Han, Hon, Hen : Hur kan attityderna till och användningen av hen förstås i det svenska språket och samhället?

Sammanfattning: Two categories of sex are considered to not be enough and the use of a masculine pronoun in cases where gender is unknown is said to increase the gaps instead of bringing them together when it comes to gender equality. In 2015, the new word ze (in swedish: hen) was added to the Swedish Academic Glossary and since then the opinions regarding the linguistic change have gone apart. This study aims to provide in-depth knowledge of the gender neutral pronouns ze, the attitudes to and the use of the word in the Swedish language and society. Through a quantitative study with a survey as a method; 226 questionnaires were collected. Then they were analyzed based on the theoretical framework based on a sociolinguistic perspective and queertheory that focuses on normality and deviation. The results from the study show that more than half of the respondents have a positive attitude towards ze. It is primarily in writing that the gender neutral pronoun is used; almost half of the respondents state that they prefer the word in writing situations. Language usage in general affects a persons attitude to the word ze, the more linguistic change someone has accepted, the more likely it is that they start using a future one. The conclusion is that linguistic changes take time, but despite that, ze have been established in the Swedish language and society as a gender neutral pronoun but not as a third gender category.