He said, she said, ze said.
Ze? That’s not a typo, as you already know if you have followed the expanding national conversation about gender identity and expression. Along with "they" — in reference to a single person — "ze" has emerged as an increasingly common gender-neutral or inclusive alternative to binary male-female pronouns.
Ze may not be a household word yet — maybe it never will be — but its existence reflects a rapid cultural shift taking place in how we perceive and talk about gender. Transgender celebrities grace the covers of glossy magazines. Facebook made headlines last year when it unveiled a list of more than 50 terms that users could pick from to describe their gender identity; the social-media platform has since switched to a "Custom" option in addition to "Male" and "Female," allowing users to create their own descriptors. And at some colleges, students, faculty members, and administrators have begun to adjust and expand campus protocols, including those used for registration and personal-data collection, to include the small but growing number of people who identify as trans or are genderqueer, meaning they have a fluid gender identity or do not want to be classified as either male or female.
Read more at The Chronicle of Higher Education: http://chronicle.com/article/Colleges-Consider-Adopting-/233757