You see, pronouns take the place of nouns in a sentence. Instead of tell the 'guards', you could tell 'them'. And rather than tell the 'guards' to tell 'Amir', you could tell 'them' to tell 'him'.

Last week Sam Smith came out as non-binary and asked fans to use the pronouns they/them instead of he/him. It caused a debate online - especially after The Associated Press wrote up the story ...