White House Website Allows Visitors to Specify Pronouns

The White House website has been updated to allow visitors to specify what pronouns they use.

According to NBC News, the contact form on whitehouse.gov has a new drop-down menu with pronoun options, including “she/her,” “he/him,” “they/them,” “other,” “prefer not to share,” and the option to write down their own selections. The list of prefixes has also been updated to include the gender-neutral “Mx.” along with “Mr.” “Mrs.” and “Ms.”

“Allowing visitors, whether transgender, nonbinary, or cisgender-identified, to indicate their preferred pronouns when visiting the home of President Biden demonstrates the kind of welcoming place 1600 Pennsylvania will be now for all Americans,” Raffi Freedman-Gurspan, the first openly transgender person to work as a White House staffer, told NBC News.

Sarah Kate Ellis, the president and CEO of GLAAD, celebrated the update as “more than just a demonstration of allyship.”

“Research has shown that recognition and respect of our pronouns can make all the difference for our health and well-being – especially when it comes to LGBTQ youth,” Ellis said. According to research from the Trevor Project, one in four LGBTQ youth use gender neutral pronouns.