langblrswedish:

Identifying as nonbinary can be difficult when learning languages, but Sweden has an ‘official’ gender neutral pronoun: hen. I did some research on it and got some notes from natives that I thought I’d share!

As I’ve mentioned, “hen” is the Swedish neutral pronoun, very similar to the use of singular “they” in English.

It took inspiration from the neutral pronoun of Finland (hän) and after much debate “hen” was adopted.

Its use is:
– for talking about someone who’s gender is unknown
– for talking about someone who identifies as neither male nor female
– when the gender is unnecessary in the conversation

It’s been used in various places in Sweden, some say since the 60s, but was in mainstream media in 2013 and placed into the official Swedish dictionary in 2015.

It has two main uses in Sweden. The first is, obviously, for LGBT+ groups but the second is interesting. Some schools or nurseries have started using “hen” for their pupils so as not to push gender roles or identities on their students.

Its use is the same as han or hon

e.g. hen är vacker – they are beautiful