There’s a quiet revolution happening over how we address people, and behind it lies a surprising history …
Jamie Forsstreom is excited. Tomorrow they make their debut flight with Virgin Atlantic as part of the cabin crew on a plane to San Francisco. Forsstreom will be wearing a burgundy trouser suit designed by Vivienne Westwood, with their pronouns – “They/them” – on a badge pinned to the lapel. Forsstreom comes from Finland, a country where gendered pronouns don’t exist in the language. “I’ve learned English since I was nine years old, so I’ve always known about them, but in terms of using them to define my own gender identity, I was quite late to the game,” they say. It wasn’t until Forsstreom moved to London six years ago in their mid‑20s, and started to work exclusively in English, that they decided to make the change and honour a non-binary identity that they have been clear about since early childhood.
In September, Virgin Atlantic became the latest company to throw itself into a quiet revolution sweeping through the institutional world. You could call it the great corporate pronoun push. The airline’s announcement that from now on it would be possible not only for staff, but for customers to travel under the gender of their choice caused little media furore but a big run on their rather elegant pronoun badges. Within a month, the 10,000 they had printed out for distribution on planes and in their travel shops had been snapped up. A second batch is currently on order.
