Why I use zhi/zhir pronouns as an intersex person
I'm making this post to talk about my and my system's usage of zhi/zhir pronouns for reasons related to our intersex status.
To be clear, I am not trying to say that zhi/zhir pronouns are intersex exclusive, because I've seen them in use by presumably perisex people prior to my adoption of them to relate to being intersex. They don't have any kind of history like shi/hir pronouns that I'm aware of, so there's no reason they should be considered intersex exclusive. However, there are reasons, in my opinion, that they are representative of intersex identity.
Firstly, part of my use of these pronouns, or at least conjugating them the way I do, is because of shi/hir pronouns. These are considered intersex exclusive and that use of them is reclamation. I won't explain that in this post because that's a separate matter, but what I will say is that I know of several intersex people or systems who do use those pronouns or have headmates who use them, and I thought it was cool that they were, but the pronouns didn't seem appealing for me to use not just because of their history but because they sound too much like "she/her", and we were forcibly raised as a girl instead of as the gender we feel we were born as. "Zhi/zhir", however, does not sound as similar to the pronouns we were called growing up.
More importantly than their similarity to a different pronoun set, though, is the presence of the "zh" sound. We pronounce this like the "s" in "treasure", which is written in IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) as /ʒ/. This sound exists in many languages, including English, which is my native language. In English, it is not found at the beginnings of any words (that I am aware of), but it is still a natural part of the language. This is like how intersex conditions, while not considered typical or normative, still exist and are a natural way for a human body to be.
Furthermore, there ARE languages where /ʒ/ appears at the beginnings of words and the starting sound of "zhi/zhir" pronouns would not sound as unusual. This is like how there are many cultures worldwide that have a third gender that often includes intersex people, or other traditional recognition of categories that include intersex people.
So yeah, I as an individual alter in my system use zhi/zhir and I'm intersex in the same way our body is. We also use zhi/zhir as a collective pronoun, meaning it is acceptable for anyone to call anyone in my system by that pronoun, because the whole system identifies with our intersex status and history. I'm not saying other intersex people have to use zhi/zhir, and if someone else uses those pronouns, I won't automatically assume they're intersex, but just like how someone could have a certain gender due to being intersex without that gender being intersex-exclusive, that's why I use these pronouns.