OpenPronoun
A specification for representing, exchanging, parsing, and displaying personal pronouns in software systems.
A public, implementation-agnostic technical standard for modeling, parsing, normalizing, and displaying personal pronouns in software.
Status: Draft · Version: 0.1
The specification is published under a permissive license. The reference implementations (a TypeScript library and a React component library) are MIT licensed.
What this standard covers
Section titled “What this standard covers”- A structured data model for pronoun sets and pronoun preferences.
- Parsing and normalization rules for turning varied user input into that model.
- Display and canonical stringification conventions.
- UX and accessibility guidelines for collecting and showing pronouns.
- Considerations for internationalization and extensibility.
- A conformance definition using RFC 2119 keywords, backed by a published JSON Schema and a shared test suite.
How the spec is organized
Section titled “How the spec is organized”- Introduction — non-normative background and motivation.
- Specification — the normative core: conformance, data model, parsing, display.
- Guidance — recommended practices: UX/accessibility, internationalization, security/privacy.
- Project — reference implementations, references, and changelog.
Compliance badge
Section titled “Compliance badge”Organizations that conform to the standard may display a compliance badge (a la Shields.io), e.g.
See Conformance for what compliance requires.