Rosie O’Donnell is opening up about learning to use her nonbinary child Clay’s they/them pronouns—and the unusual reminder she got to help herself get it right.
O’Donnell, 63, discussed the experience Tuesday on Amy Poehler’s Good Hang podcast while talking about her one-woman show, Common Knowledge. The show, which ran at New York City’s Daryl Roth Theatre from July 22 to August 8, is partly a tribute to Ireland, where O’Donnell moved in January 2025, and to Clay, who is autistic.
While telling Poehler about the inspiration behind the show’s title, O’Donnell accidentally referred to 13-year-old Clay as “she” before correcting herself and acknowledging that Clay uses they/them pronouns.
“I love that you’re constantly correcting in real-time, like we all do,” Poehler says.
“And it really matters to them,” O’Donnell responded. “And I know it matters to them.”
O’Donnell said that after Clay came out as nonbinary, she initially struggled to change the pronouns she had used for her child.
“I tried my best, but I kept saying ‘she,’” O’Donnell says.
Clay eventually came up with a creative way to remind their mother. O’Donnell recalled that Clay would hold up a piece of cardboard with the word “they” written on it whenever she misgendered them, comparing it to the famous boombox scene from Say Anything.
O’Donnell eventually took Clay to her cousin’s tattoo shop and had the word “they” permanently tattooed on her wrist in Clay’s handwriting.
“I had it tattooed on my wrist, so that I would never forget, that it would remind me,” O’Donnell says.
But even with the tattoo, O’Donnell admits she still slips up.
While recounting the story on the podcast, she accidentally referred to Clay as “she” again.
“And I just said ‘she!’ I just did it again in the ‘they’ story,” O’Donnell said, laughing. “I messed it up!”
O’Donnell previously discussed the tattoo and her conversations with Clay about gender in a 2024 interview with NBC Chicago.
She recalled Clay joking, “Your tattoo isn’t working,” whenever O’Donnell accidentally used the wrong pronoun.
O’Donnell also shared a conversation in which Clay explained the difference between sex and gender after telling their mother that some classmates did not know their gender.
Clay explained that sex and gender are different and that gender is not limited to a binary.
“I don’t know where the journey is going to take them,” O’Donnell says. “I am supportive of any way that they want to be in this world.”
Photos courtesy of social media
