Lily Gladstone, star of Killers of the Flower Moon, has opened up about using she/they pronouns and their connection to her indigenous identity.
Gladstone has had a huge year, starring alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in Martin Scorsese’s 2023 film Killers of the Flower Moon and winning 22 awards so far for her portrayal of Mollie Burkhart.
Gladstone is the child of a father of Blackfeet and Nimiipuu heritage and a white mother; Gladstone was raised on the Blackfeet reservation in Montana and had early experiences with pronoun issues.
“I remember being 9 years old and just being a little disheartened, seeing how often a lot of my boy cousins were misgendered because they wore their hair long. It happens to a lot of kids, I think, especially Native boys leaving a community where long hair is celebrated (and then) just kind of getting teased for it. So I remember back then being like, ‘Everybody should just be ‘they’” Gladstone says in an interview with People Magazine.
Gladstone now uses both she/her and they/them pronouns, saying “…in most Native languages, most Indigenous languages, Blackfeet included, there are no gendered pronouns. There is no he/she; there’s only they.”
There is a situational aspect for Gladstone too, as they described feeling “a little bit different” when in groups of women as opposed to when they are in groups of men.
“In ceremony, a lot of times where you sit in the circle is a gendered thing. I happen to sit in circles that are very embracing of all of our people. And I’ve seen people change where they sit in the circle based upon how they’re feeling that day” Gladstone says.
Gladstone speaks to their use of she/they pronouns as being an act of decolonization. Decolonization is defined as “the process of deconstructing colonial ideologies.” The use of staunch binary gender pronouns is a result of colonization. As Gladstone explains, gendered pronouns do not appear in most indigenous languages.
Gendered pronouns occur in the language of the colonizer, so to embrace they/them pronouns stands as an act of pushing back against the colonization of indigenous languages and the gender roles forced upon Native Americans by settlers.
Lily Gladstone is currently a nominated performer at the Golden Globes and the Critics Choice Awards, as well as serving as the honorary chair of the 2024 Independent Spirit Awards.
Photo courtesy of Lily Gladstone
