A gender-neutral pronoun, hen will join its binary counterparts han (he) and hon (she) in the new  edition of Sweden’s official dictionary, helping Swedish speakers avoid the sort of linguistic  gymnastics common in languages without a gender-neutral alternative. According to Guardian : The pronoun is used to refer to a person without revealing their gender  – either because it is unknown, because the person is transgender, or the speaker or writer deems 

the gender to be superfluous information.

“For those who use the pronoun, it’s obviously a strength that it is now in the dictionary,” one of  the editors, Sture Berg, told AFP on Tuesday. The word “hen” was coined in the 1960s when the ubiquitous use of “han” (he) became  politically incorrect, and was aimed at simplifying the language and avoiding the clumsy  “han/hon” (s/he) construction. - See more at:  http://viralwomen.com/post/its_official_sweden_adds_genderneutral_pronou... ash.M7JOFtEN.dpuf