She, he or 'ze?' On US campuses, pronouns can be personal for students defying gender norms

OAKLAND, Calif. – The weekly meetings of Mouthing Off!, a group for students at Mills College in Oakland, Calif., who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, always start the same way.

Members take turns going around the room saying their names and the personal pronouns they want others to use when referring to them — she, he or something else.

On high school and college campuses and in certain political and social media circles, the growing visibility of a small, but semantically committed cadre of young people who self-identify as "genderqueer" is challenging anew the limits of Western comprehension and the English language.