Get your GLAAD rags on, roll out the rainbow skittles and get ready to party. On second thought, you’d better pour yourself a stiff drink before you plunge into all things gender 2020 because boi, bi, butch (or whichever one of dozens of other ‘gender identities’ you prefer — oops! — ‘identify as’), are you going to need it.  

You may have missed it the last couple of years but Wednesday October 21 this year is the third annual International Pronouns Day, the ultimate solution in search of a problem. 

Until recently pronouns — a bit like the words ‘sex’ and ‘gender’, really  —  were unremarkable words that we took for granted and used instinctively without much thought, albeit that their use depended upon a common understanding of their purpose.