Names and faces
■ Sam Smith has declared the pronouns of “they/them” on social media after coming out as non-binary in what the pop star called a “lifetime of being at war with my gender.” The English “Too Good at Goodbyes” singer was met with thousands of mostly supportive comments, along with some detractors who questioned the need to change pronouns, an increasingly common practice both within and outside of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. “Today is a good day so here goes. I’ve decided I am changing my pronouns to THEY/THEM,” the 27-year-old Smith wrote on Twitter and Instagram. “After a lifetime of being at war with my gender I’ve decided to embrace myself for who I am, inside and out.” Smith said they were excited and privileged for the support, adding that they’ve been “very nervous” about the announcement because they “care too much about what people think” but finally decided to go for it. “Love you all,” Smith wrote on Twitter, adding they’re scared “but feeling super free right now. Be kind.”
■ U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, actress Jane Fonda and attorney Gloria Allred are among the latest inductees at the National Women’s Hall of Fame. The Class of 2019 inducted Saturday into the hall in upstate New York also includes activist Angela Davis, attorney Sarah Deer, fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg, retired Air Force fighter pilot Nicole Malachowski, the late artist and suffragist Rose O’Neill and the late New York Congresswoman Louise Slaughter. The hall in Seneca Falls, where a landmark U.S. women’s rights convention took place in 1848, doesn’t identify a theme when it calls for nominations, said induction chairwoman Sujatha Ramanujan. But she said sometimes a theme emerges, as it has this year, that reflects the political and social mood of the country. “It shows up in the nominations because we ask the general public,” Ramanujan said, “and in a time when women are feeling like their voices need to be heard, they’re nominating women whose voices were loud.” She pointed particularly to Allred and her work as an advocate for women who have been abused and Deer, who is an American Indian activist focused on victims’ rights. Fonda’s selection prompted the Seneca Falls town supervisor to threaten to pull funding from the site. Greg Lazzaro wrote in a resolution, which did not pass, that Fonda’s activism during the Vietnam War “brought divisiveness to our country.” The actress drew bitter criticism after being photographed atop an anti-aircraft gun during a 1972 visit to North Vietnam, a moment she has said she regrets.