On September 17th, the Merriam Webster’s dictionary added more than 530 words to its pages, including the use of “They” as a gender-neutral pronoun.

This comes as good news to the LGBTQ community, many of whom do not identify themselves as the binary genders of male and female. The dictionary’s addition comes alongside society’s increasing awareness of diverse gender identities.

Nillin Lore, a multiple award winning blogger and accomplished speaker with TransSask Support Services, explains what they want to see from this.

“I’m kinda hoping that this is something that’ll help folks realize that non-binary people are around, and that their pronouns are extremely important to them; that’s how they’re referred to, and that’s how they’re talked about, and how they’re seen by society, and how they understand themselves.”

Lore goes on to explain why something as simple as using the wrong pronoun can affect a non-binary person.

“When people aren’t respecting those pronouns, that can be a very deeply affecting thing on the emotional and social level. So yeah; I’m hoping that this is a good help with that.”

As a non-binary person, Lore is all to familiar with the possibility of a non-binary person being alienated by their own family.

“People that use they/them pronouns, a lot of non-binary people are really worried. We’re afraid of losing the people that we love. We’re afraid of losing our family and we’re afraid of asking to much of them. Pronouns are a very important thing and a very important self-identifier.”

After the announcement from Merriam-Webster, singer Sam Smith announced on Twitter that they identify as non-binary and have changed their pronouns to they/them.

Merriam-Webster also threw their voice into the ring, saying “They is taking on a new use, however: as a pronoun of choice for someone who doesn’t identify as either male or female. This is a different use than the traditional singular they, which is used to refer to a person whose gender isn’t known or isn’t important in the context… The new use of they is direct, and it is for a person whose gender is known but who does not identify as male or female.”

Among other words added to the dictionary were “vacay,” “dad joke” and “escape room.”