LSU gymnast Olivia Dunne sparks debate with controversial ‘pronoun’ announcement

College athlete Olivia Dunne has sparked a debate on social media after she posted a video on TikTok in which she announces her “pronouns” at a NASCAR event. Dunne is an accomplished gymnast at LSU and became social media famous when she joined TikTok in 2020. She is now the most-followed NCAA athlete on social media with over 7 million followers on TikTok, plus 4 million on Instagram.

Back to the “pronouns” - I’m putting these in quotations because they’re not exactly pronouns. At a NASCAR Cup Series race in Nashville, Dunne stood beside two U.S. soldiers and proudly announced (well, mouthed the words over a recorded audio), “my pronouns are U S A!”, followed by the caw of an eagle.

For Dunne, it was a show of patriotism and support for the troops. But for others, it was a controversial way of showing it and a misuse of the term “pronouns”. Several people commented that she would upset people with the video, but others were happy to have seen a well-known person (and especially female) show blatant support for the U.S. and its military.