Lily Gladstone Speaks On Using She/They Pronouns To Connect To Indigenous Heritage

The "Killers of the Flower Moon" star has Blackfeet and Nez Perce heritage and grew up on a Native American reservation until she was 10.

Lily Gladstone uses she/they pronouns — and has rather educational reasons for it.

The “Killers of the Flower Moon” star revealed Sunday in an interview with People that her Indigenous heritage — she has Blackfeet and Nez Perce ancestry — taught her to rethink pronouns at an early age.

“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,” Gladstone, 37, told the outlet. “It happens to a lot of kids, I think, especially Native boys … getting teased for it.”

“So I remember back then being like, everybody should just be they,” she said.

Gladstone added that most Indigenous languages use only “they” pronouns and that the gender of Blackfeet members “is implied” in their name. She also noted that even this isn’t binary, however, as Gladstone’s grandfather was named “Iron Woman” despite his gender.