In 2012, efforts to launch hen as a gender-neutral pronoun in Swedish sparked a widespread and sometimes fierce debate. This article addresses the establishment of hen in actual usage, in particular in blogs, newspapers, and student essays. In general, the use of hen is fairly uncommon, and the majority of occurrences are meta uses, which means the word is discussed more than it is used. In certain areas, however, such as gender-oriented blogs and academic essays on Swedish, hen is somewhat more common. A comparison with alternative gender-neutral expressions is presented, based on different functions of hen, both generic and referentially specific types. Two functions unique to hen are distinguished, cross-gender specific reference and gender-neutral reference to subjects in scientific studies; with respect to other functions, hen is a stylistically marked alternative.