning "neither one nor the other" ( ne- "not, no" + uter "either (of two)"). This Latin word is likely taken in turn from the old Greek word oudeteros . [6]

Related terms [ edit | edit source ]

• FTN . In some queer communities, this has meant female-to-neuter (or neutrois ) transsexual (or transgender), as a counterpart to more widely-used terms, FTM (female-to-male, meaning a trans man, or someone on the trans-masculine spectrum) and MTF (male-to-female, meaning a trans woman, or someone on the trans-feminine spectrum). [7]
• MTN . Male-to-neuter (or neutrois ) transsexual (or transgender). [7]

Notable neuter people [ edit | edit source ]

See main article: Notable nonbinary people

There are many more notable people who have a gender identity outside of the binary . The following are only some of those notable people who specifically use the word "neuter" for themselves.

• Claude Cahun (1894 - 1954) was a surrealist artist and a resistance worker against the Nazi occupation of France in WWII. In Cahun's autobiography, Disavowals , they explained, “Masculine? Feminine? It depends on the situation. Neuter is the only gender that always suits me.” [8]
• Autistic activist and intersex person Jim Sinclair (1940 - ) has said they are "proudly neuter, both physically and socially." [9] In 1993 Sinclair wrote the essay, "Don't Mourn for Us", articulating an anti-cure perspective on autism. [10] The essay has been thought of as a touchstone for the fledgling autism-rights movement, and has been mentioned in The New York Times [11] and New York Magazine . [12]

Neuter characters in fiction [ edit | edit source ]

See main article: Nonbinary gender in fiction

There are many more nonbinary characters in fiction who have a gender identity outside of the binary . The following are only some of those characters who are specifically called by the word "neuter," either in their canon, or by their creators.

• In the book Surface Detail , the character Yime Nsokyi is "neuter-gendered" and has an intersex body by choice.
• M.C.A. Hogarth's science-fiction series about the Jokka, an alien species that has three sexes, called male, female, and neuter. These stories focus on individuals who do not conform to their society's gender roles; some could be considered transgender, and at least one character could be considered to be trans neuter. However, the author often publicly voices her opposition to transgender rights in real life, saying she "Will never stop fighting this trans thing. Never."; [13] agreeing with anti-transgender author Abigail Shrier's opposition of the informed consent model of pediatric transgender health care; [14] saying she liked Debrah Soh's anti-transgender book; [15] siding with a student who expressed anti-transgender views, in reply to an anti-transgender Twitter account; [16] being a fan of an anti-trans podcaster; [17] asserting the anti-transgender claim that "cisgender is a slur"; [18] and saying that transgender people should never transition, and should instead content themselves with "the flesh God gave" them. [19] This is an example of how authors who write representation of gender-variant characters can't be assumed to support the human rights of gender-variant people in real life and may even actively oppose it.
• The Kyree, in Mercedes Lackey's World of Velgarth fantasy novel series, are an intelligent wolf-like people with three sexes: male, female, and neuter. Since neuter Kyree aren't obliged to take part in raising offspring, they're the ones who tend to go out into the world on adventures.
• The protagonist in Kurt Vonneguts' novel Deadeye Dick, Rudy Waltz, explicitly identifies as "neuter" and reflects upon the word, its connotation and sexuality on several occassions.

Please help expand this section.

See also [ edit | edit source ]

• List of nonbinary identities

References [ edit | edit source ]

• ↑ "Neuter." Merriam-Webster Dictionary. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/neuter Archived on 17 July 2023
• ↑ "Neuther." Dictionary.com. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/neuter Archived on 17 July 2023
• ↑ "Neuter." The Free Dictionary. https://www.thefreedictionary.com/neuter Archived on 17 July 2023
• ↑ Gender Census 2019 - the public spreadsheet . 30 March 2019 Archived on 17 July 2023
• ↑ "neuter (adj.)" . Online Etymology Dictionary . Archived from the original on 17 July 2023 . Retrieved 20 October 2020 .
• ↑ 7.0 7.1 "LGBTQ terms." Neutrois.com. [1] Archived on 17 July 2023
• ↑ Cahun, C., Malherbe, S. (2008). Disavowals: Or, Cancelled Confessions. United States: MIT Press.
• ↑ Sinclair, Jim (1997). "Self-introduction to the Intersex Society of North America" . Archived from the original on 7 February 2009.
• ↑ Sinclair, Jim (1993). "Don't mourn for us" . Autreat. Archived from the original on 17 July 2023 . Retrieved 2014-08-11 . CS1 maint: discouraged parameter ( link )
• ↑ Harmon, Amy (2004-12-20). "How About Not 'Curing' Us, Some Autistics Are Pleading" . The New York Times . Archived from the original on 17 July 2023 . Retrieved 2007-11-07 . CS1 maint: discouraged parameter ( link )
• ↑ Solomon, Andrew (2008-05-25). "The Autism Rights Movement" . New York Magazine . Archived from the original on 17 July 2023 . Retrieved 2008-06-28 . CS1 maint: discouraged parameter ( link )
• ↑ M.C.A. Hogarth. Tweet. April 5, 2022. https://twitter.com/mcahogarth/status/1511294884514308097 Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20220820220131/https://twitter.com/mcahogarth/status/1511294884514308097
• ↑ M.C.A. Hogarth. October 25, 2021. Tweet. https://twitter.com/mcahogarth/status/1452699729519947791 Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20211026003911/https://twitter.com/mcahogarth/status/1452699729519947791
• ↑ M.C.A. Hogarth. Tweet. May 11, 2022. https://twitter.com/mcahogarth/status/1524463492266352643 Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20220511185719/https://twitter.com/mcahogarth/status/1524463492266352643
• ↑ M.C.A. Hogarth. Tweet. May 17, 2022. https://twitter.com/mcahogarth/status/1526501664747933696 Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20220517095601/https://twitter.com/mcahogarth/status/1526501664747933696
• ↑ M.C.A. Hogarth. Tweet. July 15, 2022. https://twitter.com/mcahogarth/status/1547926016521162752 Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20220715124900/https://twitter.com/mcahogarth/status/1547926016521162752
• ↑ M.C.A. Hogarth. Tweet. April 29, 2022. https://twitter.com/mcahogarth/status/1520102220510937088 Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20220821051705/https://twitter.com/mcahogarth/status/1520102220510937088
• ↑ M.C.A. Hogarth. Tweet. August 23, 2021. https://twitter.com/mcahogarth/status/1429783919889637376 Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20220818215810/https://twitter.com/mcahogarth/status/1429783919889637376

• Nonbinary identities
• CS1 maint: discouraged parameter

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Why has the neuter gender disappeared from almost all the modern Romance languages?

Why has the neuter gender disappeared from almost all the modern Romance languages? It was completely common in Latin.

And when exactly did this happen? Did it happen in Latin itself, or only after Latin split into multiple languages and the phenomenon occurred in each of the languages separately and independently?

• romance-languages

• 3 The same is observable in Germanic. –  Adam Bittlingmayer Commented Jan 31, 2019 at 23:15
• 5 @AdamBittlingmayer Which Germanic languages do you mean? Dutch and Danish both lost feminine. Maybe you meant Celtic, where Scots Gaelic and Welsh both lost neuter somewhere along the way and so are like French in this regard. –  Omar and Lorraine Commented Feb 1, 2019 at 8:45
• 3 @Wilson There's also English. And many dialects of Yiddish. And Afrikaans. But I wasn't commenting on which arbitrary noun class collapsed into which, the point is 3 => 2. –  Adam Bittlingmayer Commented Feb 1, 2019 at 20:12
• 2 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulgar_Latin#Loss_of_neuter_gender –  Adam Bittlingmayer Commented Feb 1, 2019 at 20:17

2 Answers 2

I've read that even in Latin, we see some variability in the declension of words as neuter or masculine. Sometimes the use of the masculine where neuter would be expected is attributed to " personification ". So the fall of the neuter seems to have been a long and at least somewhat gradual process. I will update this post if I find more detailed information.

There are some reasons to think of the neuter gender in Latin as being less robustly distinguished formally and semantically than the masculine and feminine genders, although this might just be hindsight.

I would guess that form was more important than semantics, since in some Germanic languages we can see a different tendency to go from three to two genders by merging the former masculine and feminine into a "common" gender and maintaining a distinction between "common" and neuter gender.

The neuter as a distinct form (and its loss)

As Arnaud Fournet said, neuter gender nouns in Latin were declined the same way as masculine nouns in most grammatical cases (genitive, dative, ablative). The neuter-masculine distinction was found in the following areas:

Neuter nominative/accusative plurals in -a

In the nominative and accusative plural, neuters had a characteristic -a ending. Because -a was also used as a feminine singular ending, Latin neuter plurals in -a could end up as feminine nouns in Romance languages, as mentioned in Fournet's answer. I know of two ways this happened.

As Fournet said, neuter plural nouns ending in -a could be reinterpreted as feminine singular nouns.

Alternatively, -a survives as a plural ending on nouns in some Romance languages, such as Italian; the examples given on this page are il dito, il uovo, il lenzuolo with the plurals le dita, le uova, le lenzuola . You can see that plural -a nouns in Italian take feminine plural agreement.

The loss of distinction between masculine and neuter singular forms

In the nominative singular, masculine nouns mostly ended in -s while neuter nouns mostly did not. In most Romance languages, Latin nominative singular forms were either mostly lost or heavily remodeled in a way that caused the distinction between masculine and neuter nominative singular nouns to become less relevant. Sound changes like the loss of word-final -m, or often of -s, and the addition or loss of word-final -e after consonants played a role here.

In the accusative singular, masculine and neuter forms were identical already in Classical Latin in the second declension, both ending in -um. In the third declension, some masculine and neuter accusative singular forms differed only in the presence of word-final -m, such as third-declension adjectives ending in -alem m. vs. -ale n. With the loss of word-final -m, those forms would have merged as -ale.

Certain Romance languages have a distinction for certain words between a masculine singular ending -u and what is called a "neuter" singular ending in -o ; I think it's worth mentioning here that my understanding is that this is for the most part not not a survival of the Latin masculine/neuter distinction, but an innovation.*

The semantics of the neuter overlapped substantially with the other two genders

The masculine and feminine genders in Latin both had clear semantic "cores" of male and female animates, respectively. Almost all nouns denoting male animates were masculine, almost all nouns denoting female animates were feminine. Although the masculine and feminine genders also contained many nouns that did not belong to these semantic categories, the association was productive and has been maintained to the present day in Romance languages with gender (we can see the continued relevance of semantics to gender assignation most clearly when dealing with gender agreement for proper names or pronouns that refer to human beings).

The neuter gender, in contrast, had no large semantic domain that was exclusively associated with it. It included some, but by no means all, nouns that were neither semantically male nor female. The lack of a clear distinction in meaning between masculine and neuter inanimate nouns may have contributed to the eventual loss of the distinction in form.

*In the Romance languages with an -u vs. -o distinction that I mentioned above, words fall into one category or the other not on the basis of their gender in Latin, but rather based on semantic criteria, like being a mass noun vs. a count noun.

An overview of this is provided in "The Romance Collective Neuter and the Survival of the Latin Ablative" by Gordon M. Messing (Glotta, vol. 50, no. 3/4, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht (GmbH & Co. KG), 1972, pp. 255–62, https://www.jstor.org/stable/40266241 )

Multiple contradicting origins have been proposed for the -o ending; as the title indicates, Messing thinks it comes from an ablative, modifying a suggestion by Hall 1968.

• What do you mean by "Romance languages that have a distinction between -u and -o-final words"? Could you place there some example(s) please? –  Honza Zidek Commented Feb 8, 2019 at 15:56
• @HonzaZidek: It's complicated. Here is a book that talks about it: books.google.com/… –  brass tacks Commented Feb 25, 2019 at 4:58

Neuter in Latin differed from Masculine only for Nominative and Accusative cases. When case-endings began to collapse in early Proto-Romance, Neuter singular was reassigned to masculine and some Neuter plural ending in -a became feminine singular.

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Neuter Genders: What It Is and How To Use It

Do you know what neuter genders are? This article will provide you with all of the information you need on neuter genders, including the definition, usage, example sentences, and more!

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What are examples of neuter genders?

A neuter gender can be used in many different contexts in the English language. Trying to use a word or literary technique in a sentence is one of the best ways to memorize what it is, but you can also try making flashcards or quizzes that test your knowledge. Try using this term of the day in a sentence today! The following sentences are examples of neuter genders from English Bix that can help get you started incorporating this tool into your everyday use. Try to use the term neuter genders today or notice when someone else is using a neuter gender.

•  I can use this box to keep my secret stuff.
•  I took a long drought of the drink he had brought me at so high a price, looking at him over the rim of the glass.
•  He sat up and looked at her, absently tapping the edge of the piano keys without making a sound.
•  Instead of being used for serving food, it seems far more likely that it formed a showpiece, displayed prominently at its owner’s banquets.
•  He was silhouetted by the bright sky behind him and yet Pen felt as if she had just seen his face.
•  We need to kit the parts for the assembly by Friday so that manufacturing can build the tool.
•  As the police approached, the car pulled off and sped away into the distance.
•  One can love one’s neighbors in the abstract, or even at a distance, but at close quarters it’s almost impossible.
•  It is my wallet.
•  Each student must ensure their guest signs the registry. 
•  At the bottom of the case are the two USB ports, a FireWire connection, and a mic and headphone jack.
•  The uniform for the Wolf Cub Scout is the official blue Cub Scout shirt, Wolf neckerchief, and slide.
•  What I want is some peace and quiet place.
•  Pulling her silk robe more tightly around her, Olivia pads over to her night table to pick up a bottle of body lotion.
•  You made a really, really bad move getting in bed with Microhook, and it will cost you in the end.
•  I’ve been a long time fan of television, even going so far as to major in it in college.
•  A day before the sows are ready to farrow, the farrowing boxes are set up in the rooms.
•  Then, with a felt-tipped pen or sharp pencil, mark the lag screw holes that were drilled in the ledger on the wail.
•  The end of the book includes a short glossary of terms to help readers with certain concepts such as bel canto, leitmotif, and verismo.
•  This chair is really comfortable.
•  This road bends as it crosses the bridge.
•  The dog took its toy into the house and began tearing it apart on the couch. 
•  The shark stalked its prey from afar until it was ready to make the attack.

Overall, the term neuter genders refer to sexless objects that have neither a male or female gender in English grammar. 

• neuter: meaning, origin, translation | Word Sense 
• Neuter Gender Noun with Examples | English Bix 
• Neuter Gender | What Is Neuter Gender in Grammar? | Grammar Monster 
• Identifying a German Word’s Gender | dummies

Kevin Miller is a growth marketer with an extensive background in Search Engine Optimization, paid acquisition and email marketing. He is also an online editor and writer based out of Los Angeles, CA. He studied at Georgetown University, worked at Google and became infatuated with English Grammar and for years has been diving into the language, demystifying the do's and don'ts for all who share the same passion! He can be found online here.

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Neuter Gender

What is the neuter gender.

Table of Contents

Neuter Pronouns

Why the neuter gender is important, video lesson.

• Large machines . Large machines such as ships and trains, which - by default - are neuter, are sometimes affectionately given a female gender (i.e., referred to as "she" or "her").
• Animals . An animal is referred to as "it." It is only referred to as "he" or "she" when the sex is known.

(Issue 1) There's no apostrophe in the neuter possessive determiner "its."

• A king and his son
• A queen and her dog
• A shark and its prey

(Issue 2) Finding an alternative to "his/her."

(Issue 3) Using gender-neutral pronouns for people who do not identify themselves as either male or female.

• There's no apostrophe in the possessive determiner "its." If you write "it's," try to expand it to "it is" or "it has." If you can't then it is wrong.
• When writing about someone whose gender is unknown, don't use "he/she," "his/her," etc. Use "they," "their," etc. For example:
• Any person who thinks he/she needs they need an interview should book one through his/her their line manager.
• Use "they" when talking about a non-binary person.

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Overlooked No More: Claude Cahun, Whose Photographs Explored Gender and Sexuality

Society generally considered women to be women and men to be men in early-20th-century France. Cahun’s work protested gender and sexual norms, and has become increasingly relevant.

Overlooked is a series of obituaries about remarkable people whose deaths, beginning in 1851, went unreported in The Times. This month we’re adding the stories of important L.G.B.T.Q. figures.

By Joseph B. Treaster

In early-20th-century France, when society generally considered women to be women and men to be men, Lucy Schwob decided she would rather be called Claude Cahun.

It was her way of protesting gender and sexual norms. She thrived on ambiguity and she chose a name, Claude, that in French could refer to either a man or a woman. She took the last name from her grandmother Mathilda Cahun.

Cahun (ca-AH) made ambiguity a theme in a lifelong exploration of gender and sexual identity as a writer and photographer. Decades after her death, she has a growing following among art historians, feminists and people in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community.

Working in Paris in the racy 1920s and ’30s alongside Surrealist artists and writers, long before the rise of the gender-neutral “they” as a pronoun and the advent of terms like transgender and queer theory, Cahun created stark, sometimes playful, but deliberately equivocal photos of herself.

Here she’s a man. There she’s a woman. Sometimes she’s a little of both. Sometimes her head is shaved. In one photograph, Cahun brings together two silhouette portraits of herself, bald and austere, sizing each other up. “What do you want from me?” her caption reads.

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Gender is not a spectrum

The idea that ‘gender is a spectrum’ is supposed to set us free. but it is both illogical and politically troubling.

by Rebecca Reilly-Cooper   + BIO

What is gender? This is a question that cuts to the very heart of feminist theory and practice, and is pivotal to current debates in social justice activism about class, identity and privilege. In everyday conversation, the word ‘gender’ is a synonym for what would more accurately be referred to as ‘sex’. Perhaps due to a vague squeamishness about uttering a word that also describes sexual intercourse, the word ‘gender’ is now euphemistically used to refer to the biological fact of whether a person is female or male, saving us all the mild embarrassment of having to invoke, however indirectly, the bodily organs and processes that this bifurcation entails.

The word ‘gender’ originally had a purely grammatical meaning in languages that classify their nouns as masculine, feminine or neuter. But since at least the 1960s, the word has taken on another meaning, allowing us to make a distinction between sex and gender. For feminists, this distinction has been important, because it enables us to acknowledge that some of the differences between women and men are traceable to biology, while others have their roots in environment, culture, upbringing and education – what feminists call ‘gendered socialisation’.

At least, that is the role that the word gender traditionally performed in feminist theory. It used to be a basic, fundamental feminist idea that while sex referred to what is biological, and so perhaps in some sense ‘natural’, gender referred to what is socially constructed. On this view, which for simplicity we can call the radical feminist view, gender refers to the externally imposed set of norms that prescribe and proscribe desirable behaviour to individuals in accordance with morally arbitrary characteristics.

Not only are these norms external to the individual and coercively imposed, but they also represent a binary caste system or hierarchy, a value system with two positions: maleness above femaleness, manhood above womanhood, masculinity above femininity. Individuals are born with the potential to perform one of two reproductive roles, determined at birth, or even before, by the external genitals that the infant possesses. From then on, they will be inculcated into one of two classes in the hierarchy: the superior class if their genitals are convex, the inferior one if their genitals are concave.

From birth, and the identification of sex-class membership that happens at that moment, most female people are raised to be passive, submissive, weak and nurturing, while most male people are raised to be active, dominant, strong and aggressive. This value system, and the process of socialising and inculcating individuals into it, is what a radical feminist means by the word ‘gender’. Understood like this, it’s not difficult to see what is objectionable and oppressive about gender, since it constrains the potential of both male and female people alike, and asserts the superiority of males over females. So, for the radical feminist, the aim is to abolish gender altogether: to stop putting people into pink and blue boxes, and to allow the development of individuals’ personalities and preferences without the coercive influence of this socially enacted value system.

This view of the nature of gender sits uneasily with those who experience gender as in some sense internal and innate, rather than as entirely socially constructed and externally imposed. Such people not only dispute that gender is entirely constructed, but also reject the radical feminist analysis that it is inherently hierarchical with two positions. On this view, which for ease I will call the queer feminist view of gender, what makes the operation of gender oppressive is not that it is socially constructed and coercively imposed: rather, the problem is the prevalence of the belief that there are only two genders.

Humans of both sexes would be liberated if we recognised that while gender is indeed an internal, innate, essential facet of our identities, there are more genders than just ‘woman’ or ‘man’ to choose from. And the next step on the path to liberation is the recognition of a new range of gender identities: so we now have people referring to themselves as ‘genderqueer’ or ‘non-binary’ or ‘pangender’ or ‘polygender’ or ‘agender’ or ‘demiboy’ or ‘demigirl’ or ‘neutrois’ or ‘aporagender’ or ‘lunagender’ or ‘quantumgender’… I could go on. An oft-repeated mantra among proponents of this view is that ‘gender is not a binary; it’s a spectrum’. What follows from this view is not that we need to tear down the pink and the blue boxes; rather, we simply need to recognise that there are many more boxes than just these two.

At first blush this seems an appealing idea, but there are numerous problems with it, problems that render it internally incoherent and politically unattractive.

M any proponents of the queer view of gender describe their own gender identity as ‘non-binary’, and present this in opposition to the vast majority of people whose gender identity is presumed to be binary. On the face of it, there seems to be an immediate tension between the claim that gender is not a binary but a spectrum, and the claim that only a small proportion of individuals can be described as having a non-binary gender identity. If gender really is a spectrum, doesn’t this mean that every individual alive is non-binary, by definition? If so, then the label ‘non-binary’ to describe a specific gender identity would become redundant, because it would fail to pick out a special category of people.

To avoid this, the proponent of the spectrum model must in fact be assuming that gender is both a binary and a spectrum. It is entirely possible for a property to be described in both continuous and binary ways. One example is height: clearly height is a continuum, and individuals can fall anywhere along that continuum; but we also have the binary labels Tall and Short. Might gender operate in a similar way?

The thing to notice about the Tall/Short binary is that when these concepts are invoked to refer to people, they are relative or comparative descriptions. Since height is a spectrum or a continuum, no individual is absolutely tall or absolutely short; we are all of us taller than some people and shorter than some others. When we refer to people as tall, what we mean is that they are taller than the average person in some group whose height we are interested in examining. A boy could simultaneously be tall for a six-year-old, and yet short by comparison with all male people. So ascriptions of the binary labels Tall and Short must be comparative, and make reference to the average. Perhaps individuals who cluster around that average might have some claim to refer to themselves as of ‘non-binary height’.

However, it seems unlikely that this interpretation of the spectrum model will satisfy those who describe themselves as non-binary gendered. If gender, like height, is to be understood as comparative or relative, this would fly in the face of the insistence that individuals are the sole arbiters of their gender. Your gender would be defined by reference to the distribution of gender identities present in the group in which you find yourself, and not by your own individual self-determination. It would thus not be up to me to decide that I am non-binary. This could be determined only by comparing my gender identity to the spread of other people’s, and seeing where I fall. And although I might think of myself as a woman, someone else might be further down the spectrum towards womanhood than I am, and thus ‘more of a woman’ than me.

Further, when we observe the analogy with height we can see that, when observing the entire population, only a small minority of people would be accurately described as Tall or Short. Given that height really is a spectrum, and the binary labels are ascribed comparatively, only the handful of people at either end of the spectrum can be meaningfully labelled Tall or Short. The rest of us, falling along all the points in between, are the non-binary height people, and we are typical. In fact, it is the binary Tall and Short people who are rare and unusual. And if we extend the analogy to gender, we see that being non-binary gendered is actually the norm, not the exception.

to call oneself non-binary is in fact to create a new false binary

If gender is a spectrum, that means it’s a continuum between two extremes, and everyone is located somewhere along that continuum. I assume the two ends of the spectrum are masculinity and femininity. Is there anything else that they could possibly be? Once we realise this, it becomes clear that everybody is non-binary, because absolutely nobody is pure masculinity or pure femininity. Of course, some people will be closer to one end of the spectrum, while others will be more ambiguous and float around the centre. But even the most conventionally feminine person will demonstrate some characteristics that we associate with masculinity, and vice versa.

I would be happy with this implication, because despite possessing female biology and calling myself a woman, I do not consider myself a two-dimensional gender stereotype. I am not an ideal manifestation of the essence of womanhood, and so I am non-binary. Just like everybody else. However, those who describe themselves as non-binary are unlikely to be satisfied with this conclusion, as their identity as ‘non-binary person’ depends upon the existence of a much larger group of so-called binary ‘cisgender’ people, people who are incapable of being outside the arbitrary masculine/feminine genders dictated by society.

And here we have an irony about some people insisting that they and a handful of their fellow gender revolutionaries are non-binary: in doing so, they create a false binary between those who conform to the gender norms associated with their sex, and those who do not. In reality, everybody is non-binary. We all actively participate in some gender norms, passively acquiesce with others, and positively rail against others still. So to call oneself non-binary is in fact to create a new false binary. It also often seems to involve, at least implicitly, placing oneself on the more complex and interesting side of that binary, enabling the non-binary person to claim to be both misunderstood and politically oppressed by the binary cisgender people.

I f you identify as pangender, is the claim that you represent every possible point on the spectrum? All at the same time? How might that be possible, given that the extremes necessarily represent incompatible opposites of one another? Pure femininity is passivity, weakness and submission, while pure masculinity is aggression, strength and dominance. It is simply impossible to be all of these things at the same time. If you disagree with these definitions of masculinity and femininity, and do not accept that masculinity should be defined in terms of dominance while femininity should be described in terms of submission, you are welcome to propose other definitions. But whatever you come up with, they are going to represent opposites of one another.

A handful of individuals are apparently permitted to opt out of the spectrum altogether by declaring themselves ‘agender’, saying that they feel neither masculine nor feminine, and don’t have any internal experience of gender. We are not given any explanation as to why some people are able to refuse to define their personality in gendered terms while others are not, but one thing that is clear about the self-designation as ‘agender’: we cannot all do it, for the same reasons we cannot all call ourselves non-binary. If we were all to deny that we have an innate, essential gender identity, then the label ‘agender’ would become redundant, as lacking in gender would be a universal trait. Agender can be defined only against gender. Those who define themselves and their identity by their lack of gender must therefore be committed to the view that most people do have an innate, essential gender but that, for some reason, they do not.

Once we assert that the problem with gender is that we currently recognise only two of them, the obvious question to ask is: how many genders would we have to recognise in order not to be oppressive? Just how many possible gender identities are there?

The only consistent answer to this is: 7 billion, give or take. There are as many possible gender identities as there are humans on the planet. According to Nonbinary.org, one of the main internet reference sites for information about non-binary genders, your gender can be frost or the Sun or music or the sea or Jupiter or pure darkness. Your gender can be pizza.

But if this is so, it’s not clear how it makes sense or adds anything to our understanding to call any of this stuff ‘gender’, as opposed to just ‘human personality’ or ‘stuff I like’. The word gender is not just a fancy word for your personality or your tastes or preferences. It is not just a label to adopt so that you now have a unique way to describe just how large and multitudinous and interesting you are. Gender is the value system that ties desirable (and sometimes undesirable?) behaviours and characteristics to reproductive function. Once we’ve decoupled those behaviours and characteristics from reproductive function – which we should – and once we’ve rejected the idea that there are just two types of personality and that one is superior to the other – which we should – what can it possibly mean to continue to call this stuff ‘gender’? What meaning does the word ‘gender’ have here, that the word ‘personality’ cannot capture?

On Nonbinary.org, your gender can apparently be:

(Name)gender: ‘A gender that is best described by one’s name, good for those who aren’t sure what they identify as yet but definitely know that they aren’t cis … it can be used as a catch-all term or a specific identifier, eg, johngender, janegender, (your name here)gender, etc.’

The example of ‘(name)gender’ perfectly demonstrates how non-binary gender identities operate, and the function they perform. They are for people who aren’t sure what they identify as, but know that they aren’t cisgender. Presumably because they are far too interesting and revolutionary and transgressive for something as ordinary and conventional as cis.

The solution is not to try to slip through the bars of the cage while leaving the rest of the cage intact, and the rest of womankind trapped within it

This desire not to be cis is rational and makes perfect sense, especially if you are female. I too believe my thoughts, feelings, aptitudes and dispositions are far too interesting, well-rounded and complex to simply be a ‘cis woman’. I, too, would like to transcend socially constructed stereotypes about my female body and the assumptions others make about me as a result of it. I, too, would like to be seen as more than just a mother/domestic servant/object of sexual gratification. I, too, would like to be viewed as a human being, a person with a rich and deep inner life of my own, with the potential to be more than what our society currently views as possible for women.

The solution to that, however, is not to call myself agender, to try to slip through the bars of the cage while leaving the rest of the cage intact, and the rest of womankind trapped within it. This is especially so given that you can’t slip through the bars. No amount of calling myself ‘agender’ will stop the world seeing me as a woman, and treating me accordingly. I can introduce myself as agender and insist upon my own set of neo-pronouns when I apply for a job, but it won’t stop the interviewer seeing a potential baby-maker, and giving the position to the less qualified but less encumbered by reproduction male candidate.

H ere we arrive at the crucial tension at the heart of gender identity politics, and one that most of its proponents either haven’t noticed, or choose to ignore because it can only be resolved by rejecting some of the key tenets of the doctrine.

Many people justifiably assume that the word ‘transgender’ is synonymous with ‘transsexual’, and means something like: having dysphoria and distress about your sexed body, and having a desire to alter that body to make it more closely resemble the body of the opposite sex. But according to the current terminology of gender identity politics, being transgender has nothing to do with a desire to change your sexed body. What it means to be transgender is that your innate gender identity does not match the gender you were assigned at birth. This might be the case even if you are perfectly happy and content in the body you possess. You are transgender simply if you identify as one gender, but socially have been perceived as another.

It is a key tenet of the doctrine that the vast majority of people can be described as ‘cisgender’, which means that our innate gender identity matches the one we were assigned at birth. But as we have seen, if gender identity is a spectrum, then we are all non-binary, because none of us inhabits the points represented by the ends of that spectrum. Every single one of us will exist at some unique point along that spectrum, determined by the individual and idiosyncratic nature of our own particular identity, and our own subjective experience of gender. Given that, it’s not clear how anybody ever could be cisgender. None of us was assigned our correct gender identity at birth, for how could we possibly have been? At the moment of my birth, how could anyone have known that I would later go on to discover that my gender identity is ‘frostgender’, a gender which is apparently ‘very cold and snowy’?

Once we recognise that the number of gender identities is potentially infinite, we are forced to concede that nobody is deep down cisgender, because nobody is assigned the correct gender identity at birth. In fact, none of us was assigned a gender identity at birth at all. We were placed into one of two sex classes on the basis of our potential reproductive function, determined by our external genitals. We were then raised in accordance with the socially prescribed gender norms for people of that sex. We are all educated and inculcated into one of two roles, long before we are able to express our beliefs about our innate gender identity, or to determine for ourselves the precise point at which we fall on the gender continuum. So defining transgender people as those who at birth were not assigned the correct place on the gender spectrum has the implication that every single one of us is transgender; there are no cisgender people.

The logical conclusion of all this is: if gender is a spectrum, not a binary, then everyone is trans. Or alternatively, there are no trans people. Either way, this a profoundly unsatisfactory conclusion, and one that serves both to obscure the reality of female oppression, as well as to erase and invalidate the experiences of transsexual people.

The way to avoid this conclusion is to realise that gender is not a spectrum. It’s not a spectrum, because it’s not an innate, internal essence or property. Gender is not a fact about persons that we must take as fixed and essential, and then build our social institutions around that fact. Gender is socially constructed all the way through, an externally imposed hierarchy, with two classes, occupying two value positions: male over female, man over woman, masculinity over femininity.

The truth of the spectrum analogy lies in the fact that conformity to one’s place in the hierarchy, and to the roles it assigns to people, will vary from person to person. Some people will find it relatively easier and more painless to conform to the gender norms associated with their sex, while others find the gender roles associated with their sex so oppressive and limiting that they cannot tolerably live under them, and choose to transition to live in accordance with the opposite gender role.

Gender as a hierarchy perpetuates the subordination of female people to male people, and constrains the development of both sexes

Fortunately, what is a spectrum is human personality, in all its variety and complexity. (Actually that’s not a single spectrum either, because it is not simply one continuum between two extremes. It’s more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, humany-wumany stuff.) Gender is the value system that says there are two types of personality, determined by the reproductive organs you were born with. One of the first steps to liberating people from the cage that is gender is to challenge established gender norms, and to play with and explore your gender expression and presentation. Nobody, and certainly no radical feminist, wants to stop anyone from defining themselves in ways that make sense to them, or from expressing their personality in ways they find enjoyable and liberating.

So if you want to call yourself a genderqueer femme presenting demigirl, you go for it. Express that identity however you like. Have fun with it. A problem emerges only when you start making political claims on the basis of that label – when you start demanding that others call themselves cisgender, because you require there to be a bunch of conventional binary cis people for you to define yourself against; and when you insist that these cis people have structural advantage and political privilege over you, because they are socially read as the conformist binary people, while nobody really understands just how complex and luminous and multifaceted and unique your gender identity is. To call yourself non-binary or genderfluid while demanding that others call themselves cisgender is to insist that the vast majority of humans must stay in their boxes, because you identify as boxless.

The solution is not to reify gender by insisting on ever more gender categories that define the complexity of human personality in rigid and essentialist ways. The solution is to abolish gender altogether. We do not need gender. We would be better off without it. Gender as a hierarchy with two positions operates to naturalise and perpetuate the subordination of female people to male people, and constrains the development of individuals of both sexes. Reconceiving of gender as an identity spectrum represents no improvement.

You do not need to have a deep, internal, essential experience of gender to be free to dress how you like, behave how you like, work how you like, love who you like. You do not need to show that your personality is feminine for it to be acceptable for you to enjoy cosmetics, cookery and crafting. You do not need to be genderqueer to queer gender. The solution to an oppressive system that puts people into pink and blue boxes is not to create more and more boxes that are any colour but blue or pink. The solution is to tear down the boxes altogether.

Meaning and the good life

Philosophy was once alive

I was searching for meaning and purpose so I became an academic philosopher. Reader, you might guess what happened next

Pranay Sanklecha

History of technology

Learning to love monsters

Windmills were once just machines on the land but now seem delightfully bucolic. Could wind turbines win us over too?

Stephen Case

Biography and memoir

The adoption paradox

Even happy families cannot avoid the reality – my reality – that adoption is predicated on transacting the life of a child

Fiona Sampson

Pleasure and pain

Me versus myself

I work against myself through procrastination, distraction and addiction. Why do I consistently sabotage my own life?

Eliane Glaser

Global history

The route to progress

Anticolonial modernity was founded upon the fight for liberation from communists, capitalists and imperialists alike

Frank Gerits

Thinkers and theories

Paper trails

Husserl’s well-tended archive has given him a rich afterlife, while Nietzsche’s was distorted by his axe-grinding sister

Peter Salmon

The Neuter Gender

Lesson details, key learning points.

• In this lesson, we will look at a third gender of nouns called the neuter.
• 2nd and 3rd declension; ablative forms in preposition phrases

This content is made available by Oak National Academy Limited and its partners and licensed under Oak’s terms & conditions (Collection 1), except where otherwise stated.

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Improving Animal Welfare Through Spays And Neuters

As dedicated pet owners, we do everything possible to keep our pets happy and healthy, whether it is finding the best kind of food, providing a new favorite toy, or grooming and exercising them. Another way to keep our pets in good health is by spaying or neutering them. 

Dr. Brad Bennett , a clinical assistant professor at the Texas A&M School of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, says that in addition to stopping our pet’s ability to reproduce, these procedures also prevent diseases that are caused when the reproductive system is left intact. 

The Importance Of Spays And Neuters

“We usually think about neutering male pets for population control and unwanted behaviors like spraying in cats, but it can also prevent health concerns such as tumors or testicular torsion, a painful twisting condition that cuts off blood supply and causes swelling in the testicle,” Bennett said. “On the other hand, spaying females early can decrease their likelihood of uterus infections (also known as pyometras) and mammary neoplasias, or tumors found in mammary glands.”

The health benefits of spaying and neutering can increase over time as well. 

“While it is never too late to be spayed or neutered, dogs and cats can be at a higher risk for diseases the longer we wait,” Bennett explained. “For example, if a dog is spayed before their first reproductive cycle (or heat), they have less than a 0.5% chance of having a mammary neoplasia. If we spay them between their first and second heat, they have an 8% chance. If we do it between their second and third heat, they have a 26-28% chance.”

Spaying and neutering pets earlier in their life can also decrease the chance that a pet will display unwanted behaviors, which Bennett says is one of the main reasons people put pets up for adoption.

“If we can spay and neuter pets, it is likely that they won’t be surrendered to an animal shelter,” he explained.

Factoring In Age And Health Status

Most dogs and cats can be neutered around 6 months of age.

“We spay female cats and small to medium-sized female dogs typically before 6 months of age because if we can do the procedure before their first heat, they won’t show some behaviors that owners typically don’t recognize as behaviors related to heat cycles, such as irritability and aggression,” Bennett said. “If it’s a male cat or small to medium-sized male dog, we typically neuter them at 6 months so that unwanted behaviors, including aggression, urine-marking, and humping, don’t come about.”

Large and giant dog breeds, however, need to be spayed or neutered later to avoid disrupting their growth pattern, which can lead to certain conditions related to their joints and bones.

“Hormones support the continued growth of the bones of large dog breeds; if those bones are allowed to grow fully in the way they are meant to, they shouldn’t have incongruities that could cause orthopedic diseases, such as cruciate tears (when knee tissue connecting the lower leg to the upper leg tears and causes instability) or hip dysplasia (caused when the hip joint grows abnormally),” Bennett said. “In this case, we actually want to wait to spay or neuter large and giant dog breeds until after they are grown, which is between a year and 18 months of age.”

While age is the main factor for determining when a pet is spayed or neutered, there are additional factors owners should consider to ensure their pet can handle the anesthesia required for surgery. 

“We want pets to be healthy and, ideally, up to date on vaccinations and heartworm prevention,” Bennett explained. “A good physical examination and certain diagnostic tests, such as routine blood work, will aid in making sure pets can process the anesthesia that they need during surgery and also that they can recover from the surgery quickly. Anesthesia typically doesn’t affect dogs or cats differently, but we will monitor them and their vitals, including blood pressure, pulse rates, and temperature.”

Owners should be sure to consult their local veterinarian or animal shelter, as there may be additional requirements that need to be met before spaying or neutering a pet.

Follow-Up Care

Once a pet has been spayed or neutered, they will require some extra attention and time to rest so that their body can heal properly. 

“When a pet has surgery, moving around a lot can disrupt the healing process, so we recommend owners keep their pet calm and quiet for 10-14 days post-surgery,” Bennett said. “We also like to use E-collars, or cones, to keep pets from licking or chewing their incisions, as this could lead to infections.

“Additionally, owners should decrease the amount of food they feed their pet after surgery,” he continued. “Part of a pet’s caloric intake goes to the normal cycling of their reproductive system and when we take the system out, now, all of a sudden, they have more calories than they actually need. So one of the things that happens post-surgically is dogs and cats will gain weight, which can be very unhealthy.” 

If cat or dog owners have any concerns about the process of spaying or neutering their pet, Bennett strongly encourages them to talk to their veterinarian for guidance.

Making the decision to spay or neuter your pet can be one of the most important choices you make for them. It can also be one of the easiest decisions because by doing so, you can improve your pet’s health and longevity and ensure they have a long and happy life with you.

Pet Talk is a service of the School of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, Texas A&M University. Stories can be viewed on the web at  vetmed.tamu.edu/news/pet-talk . Suggestions for future topics may be directed to  [email protected] .

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English Grammar: The Gender of Nouns in English

By: Author Rosie

Posted on Last updated: October 25, 2023

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Welcome to this article about the gender of nouns in English grammar. While English is not a language that assigns gender to all its nouns, there are still some nouns that are traditionally associated with either masculine or feminine gender. Understanding the gender of nouns is an important aspect of mastering English grammar, and it can greatly improve your writing and speaking skills.

In this article, we will explore the concept of grammatical gender in English and provide you with useful tips and examples to help you better understand this topic. We will discuss the different types of gender in English and how they are used in everyday language. We will also provide you with a list of common nouns that are associated with either masculine or feminine gender, as well as examples of how to use gender correctly in sentences. So, whether you are a beginner or an advanced learner, this article is for you!

Understanding Nouns in English Grammar

Nouns are an essential part of English grammar. They are words that name people, places, things, or ideas. Nouns can be singular or plural, and they can also have different genders. Understanding the gender of nouns is important because it affects the way you use pronouns and adjectives in a sentence.

In English, there are three genders of nouns: masculine, feminine, and neuter. The gender of a noun is not always related to the biological gender of the person or thing it represents. For example, the word “book” is a neuter noun, even though books can be written by both men and women.

To determine the gender of a noun, you need to look at the word itself. Some nouns have gender-specific endings, such as “-ess” for feminine nouns or “-man” for masculine nouns. However, many nouns do not have any gender-specific markers, so you just need to memorize their gender.

Here are some examples of masculine, feminine, and neuter nouns:

• Masculine: boy, father, king, actor
• Feminine: girl, mother, queen, actress
• Neuter: book, table, chair, car

It’s important to note that not all nouns have a gender. In English, there are many nouns that are considered gender-neutral, meaning they do not have a specific gender. For example, the word “computer” is a gender-neutral noun.

When using pronouns to refer to a noun, it’s important to use the correct gender. For example, if you’re referring to a female doctor, you should use the pronoun “she” instead of “he.” Using the wrong pronoun can be confusing or even offensive.

In conclusion, understanding the gender of nouns is an important part of English grammar. By knowing the gender of a noun, you can use the correct pronouns and adjectives in a sentence. While some nouns have gender-specific endings, many do not, so it’s important to memorize their gender.

Gender of Nouns: An Overview

In English grammar, gender is a category of noun that reflects the biological category of sex of the noun referent. There are three genders of nouns in English: masculine (i.e. man), feminine (i.e. woman), and neuter (i.e. person).

The gender of a noun affects the form of other words related to it, such as pronouns, articles, and adjectives. For example, when referring to a person, we might use the pronoun “he” or “she” depending on their gender. Similarly, we might use the article “a” or “an” depending on whether the noun is masculine or feminine.

It’s important to note that not all nouns have a gender. In fact, the majority of nouns in English are considered neuter and do not have a specific gender. However, there are some nouns that are gender-specific and refer specifically to someone or something male or female.

One example of a gender-specific noun is “actress,” which refers specifically to a female actor. Another example is “waitress,” which refers specifically to a female waiter. It’s worth noting that some people prefer to use gender-neutral terms, such as “actor” and “server,” instead of gender-specific terms.

In English, the gender of a noun is not always predictable based on its meaning. For example, the noun “book” is considered neuter, even though it does not refer to a person. On the other hand, the noun “ship” is considered feminine, even though it does not refer to a female.

In the following sections, we will explore the different genders of nouns in more detail and provide examples of how they are used in English grammar.

Masculine Nouns

In English grammar, nouns are classified into three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter. In this section, we will focus on masculine nouns.

Common Masculine Nouns

Below are some examples of common masculine nouns:

Rules for Masculine Nouns

Here are some rules to keep in mind when dealing with masculine nouns:

• Nouns that refer to male human beings are usually masculine. For example: man, boy, father, uncle, brother, etc.
• Nouns that refer to male animals are also masculine. For example: lion, tiger, bull, etc.
• Nouns that don’t have any gender-specific connotations are often considered masculine by default. For example: table, chair, book, etc.
• Nouns that end with certain suffixes are usually masculine. For example: -er (teacher, singer), -or (actor, doctor), -ist (pianist, biologist), etc.
• Nouns that are derived from verbs are usually masculine. For example: swimmer (from swim), runner (from run), etc.

It’s important to note that not all nouns that refer to males are masculine, and not all nouns that refer to females are feminine. For example, the noun “baby” can refer to both male and female infants, but it is considered a neuter noun.

In conclusion, understanding the gender of nouns is an important aspect of English grammar. By knowing the rules for masculine nouns, you can improve your writing and speaking skills and communicate more effectively.

Feminine Nouns

In English, nouns are classified into three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter. In this section, we’ll focus on feminine nouns.

Common Feminine Nouns

Common feminine nouns refer to females or things that are perceived as feminine. Here are some examples of common feminine nouns:

Rules for Feminine Nouns

There are no hard and fast rules for determining the gender of a noun in English. However, there are some general guidelines that can help you identify feminine nouns:

• Nouns that refer to females are usually feminine. For example, girl, woman, and mother are all feminine nouns.
• Nouns that end in -ess are usually feminine. For example, actress, waitress, and princess are all feminine nouns.
• Nouns that end in -ette are usually feminine. For example, suffragette, cigarette, and majorette are all feminine nouns.
• Nouns that end in -ine are usually feminine. For example, heroine, medicine, and routine are all feminine nouns.
• Nouns that end in -a are often feminine, although there are exceptions. For example, sofa and pizza are both feminine nouns, but data and diploma are not.

It’s important to note that not all nouns that end in -a are feminine, and not all feminine nouns end in -a. The best way to determine the gender of a noun is to memorize it along with its gender.

In conclusion, understanding the gender of nouns is an important part of English grammar. By learning the common feminine nouns and the rules for identifying feminine nouns, you can improve your writing and speaking skills.

Neuter Nouns

In English grammar, a noun can have a masculine, feminine, or neuter gender. Unless its meaning makes it obviously male or female, a noun is neuter by default. In this section, we will discuss common neuter nouns and the rules for using them.

Common Neuter Nouns

Here are some common neuter nouns in English:

As you can see, these nouns do not have any inherent gender. They are neutral in terms of gender.

Rules for Neuter Nouns

When using neuter nouns in sentences, there are a few rules to keep in mind:

• Pronouns: Neuter nouns take the pronoun “it” instead of “he” or “she.” For example, “The book is on the table. It is a good read.”
• Articles: Neuter nouns take the article “the” instead of “a” or “an.” For example, “The car is in the garage.”
• Possessive pronouns: Neuter nouns take the possessive pronoun “its” instead of “his” or “hers.” For example, “The computer is on its last legs.”
• Plurals: Neuter nouns take the plural form “they” instead of “them.” For example, “The chairs are comfortable. They are perfect for the living room.”

In conclusion, neuter nouns are an important part of English grammar. They are neutral in terms of gender and take specific pronouns, articles, possessive pronouns, and plurals. By following these rules, you can use neuter nouns correctly in your writing and speech.

Gender-Neutral Nouns

English grammar has three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter. However, there are also gender-neutral nouns that do not fall into any of these categories. In this section, we will explore some common gender-neutral nouns and the rules for using them.

Common Gender-Neutral Nouns

Some common gender-neutral nouns include:

• Person: This noun can refer to anyone, regardless of gender. For example, “The person sitting next to me is reading a book.”
• Child: This noun can refer to a boy or a girl. For example, “The child is playing in the park.”
• Partner: This noun can refer to someone’s significant other, regardless of gender. For example, “My partner and I are going on vacation.”
• Teacher: This noun can refer to a male or female teacher. For example, “The teacher gave us a lot of homework.”
• Doctor: This noun can refer to a male or female doctor. For example, “The doctor prescribed me some medicine.”

Rules for Gender-Neutral Nouns

When using gender-neutral nouns, it’s important to follow some rules to ensure that the sentence is grammatically correct. Here are some rules to keep in mind:

• Use singular they: When referring to a person whose gender is unknown, you can use the singular they. For example, “Someone left their phone on the table.”
• Use “he or she” or “s/he”: When referring to a person whose gender is unknown, you can also use “he or she” or “s/he”. For example, “If a student wants to succeed, he or she must study hard.”
• Use “they” as a singular pronoun: Some people prefer to use “they” as a singular pronoun instead of “he or she”. For example, “If a student wants to succeed, they must study hard.”
• Use gender-neutral terms: When referring to a group of people, you can use gender-neutral terms such as “they” or “people” instead of “guys” or “girls.” For example, “They are all going to the party.”

Overall, using gender-neutral nouns is important to ensure that everyone feels included and respected. By following these rules, you can use gender-neutral language effectively in your writing and speech.

Changing Gender in Nouns

When it comes to English grammar, most nouns do not have grammatical gender. However, some nouns traditionally had different forms for men and women. Nowadays, people usually prefer more neutral forms. In this section, we will explore how gender can be changed in nouns.

One way to change the gender of a noun is by adding a suffix. For example, the feminine form of “host” is “hostess,” and the feminine form of “actor” is “actress.” Here are some other examples:

It’s important to note that not all nouns have a feminine form, and some feminine forms are not commonly used anymore.

Completely Different Words

Another way to change the gender of a noun is by using a completely different word. For example, the gender-neutral term for “fireman” is “firefighter.” Here are some other examples:

Using gender-neutral terms is becoming increasingly common in modern English, as it promotes inclusivity and avoids gender stereotypes.

In conclusion, changing the gender of a noun can be achieved through the use of suffixes or completely different words. While some feminine forms are still commonly used, gender-neutral terms are becoming more prevalent in modern English. By using gender-neutral language, we can create a more inclusive and diverse society.

Common Mistakes and Misconceptions

English grammar can be tricky, especially when it comes to the gender of nouns. Here are some common mistakes and misconceptions that learners often make:

Mistake #1: Assuming that all nouns have a gender

It is a common misconception that all nouns in English have a gender. In fact, there are only a few specific categories of nouns that have gender, such as people, animals, and some objects with a natural gender (e.g. sun and moon). Most other nouns are considered neutral and do not have a specific gender.

Mistake #2: Confusing gender with biological sex

The gender of a noun in English does not always correspond to the biological sex of the object it refers to. For example, the noun “baby” is considered neutral, even though it can refer to both male and female infants. Similarly, the noun “doctor” can refer to both male and female medical professionals, but it is traditionally associated with the male gender.

Mistake #3: Overgeneralizing gender rules

While there are some general rules for determining the gender of nouns in English, there are many exceptions to these rules. For example, most nouns ending in “-ess” (e.g. actress, waitress) are considered feminine, but there are some exceptions (e.g. lioness, goddess) that are considered neutral or even masculine.

Mistake #4: Using the wrong pronoun

When referring to a person or animal with a specific gender, it is important to use the correct pronoun (he, she, or they). Using the wrong pronoun can be disrespectful or offensive. However, when referring to objects or concepts with a neutral gender, it is appropriate to use the pronoun “it.”

By avoiding these common mistakes and misconceptions, learners can improve their understanding of the gender of nouns in English grammar.

Gender of Nouns in English | Grammar Rules

Learn the Gender of Nouns and useful list of Masculine and Feminine words in English.

*When to Use He, She or It?

The personal pronouns  he, she, it  and the relative pronouns   who, which  are gender-sensitive:

• John  is late ~  He  is late.
• Mary  is late ~  She  is late.
• John and Mary  are late ~  They  are late.

Here the choice of pronoun is determined by the sex of the person being referred to. However, this distinction is lost in the plural.

Gender differences are also manifested in possessive pronouns  (his/hers)  and in reflexive pronouns  (himself/herself).

The natural distinctions reflected in such pairs as  brother/sister ,  nephew/niece , and  king/queen  have no consequence for grammar.

While they refer to specific sexes, these words are not masculine or feminine in themselves.

Gender of Nouns in English | Images

Frequently Asked Questions

What are some examples of masculine and feminine nouns in english sentences.

Masculine nouns are those that refer to male beings or objects, such as “boy,” “man,” and “father.” Feminine nouns, on the other hand, refer to female beings or objects, such as “girl,” “woman,” and “mother.” For example, “The boy played with his toy car” and “The woman went to the store to buy groceries.”

What are common gender nouns in English?

Common gender nouns refer to both male and female beings or objects, such as “person,” “teacher,” and “doctor.” For example, “The person walked down the street” and “The teacher graded the papers.”

What are some examples of neuter gender nouns in English?

Neuter gender nouns refer to inanimate objects or things that do not have a gender, such as “table,” “car,” and “book.” For example, “The table was made of wood” and “The car drove down the highway.”

What are the gender rules in English grammar?

In English grammar, most nouns do not have a gender. However, some nouns that refer to people or animals have a gender. The gender of a noun is usually determined by its ending, but there are many exceptions to this rule.

Can you give some examples of feminine gender nouns in English sentences?

Some examples of feminine gender nouns in English include “actress,” “queen,” and “she.” For example, “The actress won an award for her performance” and “The queen visited the palace.”

What are some examples of common gender nouns in English?

Some examples of common gender nouns in English include “person,” “child,” and “student.” For example, “The person walked down the street” and “The child played with their toys.”

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Class 6 English Gender Worksheets with Answers Chapter 5

English Gender Worksheets for Class 6 with Answers provide comprehensive practice exercises aimed at teaching students about grammatical gender in English nouns. 

These worksheets include various activities such as identifying the gender of nouns, filling in the correct gender forms.

Class 6 English Gender

When we classify Nouns as ‘masculine’,’feminine’, ‘common’, or ‘neuter’, it is called Gender i n English Grammar. 

For example, “boy” is masculine, “girl” is feminine, “child”, is common and “book” is neuter.

Grade 6 English Noun Gender Types

There are four kinds of gender.

1. Masculine gender: 

A noun which is used for a male person or a male animal is said to be in the masculine gender. For example, father, manservant, he-goat, milkman.’

2. Feminine gender: 

A noun which is used for a female person or a female animal is said to be in the feminine gender. For example, mother, maidservant, she-goat, milkmaid.

3. Neuter gender: 

Nonliving things cannot be distinguished as male or female, so they are said to be in the neuter gender. For example, table, water, forest, sky.

4. Common gender: 

Nouns that can be used for both males and females are said to be in the common gender. For example, parent, child, friend, student, baby, doctor.

Class 6 English Gender Worksheets with Answers

Worksheet 1, a. underline the nouns and identify their gender..

1. The officers are busy.

2. Her brother is a soldier.

3. Mala tripped over a cable.

4. The tribals live in the deep forests.

5. The bridegroom was greeted by his friend.

6. Her son-in-law is a pilot.

7. The children played tricks on their parents.

8. The staff on the plane was very friendly.

9. The clerk is waiting for the postmaster.

10. Yesterday, a thief broke into my neighbour’s house.

Worksheet 2

B.  circle the nouns in the neuter gender with a red crayon. circle the nouns in the common gender with a blue crayon..

Worksheet 3

C. write the feminine gender of these nouns by adding ess. some words may require a little change in spelling..

5. prince 

11. mayor 

Class 6 English Grammar Chapter-Wise Contents:

1: The Sentences

2: Subject and Predicate

4: Singular Plural Nouns

7: Pronouns

9: Modal Auxiliaries

10: Adjectives

11: Degrees of Comparison

12: Adverbs

13: The Simple Tense

14: The Continuous Tense

15: The Perfect Tense

16: Phrases and Clauses

17: Prepositions

18: Conjunctions

19: Articles

20: Subject Verb Agreement

21: Active and Passive Voice

22: Direct and Indirect Speech

23: Punctuation Marks

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July 2, 2024

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Barriers to care: Transgender and gender-diverse people's health care experiences

by Canadian Medical Association Journal

Transgender, nonbinary, and gender-diverse people face barriers to accessing surgery and to the health system in general, describe authors in two new research papers published in Canadian Medical Association Journal ( CMAJ ).

In many areas of life, people who identify as transgender , nonbinary, and gender diverse experience discrimination even where there are laws to protect transgender human rights. Health systems also pose barriers for transgender, nonbinary, and gender-diverse people, who are more likely to delay obtaining medical care because of fear of discrimination and other factors.

In two research articles , authors describe the experiences of transgender, nonbinary, and gender-diverse people in accessing gender-affirming surgery. A related humanities article argues that gender self-determination is a medical right.

As there are few Canadian studies on the surgical experiences of people who self-identify as members of these populations, the authors sought to understand the experience of transgender, nonbinary, and gender-diverse people when seeking gender-affirming care. Participants in the research studies reported barriers in accessing gender-affirming care, which also affected their general experiences with the health care system.

"The stress of negotiating presurgical bureaucracy often stood in sharp contrast to the positive feelings [participants] experienced when deciding to seek gender-affirming surgery," writes Dr. Hilary MacCormick, an anesthesiologist in the Department of Women's and Obstetric Anesthesia, IWK Health, and assistant professor at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, with co-authors in one of the studies .

"Participants described the need to self-advocate when interacting with health care professionals who had a lack of experience with or negative attitude toward [transgender or nonbinary] people."

These barriers and marginalization can cause additional trauma in a situation where patients of any background might feel stress and anxiety because of surgery.

"Our data support the need for more in-depth and nuanced discussions surrounding shared decision-making, and consideration of potential effects of past traumas, instances of invalidation, or negative interactions within health care," the authors conclude.

The findings of the study on the lived experiences of people seeking publicly funded penile-inversion vaginoplasty were similar. "Health care systems need to improve access to gender-affirmation surgery, reduce wait times for care by increasing capacity for gender-affirmation surgery, and improve care experiences," writes Dr. Gianni Lorello, a scientist at the Women's College Research and Innovation Institute, anesthesiologist at University Health Network, and associate professor at the University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, with co-authors.

In a related humanities article , Florence Ashley, assistant professor, Faculty of Law and John Dossetor Health Ethics Centre at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, argues that gender self-determination is a medical right and that health care providers are ethically bound to respect this and examine their gatekeeping practices.

"The burden of justifying barriers to care should fall on the health care providers who erect them and not on those seeking care to affirm their gender," Ashley argues. "Health care providers working with transgender communities should carefully examine their gatekeeping practices to ascertain whether they are justified by clear and compelling evidence and abandon those that cannot meet this justificatory threshold."

Dr. Kirsten Patrick, Editor-in-Chief of CMAJ , comments in an editorial that "receiving care that validates their chosen identity is associated with better physical and mental health for transgender and gender-diverse patients. Even if access to interventions is limited, compassionate and kind care need not be."

Canadian Medical Association Journal (2024). www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.231250

Canadian Medical Association Journal (2024). www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.230935

Editorial: Canadian Medical Association Journal (2024). www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.240878

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Neuter Gender in Eastern Indonesia

Gender is not a typical feature of Austronesian languages. In the insular region of Indonesia directly west of New Guinea, however, a semantic gender distinction of neuter versus nonneuter is commonplace. In this paper, I argue that this gender distinction is an areal feature that has been independently innovated several times in the Austronesian languages of the region. I further contend that this feature is likely to have developed under influence from Papuan languages possessing similar systems.

Related Papers

Antoinette Schapper

This paper examines gender agreement in three little-known languages of the Aru Islands and places them within the larger pattern of “neuter gender” in eastern Indonesia. For each language, I look first at the variety of agreement targets that are controlled by gendered nouns. Secondly, I look at the semantics of nouns that control agreement. I show that whilst having a strongly semantic base involving animacy, gender in Aru languages is a grammatical category in which many nouns denoting certain types of entities that lack discernable biological animacy are assigned to the same gender as that of animate referents. I conclude by considering the system of gender in proto-Aru.

The Oxford Handbook of Gender and Classifiers

Victoria Chen

This chapter presents an overview of gender distinctions and classifier systems in Austronesian languages. The Austronesian family encompasses over 1,200 languages (Ethnologue) spoken across Maritime Southeast Asia and the Pacific, stretching from Madagascar in the west to Polynesia in the east. This island-based family traces its origins to Taiwan and subsumes a higher-order branch known as Malayo-Polynesian (MP), which comprises all Austronesian languages spoken outside Taiwan.1 MP languages are traditionally divided into two groups: Western Malayo-Polynesian (WMP) and Central-Eastern Malayo-Polynesian (CEMP). WMP languages are distributed across the Philippines, western Indonesia, Borneo, and Sulawesi, as well as the Malay Peninsula and coastal areas of Vietnam, Thailand, and Cambodia. CEMP languages are spoken in Lesser Sunda, Maluku Islands, the coasts of Halmahera, and throughout Oceania (Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia). An interested reader should consult Blust (2013, 2019) for a comprehensive overview of the classification and subgrouping of Austronesian languages; see also Smith (2017) for a recent refinement of the internal classification of MP languages. Although gender is not a prominent feature within the Austronesian family (Himmelmann 2005; Schapper 2010; Blust 2013; Levin & Polinsky 2019), several types of gender distinctions are found in a small number of geographically diverse languages; the geographical diversity suggests that these distinctions are secondary developments. Notably, the reported distinctions manifest several typologically unusual types, including (i) gender distinction registered only in second person, (ii) gender distinction only in third person plural, and (iii) non-sex-based gender distinctions. In addition, a handful of Austronesian languages have developed contactinduced grammatical gender distinctions following recent contact with Spanish and Portuguese. Representative cases of this type are summarised section 2. The second focus of this chapter is classifier systems in Austronesian languages. The use of classifiers is a well-known feature of Oceanic languages – a subgroup of CEMP. Section 3 discusses differences between gender and classifier systems and presents the main instances of classifiers in Oceanic languages.

Oceanic Linguistics

Rene van den Berg

Charlotte Hemmings

 This talk re-examines the two-way classification of Western Austronesian languages as either Philippine-type or Indonesian-type on the basis of differing structural properties.  It demonstrates that a two-way typology is insufficient for two reasons: (1) there is significant internal variation among both Philippine-type and Indonesian-type languages and (2) there are a number of languages that do not fit neatly into either of the typological groups.  This can be seen by looking at two phenomena that are said to differ between Philippine-type and Indonesian-type languages: voice alternations and word order.  Given the variation, I argue that a more fruitful approach would be to compare a wide range of languages in order to determine the full extent (or parameters) of variation.  This enables a richer model of syntactic variation in Western Austronesian that could help to clarify paths of historical change and offer new insights into theoretical debates.

Peter K Austin

William Foley

Edith Aldridge

I Wayan Arka

Mark Donohue

The paper argues that in order to understand 'Papuan' linguistics, we must examine many languages that have been (not entirely correctly) characterised as being Austronesian.

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Gender of nouns : masculine, feminine, neuter, common.

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Nouns and gender (masculine, feminine, and neuter)

Nouns in Dutch can be categorized into three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter. Unlike English, which does not have grammatical gender, the gender of Dutch nouns is an important aspect of the language. In this essay, we will explore the gender system of Dutch nouns and the rules that govern them.

Masculine nouns in Dutch typically end in -er, -aar, -ant, -ent, -erd, -aar, -eur, and -ist . Examples of masculine nouns include "de jongen" (the boy), "de leraar" (the teacher), "de student" (the student), and "de schrijver" (the writer). In general, masculine nouns are used to describe people, animals, and objects that are considered to be masculine in nature.

Feminine nouns in Dutch often end in -heid, -ing, -ij, -teit, and -ie. Examples of feminine nouns include "de vrouw" (the woman), "de koningin" (the queen), "de bloem" (the flower), and "de universiteit" (the university). Feminine nouns are used to describe people, animals, and objects that are considered to be feminine in nature.

Neuter nouns in Dutch typically end in -je, -tje, -a, -um, and -sel. Examples of neuter nouns include "het huis" (the house), "het boek" (the book), "het kind" (the child), and "het museum" (the museum). Neuter nouns are used to describe objects that are neither masculine nor feminine in nature.

However, there are some exceptions to the gender rules in Dutch. For instance, some words are considered masculine or feminine based on their meaning, rather than their ending. For example, "de auto" (the car) is considered masculine, even though it does not end in -er, -aar, -ant, -ent, -erd, -aar, -eur, or -ist. Similarly, "de liefde" (the love) is considered feminine, even though it does not end in -heid, -ing, -ij, -teit, or -ie.

You can remember this table:

Masculine nouns in Dutch:

• De man (the man)
• De hond (the dog)
• De kikker (the frog)
• De rechter (the judge)
• De timmerman (the carpenter)
• De bakker (the baker)
• De directeur (the director)
• De zwemmer (the swimmer)
• De ober (the waiter)
• De dokter (the doctor)

Feminine nouns in Dutch:

• De vrouw (the woman)
• De moeder (the mother)
• De dochter (the daughter)
• De koningin (the queen)
• De prinses (the princess)
• De zuster (the sister)
• De leerlinge (the female student)
• De godin (the goddess)
• De actrice (the actress)
• De koe (the cow)

Neuter nouns in Dutch:

• Het kind (the child)
• Het huis (the house)
• Het boek (the book)
• Het bureau (the desk)
• Het museum (the museum)
• Het dier (the animal)
• Het gebouw (the building)
• Het glas (the glass)
• Het meisje (the girl)
• Het raam (the window)

So, remember this:

Again, this is not an exhaustive list, but it should give you an idea of some common endings for each gender in Dutch. Remember that there are exceptions to these rules, and the gender of some nouns may need to be memorized individually.