It/Its

The forms

The forms

Subject	itit is here
Object	itI saw it
Possessive	itsits book
Possessive (standing alone)	itsthat is its
Reflexive	itselfby itself

In a sentence

What it is

Some people ask to be called it. Not as a joke and not as a put-down: as their pronoun. It is at the door. Give it the keys. Its coat is on the chair. The grammar is the one you already know.

The word carries history. It has been used to strip trans and non-binary people of personhood, and Wiktionary still lists that derogatory use alongside the chosen one. That is why it/its is the one set you never guess. You use it only when the person has told you to, and then you use it without flinching.

How to use it

• Verbs stay singular: it is, it was, it has. Nothing changes from ordinary use.
• It is both subject and object. Its covers both possessives, with no apostrophe, ever. Itself is the reflexive.
• Never default to it. Not for a stranger, not for someone whose pronouns you do not know, not as a workaround. Only for a person who has said so.
• If you slip and say they, correct to it and continue. If someone else uses it as an insult about a person who has not chosen it, that is not a pronoun; treat it as the slur it is.
• Capitalised at the start of a sentence like any word, lowercase elsewhere.

Getting used to it

• Say a kind sentence about the person using it, out loud, until the word stops sounding cold. That reaction is yours to work through, not theirs.
• Write three lines about the person's week using it, its and itself. Read them back. Notice whether you softened anything.
• If you write about the person for others, add one plain line: "X uses it/its pronouns." It saves a dozen confused replies.

Who uses this

It/Its comes up on thirty-one pages in the library.

That is all this list is. No identity requires a pronoun set, and most imply nothing about pronouns at all.

Where it comes from

Not a coinage. The word is ordinary English, and its use as a chosen personal pronoun is a reclaiming rather than an invention. Wiktionary records both the offensive use and the chosen one; Pronouns.page notes that using it for someone who asked is respectful precisely because they asked. No date or person is on record for the practice.

Questions people ask

Other sets

Pronouns are a request about language, not a claim about anyone else. Using someone’s pronouns costs nothing and says a lot.