The Saga of Grant Morrison’s pronouns

tldr; As of October 24, 2023 Grant Morrison’s stated preference is: “I’m much happier being described as ‘they’ but I won’t give anyone a hard time for using any other pronoun.”

(Source: This essay on their Substack. It’s behind a subscription paywall but anyone with $10 can verify. For a more public but less recent source, see the author’s blurb on the Luda page on the publisher’s website (Del Rey is an imprint of Penguin Random House).

Timeline of events:

October 26, 2020: mondo2000.com publishes an interview with Morrison where they say “I’ve been non-binary, cross-dressing, ‘gender queer’ since I was 10 years old, but the available terms for what I was doing and how I felt were few and far between.”

November 5, 2020: Many publications pick up on the mondo2000.com comment and interpret it as Morrison coming out as non-binary. Most notable is a story published by CBR that contains the following update: “CBR has contacted Grant Morrison and updated this story accordingly to include their preferred pronouns.” Wikipedia updates Morrison’s pronouns the same day.

November 5, 2020 — Present: People frequently chime into online conversations to correct those who refer to Morrison with he/him pronouns.

May, 2022: Someone edits the Grant Morrison article on Wikipedia back to he/him pronouns, claiming Morrison had “recently said on his website that he has reverted to being a cisgender man and prefers to be addressed by he/him pronouns only.” They provide no links to any specific part of Morrison’s website or any other sourcing. The Wikipedia article is quickly reverted back to they/them pronouns.

June 14, 2022: Not quite two years after the mondo2000.com interview, Rolling Stone publishes an interview with Morrison where they say that what they meant was “If these words had been around when I was a kid, which they weren’t, I would be genderqueer. I’d be non-binary.” And:

• “I hated for it to be seen as something I’ve just finally figured out. I’m 62 years old — I had my sexuality shit figured out a long time ago!”
• “The ‘they’ thing was kind of given to me, and I’ve accepted it as a badge of honor.” The introduction to the Rolling Stone interview notes that Morrison prefers they/them pronouns.

September, 2022: Morrison’s novel Luda is published. The author’s blurb and the quotes on the back use they/them pronouns to refer to Morrison. But the bio on Morrison’s official website, grantmorrison.com (which does not even mention Luda and therefore appears outdated), still uses he/him pronouns.

September 22, 2022: In an interview with The Times, Morrison says: “I said that if I had been doing now what I was doing back in the 1990s I would be viewed as non-binary or gender queer. Suddenly it was taken up by the fan press and I was awarded the label ‘they/them’. I never asked for it. I come from a generation where that just doesn’t matter, even being labelled at all is anathema to me.” The article notes that the blurb for Luda uses they/them pronouns.

March, 2023? (I’m not sure of the correct date): A YouTuber publishes a video titled “Grant Morrison Never Actually Asked People To Use They/Them Pronouns For Him.” I haven’t watched this video so I don’t know what evidence he presents. The number of people jumping into online conversations to contradict those who use they/them pronouns for Morrisons increases.

October 18, 2023: Morrison publishes the first in a series of three essays to their Substack clarifying their thinking and preferences:

• “I much prefer ‘they’ to ‘he’, if I’m being honest!”
• “When I see people online correcting others for using the ‘wrong’ pronouns in relation to me, I’ll admit I recoil.”
• “I don’t want my personal laissez faire approach to encourage any laxity towards to those for whom it really does matter and for whom the correct use of pronouns is a concern of urgent importance.”
• “For me, the idea of being categorized is anathema; it asks too much of me that I cannot deliver. […] I’m too inconsistent, too open to digression and confusion to be that kind of reliable.”
• “If ‘non-binary’ means to reject fixed male and female categories as inadequate to one’s personal understanding and instead to identify with a ‘colour wheel’ of available gender orientations and modes of presentation, then perhaps the shoe fits after all.”

October 24, 2023: Morrison publishes their most clear statement of pronoun preference in the third part of the Substack essay series: “I’m much happier being described as ‘they’ but I won’t give anyone a hard time for using any other pronoun.”

November 28, 2023: Someone replies to me on Reddit claiming that Morrison is not non-binary and does not use they/them pronouns, but does not cite any sources. This is the first I’ve heard the claim that Morrison DOESN’T prefer they/them pronouns. I start researching the controversy and find the Rolling Stones article and the Substack series. No one else can tell me what’s in the Substack essays so I spring for a subscription and read them.

December 1, 2023: I update Wikipedia, citing the Substack essays.

December 4, 2023: I publish this article.