Ze/hir pronouns: how to say hir and use the set
Ze, hir, hir, hirs, hirself. Hir is said like here, which keeps it apart from her.
The forms
| Subject | ze |
|---|---|
| Object | hir |
| Possessive before a noun | hir |
| Possessive on its own | hirs |
| Reflexive | hirself |
In a sentence
- Ze is running the stall at the market.
- I will call hir after lunch.
- Hir flat is just round the corner.
- The last slice of cake is hirs.
- Ze bought hirself new boots.
The forms and how to say them
Ze is the subject, hir is both object and determiner, hirs stands alone and hirself is the reflexive, with singular verbs: ze is, ze has. That is the set as listed by UW-Milwaukee's LGBTQ+ Resource Center, Pronouns.page and the Gender Census.
UW-Milwaukee and Vassar College both say ze is pronounced like "zee" and hir like "here". In speech that matters: said carefully, hir does not sound like her, so say it carefully.
An old word in a new job
Hir is older than most people expect. The linguist Dennis Baron found that The Sacramento Bee newspaper used it for 25 years, and The Atlantic dates that use to between the 1920s and the 1940s. Back then it was a general gender-neutral word, not a pronoun anyone chose for themselves.
Kate Bornstein's 1996 novel Nearly Roadkill used ze/hir for a character, which The Atlantic describes as one of the first steps in bringing this kind of pronoun into the mainstream.
Ze/hir or ze/zir?
The two sets share ze and part ways after it. If you hear ze, listen for hir or zir, or ask. The other set is here: ze/zir.
How common it is
Hard to say from the data. In the Gender Census, ze/hir was a checkbox option in 2024 and chosen by 3.2%. In 2025 it was off the list and typed in by 0.46%, and the survey is putting it back for its next edition, describing it as well established. The survey itself warns that checkbox and typed-in figures cannot be compared.
If you slip
Correct and keep going. The glossary entry on misgendering has the reasoning, and neopronouns has the wider picture.
Questions people ask
How do you pronounce hir?
Like here. Ze is pronounced like zee.
Is ze/hir the same as ze/zir?
No. They share ze, but ze/hir uses hir and hirs while ze/zir uses zir and zirs.
Is it ze is or ze are?
Ze is. Ze/hir takes singular verbs.
Is hir a typo for her?
No. Hir is its own word, pronounced like here, and a newspaper was printing it as a gender-neutral word a century ago.