Killers of the Flower Moon star Lily Gladstone embraces she/they pronouns to ‘decolonise gender’

The actor who is of Blackfeet and Nimiipuu heritage explained that there are no gendered pronouns in most Indigenous languages

Killers of the Flower Moon star Lily Gladstone has explained that their preference for she/they pronouns is their way of “decolonising gender”.

The 37-year-old actor, who stars opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in Martin Scorsese’s latest Western drama about the early 1900s Osage Nation murders, is of Blackfeet and Nimiipuu heritage.

“In most Native languages, most Indigenous languages, Blackfeet included, there are no gendered pronouns. There is no he/she, there’s only they,” Gladstone told People in a recent interview.

Of their preferred pronouns, they said that it “is partly a way of decolonising gender for myself”, as well as a way of “embracing that when I’m in a group of ladies, I know that I’m a little bit different”.

“When I’m in a group of men, I don’t feel like a man. I don’t feel [masculine] at all. I feel probably more feminine when I’m around other men,” they said.

“I remember being nine 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,” they added. “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.”

“It doesn’t happen as much anymore, but there’ve been several times in my life where I’ve been speaking to a northern Cheyenne-first language speaker [or another] Indigenous-first language speaker where they’ll accidentally misgender you when they’re talking to you,” Gladstone continued. “And then they’ll get embarrassed about it, but it’s because they’ve learned English later.”

Lily Gladstone, Robert de Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio in ‘Killers of the Flower Moon' (Apple TV+)

They reiterated that while Blackfeet don’t have gendered pronouns, “our gender is implied in our name. But even that’s not binary”.

In recent years, gendered awards categories have come under scrutiny, with some awards shows, including the Independent Spirit Awards, moving towards gender-neutral categories to foster greater inclusivity.

“I think it’s really cool that we’re seeing ‘performer’ and we’re seeing everybody brought in together,” said Gladstone, whose performance as Osage woman Mollie Burkhart has been tipped as potentially Oscar-winning following their success at the November Gotham Awards.

“I do feel that historically having gendered categories has helped from keeping women actors from a lot of erasure because I think historically people just tend to honour male performances more,” they acknowledged.

“I know a lot of actresses who are very proud of the word ‘actress’ or are very proud of being an actress,” they said. “I don’t know, maybe it’s just an overly semantic thing where I’m like, if there’s not a ‘director-ess,’ then there shouldn’t be actresses. There’s no ‘producer-ess,’ there’s no ‘cinematographer-ess.’”

Killers of the Flower Moon is out now in cinemas.