Why I use gender-neutral pronouns in Pilgrim

I always hoped the Pilgrim books would start conversations. So far, the most talked-about aspect isn’t whether we’re living in an attraction-based universe. It isn’t even whether we’re creating our own reality.

It’s my use of pronouns.

This wasn't the one I expected to happen first—and I certainly hope it won't be the last—but since it's the conversation we're having, let's begin here.

We know that Pilgrim, Gabe and Everyman are male characters. That's established from the beginning of Pilgrim. But in Pilgrim's Progress, everyone becomes "they" rather than "he" or "she".

Why?

For those who wonder if I don’t understand grammar, let me reassure you that the use of "they" is entirely deliberate.

I want to move away from framing characters primarily through gender. I could have used "it", but that would have stripped away their humanity. "They" remains recognisably human while avoiding anchoring the reader's perception in gender.

What makes it feel strange isn't that English lacks a singular "they"—we use it all the time without thinking. It's that I apply it consistently to every character. That sustained ambiguity is meant to feel slightly unsettling.

Although most readers notice it first in Pilgrim's Progress, the shift actually begins partway through Pilgrim. The first character it applies to is the Thinker, and the first place it happens is outside the Citadel's walls. That's because the characters are leaving behind more than a city. They're leaving behind an old way of thinking.

Pilgrim charts a journey from the Citadel to the New City—a journey that is both physical and metaphysical. Reaching the New City requires learning to think differently. And when we change how we think, what we think about changes too.

That's the central idea running through both books.

So why remove gender from the language? There are two reasons.

First, it creates space for the reader.

Reading is an act of collaboration. We don't simply consume a story; we build one in our own minds. The Thinker, the Monk, the Politician, the Librarian—these characters are archetypes. Who they become depends partly on the reader. Who do you imagine? And what might that reveal about the assumptions you bring to the world?

The second reason is more philosophical.

One of the ideas explored throughout the Pilgrim books is that the reality we currently inhabit is dualistic, divided into opposites: self and other, us and them, subject and object. Whether you encounter that idea through Descartes, Buddhism or elsewhere, the tendency to separate and categorise shapes how we experience ourselves and each other.

Gender is one of the strongest examples of that way of thinking.

I'm not trying to contribute to the contemporary debate about gender. Others have far more meaningful things to say about that discussion than I do.

What interests me is the effect of categorisation itself.

Listen to the language we inherit. We speak of "mankind". We often use "men" when we mean people. When describing someone, we say they’re “a tall, white-haired man”, not “a tall, white-haired, male human”.

In doing so, we don't simply describe a person. We begin placing them into a framework of assumptions. We infer personality, behaviour, strengths, weaknesses and roles before we know anything else about them.

Whether those assumptions are accurate isn't really the point. The point is how quickly and automatically they arise.

The consequences reach everyone.

Many men grow up feeling they must suppress intuition, vulnerability or compassion in order to fulfil an idea of masculinity. Many women grow up learning to make themselves smaller, to soften their opinions or avoid conflict because the social cost of doing otherwise can be high.

The details differ, but the underlying pattern is the same: people learn to hide parts of themselves in order to fit categories that were never large enough to contain them.

The Pilgrim books are ultimately about questioning our assumptions about reality to change how we experience it.

If something as small as an unconventional use of pronouns causes a reader to notice one of those assumptions, even for a moment, then Pilgrim is doing exactly what I hoped.