#Gender Inclusive Language

[toriwritesstories]

Someone tell me if I’m overreacting, but it actually feels so rude when I tell someone about “my spouse” and they immediately say or ask something about my “husband.”

Like no, I am not asking anyone to learn how to use they/them pronouns on a whim to have a conversation with me. But if you ask “What are you doing for the holidays?” And I said “My spouse and I are visiting our families” and you respond “Oh cool, where does your husband’s family live?” like…. ???? it was not difficult for you to echo my language.

Okay because I know that people don’t always have the knowledge of gender inclusive language, but Spouse is a very well known and understood term, and to then make a gender assumption after I’ve used it feels so rude to me.

I didn’t correct her, even though I said “spouse” multiple times in the conversation and she said “husband” back every time. This was during a dentist appointment and like, I don’t have the time or energy to waste on strangers who may or may not even be receptive to learning something new. I stick to the right language to talk about my spouse, I use they/them pronouns for them. Usually people will echo some or all of my language, or just avoid descriptors once they realize.

I guess I can assume the best in that she genuinely didn’t think about it, her worldview is just so narrowed that it didn’t even cross her mind, but we live in 2024, and even though we’re in Texas, we are in a big metroplex. It just feels rude and now I’m just grumpy.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Christopher Wiggins at The Advocate:

Recently revealed training videos from Project 2025, obtained and published by ProPublica, shed light on a comprehensive effort to overhaul federal policies concerning inclusivity and LGBTQ+ rights. Project 2025, a more than 900-page Republican strategy document, aims to institutionalize Trumpism within the federal government by dismantling diversity programs, placing Trump loyalists in critical positions, and rejecting progressive ideologies.

[...]

In one of the videos, former Trump officials Bethany Kozma and Katie Sullivan focus on reshaping federal policies around gender and inclusive language. Sullivan begins by mocking inclusive terminology, saying, “Hi, I’m Katie Sullivan and just a normal American woman, but to the left that makes me a cisgendered, ethno-imperialist birthing person with pronouns she/her” She adds that these words “are quite a mouthful, and it’s one America needs to spit out before we choke on it.”

Kozma and Sullivan specifically target terms and concepts such as gender, sex assigned at birth, and gender-affirming care. They reject the term gender, arguing that it is “completely toxic” and should be replaced with “biological sex” to maintain clarity. Kozma claims, “It’s no longer being used to mean male or female, but now how people identify, which is where we get this idea of gender identity.” She adds, “We should never use the word gender as conservatives.” The pair also criticize the phrase “sex assigned at birth,” with Kozma describing it as “the left’s attempt to change biological fact and to try to normalize their belief that biological sex can change.” She advises, “If you see the term sex assigned at birth, delete it and replace it with biological sex.” Sullivan and Kozma are equally dismissive of pronoun use, warning political appointees against adopting practices that respect individuals’ gender identities. Sullivan states, “Don’t use them in email signature blocks, on LinkedIn, and absolutely do not ask people what their pronouns are on your first day on the job.” Kozma adds, “We are not here to discuss pronouns,” emphasizing a refusal to engage with gender-inclusive practices.

The two also belittled social-emotional learning, a framework widely used in education to help students develop self-awareness, self-control, and interpersonal skills. Kozma referred to SEL as “the new buzzword for CRT or critical race theory,” dismissing it as just another tool of the left to infiltrate conservative spaces to “indoctrinate” kids into adopting a more open worldview. Sullivan encouraged political appointees to scrutinize any references to SEL, arguing that such terms are part of a broader effort by the left to change culture through language. These efforts are part of a broader conservative push to delegitimize LGBTQ+ people and roll back rights through legislative actions across the country. 

One of the Project 2025’s Presidential Administration Academy training videos exposed by ProPublica featuring former Trump Administration staffers Bethany Kozma and Katie Sullivan contained opposition to gender identity concepts, gender-neutral language, and gender-affirming care.

[littlemxhoney]

It's frindle, but gayer!

What started as ghoulies has evolved and has now made it into the dictionary...of Honey 💛

Can I use it in a sentence? Absolutely! ⬇️

[dianneking]

Without wanting to meddle in your life or act like the owner of the truth, the term Latine (singular) and Latines (plural) is better than Latinx. Speaking from personal experience, only gringos speak Latinx (and don't listen when you say Latine is better/preferable). In Spanish (and Portuguese) Latine sounds better, makes more sense within the linguistic context and grammatical rules (Latino, Latina, Latine) and is pronounceable. Of course, you may see Latine people who choose to use Latinx, so it's always good to ask, but I thought it was worth pointing out the difference between the two. 

Oh thank you for this, anon!

I didn't know that, and with my Latines friends I don't speak any English, so the terms we use are a bit skewed by language, as I had seen Latinx used in English posts, I thought it was a sort of standard

I'll go correct the post, thanks again for educating me on the subject, I love learning more about inclusivity

[flowersandfashion]

Adrienne Rich, Planetarium /// I Saw The T.V. Glow (2024) dir. Jane Schoenbrun /// Mary Oliver, Stars /// The Pillars of Creation captured by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope /// Andrea Gibson, The Madness Vase /// Falling Star (1884) by Witold Pruszkowski /// Adrienne Rich /// I Saw The T.V. Glow

[bucklikethedollar]

all the critiques of the “male presenting” bit in the star beast are valid and true (patronizing, kind of bioessentialist, etc) however i think we’ve been ignoring the funniest part of the whole thing which is like. he was a woman like three hours ago. you don’t need to give him a lecture about What Women Are Like. he knows. and even when he was a woman he still bottled shit up so your argument is moot anyway

[anti-terf-posts]

is it just me that's disappointed how people in more mainstream feminism are seeming to forget that ANY sort of painting people perceived as women/with vaginas as inherently frail and lacking agency because of who we/our bodies are *is, and has always been oppressive, and fundamentally antithetical to feminism as a whole?* even if it's unintentional/well-intentioned in the context of misogynistic violence?

One of the larger issues I have with it is that it essentially puts the blame on people with vaginas for being assaulted. It gives the same vibes as the people who tell you that sexual assault is bound to happen in your life and there's no way to avoid it. (Please note the difference between that and "Most people with vaginas face sexual harassment and assault at some point in their lives") I guess what I'm getting at is that it's a very defeatist way of looking at life. Like people with penises who are sexually violent don't assault because they're stronger, they do it because they're evil (sorry not sorry).

And going back to the part about it being defeatist, it's honestly depressing because you see so many people with vaginas (typically ones starting puberty) being discouraged from pursuing physical activities as a career. Hell, even physical activities for fun! And this is simply because they have vaginas! So they're considered weaker, as if there's no hope for them to become stronger and more active. Which, by the way, leads them to be less motivated, so they end up being less active, and they become weaker as life goes on, which perpetuates the stereotype of them being the weaker sex. It's a vicious cycle!

If you have a child with a vagina, encourage them! Tell them to pursue their interest in physical activities! It's good for them, and in the long run they'll have a longer and more fulfilling life.

[bananonbinary]

just filled out a bunch of new patient paperwork and it was full of the usualy performative ally bullshit like 'what is your current preferred gender' and 'do you consider yourself to be gay or straight or bisexual'

and in the middle of that it also asked "what is your preferred religion?" and i understand how religion influences medical care, but that is, i think, the stupidest way you could possibly phrase that. like oh, i prefer to be treated as a muslim but legally i'm still christian, what are you FUCKING talking about

[rjalker]

on reddit Cilivros commented 2y ago

(Paragraph breaks added by me for accessability)

As an enby amab, I don't like any of these terms. I grew up with them being applied to only me, not my sister. Bro, dude, guy, pal, bud, buddy—these were all terms used exclusively for boys and men. I also don't like "guys," as "guy" was used a lot, and I think we should start moving away from using this word so freely, too. It hits different when you grow up being called these things, even if they are used in a different context as adults or with specific people, and I just wanted to chime in and say I don't like being referred to as any of them. I just got "what's up buddy" today, and I know they were perceiving me as a man. Context is everything, and we should be focusing on the words we have available to us that are gender-inclusive as a society imo rather than trying to rationalize one of these words over another. We are all different, and the history of these words carries gravity. I have a lot of femme friends who often don't get the positive affirmation that comes from being called "girl" or "lady" because instead someone chooses to say something like "hey buddy." Which often comes with other questions like "so what are you?" And then, taking into consideration those of us enby folks who would ask for neither end of the spectrum—inclusivity is the future.

[stopmyhearts]

there's this acronym in German that's called FLINTA, standing for women, lesbians, intersex, nonbinary, trans and agender, and like. I do get why they use that. But if you say this is a FLINTA-only event that is literally the easiest way ever to make sure I never ever go there. Because most of the time that's used? It just means 'this thing is for people we consider women but we can't say that because we're progressive'

[slechterick]

shout-out to non-binary peeps for popularizing the singular they. i had no idea it was an option until several years ago and it's so much better than the awkward he/she.

[doctorquixote]

PA announcements, wedding MCs and corporate event hosts still struggling with gender neutral greetings in 2024 like Fair To Midland didn't release Arrows & Anchors over a decade ago

[green-enby]

hello!

i was wondering how do you pronounce and flex the pronouns "ləi/lɜ/lə/-ə" in your bio?

Hi! Thanks for asking, it's probably a good time to leave this out there… These are my pronouns in Italian, so idk how familiar you are with them and if my explanation will make sense but here we go:

L simply makes the sound L, ə is taken straight from IPA (international phonetic alphabet) and is also called schwa if you wanna look it up, it sounds like the first letter in English "about", "again", "across" ect. (Tip: just open your mouth slightly without making any shape with it, keeping it relaxed, and then release air), and i is just an i and it slides from the previous letter, so its IPA transcription would be ['ləj]. You can listen to it on this website by inserting the text in brackets between the slashes: x

All the other forms share their spelling with their IPA transcription to a T. The sound ɜ in lɜ is called long schwa, it's the vowel from the English word "bird" (pronounced with a British accent, its IPA transcription is ['bɜːd]). Its technical name is "open-mid central unrounded vowel", so it's similar to a schwa but your mouth should be slightly more open.

As for inflection:

Ləi is the "subject"—or, more accurately, nominative pronoun, also used with the accusative case ("object"), and, if you put a preposition before it, with any other case, e.g. "di ləi" for genitive ("of them", "their"), "a ləi" for dative ("to them"), and "con ləi" for instrumental ("with them"), if you want to stress the pronoun (it's called a "stressed form").

Lɜ is the unstressed dative form ("I gave them a book [I gave a book to them]": "Lɜ ho dato un libro"), and lə is the unstressed accusative form ("I'll call them": "Lə chiamerò"). They're clitics, so they can also attach to the end of a verb ("Give them a book": "Dallɜ un libro", "Call them": "Chiamalə").

For those who know Italian, basically lɜ is the gender-neutral equivalent of masculine "gli" and feminine "le", while lə is the equivalent of masc "lo" and fem "la".

Italian possessives and reflexives don't work like in English so there's no need to list them.

As for the -ə at the end, that's the "gendered ending", just like in Spanish and Portuguese it replaces feminine ending -a and masculine ending -o, so for example tío/tía in Spanish, tio/tia in Portuguese, zio/zia in Italian—which would become "ziə" in my case. It's again pronounced like the first letter of "again", "about" etc etc.

This also replaces the last letter in all gendered words, by attaching to the root of the word, even when they don't follow this simple -o/-a structure, so pairs like "autore (masc)/autrice (fem)" (author) become "autorə", or "professore/professoressa" (professor) become "professorə".

One thing that we don't usually list is the ending for plural words: instead of -i for plural masculine and -e for plural feminine, it's supposed to be -ɜ, so zii/zie (tíos/tías, tios/tias) becomes ziɜ.

For those who can read Italian and want to know more, check out the website italianoinclusivo.it!

[sarcasticsweetlara]

How to write in Spanish using neutral language

As a native Spanish speaker, I want to tell you how to use an inclusive language without assuming how a person identifies.

As a gendered language, Spanish has had the use of masculine (Él/el/lo/o) and feminine (Ella/la/a) nouns, just like the use of neutral terms (words like: * persona/médico/profesional/cliente/pareja, etc), and the neo nouns (elle/ele), and this is where it can get confusing.

Elle and ele are used usually for people who identify as non-binary or are gender fluid, and there is nothing wrong with using neo nouns but the term is a label that does not exactly fit everyone and without specifications it can be a little bit exclusive as you don't know if your reader is on the fence regarding how they identify or if they already identify as a man or a woman.

So here is how you have to write:

- Use neutral terms, like the ones mentioned above 🔝*

Other examples: ° "Sonriendo, aceptaste el regalo de la persona enfrente tuyo" - Translation: "Smiling, you accepted the gift from the person in front of you".

° "El anfitrión va a anunciar a la persona que ganó" - Translation: The host is going to announce the winner. ~ Tip: Saying "la persona (que)" alongside a verb/adverb/adjective gives the object or subject whom we are referring into a gender neutral meaning.

- Use neutral possessives:

° "Su risa era contagiosa" - Translation: Their laugh was contagious. ~ Tip: When "su" is written it's like a neutral possessive, like saying "their".

° "El cabello de (character) se mecía en el viento" - Translation: (character)'s hair was flowing in the air.

I hope this will help you.

[cryptosexologist]

this post has taken so long i suspect it’ll feel entirely disconnected from the LRB which inspired it, good grief. anyways living up to my url again - the orientation ocd inspired essays have been getting way less hard on my anxiety to produce i think i’m getting better at my commitment to reasonableness and attempting to not reproduce structures of systemic oppression to enforce an artificial conservatism of things which i feel so protective of BECAUSE of those same structures of systemic oppression lmao. still not bothering to do a second draft or grammarify things properly though xmx

the desire to bring up how a decent chunk of “radical genderfuckery” in the queer space is at a philosophical level based more on countering the counterculture (due to internet-enabled perceivable narrative saturation & homogeneity of ‘regular’ queer identity) (which, like, the saturation is bc yer at the soup store, but the homogeneity IS actual a reasonable fucking problem to find in it dont get me wrong) and therefore is extremely predictable in how it fails to properly address the more basal systems of transmisogyny and homophobia and other such things - to the point of outright hindering some causes from a purely rhetorical POV (coughs in the general direction of feminist criticism of the foundations of manhood versus ‘oh but i’m undeniably part of the outgroup-to-men-as-engineered-by-Manhood while still being a man!’ individual arguments which like. true, but just specifying ‘CIS men!’ or ‘TME’ in cases of discussing the systemic privileges of patriarchy will fail to properly deconstruct the basii if manhood itself if we accept that men can be things other than cis ya know like -. god sorry fuck this is getting away from me. yes i’m mostly still just failing to internally digest bigender lesbian stuff with my own worldviews’ enzymes thats what this is turning into. to be clear i aint trying to invalidate anything besides my own analytical (or pragmatic capacity to just stop being analytical) skill, if i rip myself away from the rhetorical zeal buzzer i can mostly get it lmao. also yes even away from the buzzer i will still insist that peoples identities are informed by their philosophical mindset towards the community in a way that informs their politics and vice versa i don’t really think that should be controversial. (mine included!!!my internal definition of ‘lesbian’ is a goddamn rube goldberg machine of allowances for shit like my tacit acceptance that our species is a coincidental hivemind or that gender is an unavoidable illusion cast on how humans process data and that any personal sense or identity is held ransom by the extremely specific societal microconditions under which its person is subject to) like if we’re willing to accept that concepts like “genital preference” or any of the particular ways people try to identify themselves as the Truer/Purer/Realer incarnation of their label has a (in these cases more uncomplicatedly negative) causal relationship with the systems of bigotry and catergorization they are born under then i see no reason to hold identity itself as uniquely stagnant from causation like that. (VITALLY IMPORTANT: CRITIQUE OF THESE SORTS OF HEAVILY PERSONAL INTERPRETATIONS OF SELF RELATIVE TO SYSTEM MUST ONLY BE DONE IN RELATION TO AND IN CONTEXT OF BROADER CULTURAL PATTERNS, IF YOU WALK UP TO SOMEONE AND GO “well i think your identity is based on a bourgeoise alienation from the conditions under which sexuality arises! just identify as bi!!!” THATS WHATS GENERALLY REFERRED TO AS “BEING A DICK” AND DOES NOTHING TO JUSTIFY YOUR ANALYSIS OF BROADER IDENTOLOGICAL TRENDS AND HOW THEY MAY BE INFORMED BY QUEER HISTORY AND THE WAY IN WHICH THEY COULD INFORM THE QUEER FUTURE (INCLUDING QUALITATIVE JUDGEMENTS THEREOF)

ok i swear tangent over

VERSUS the understanding that what i refer to with such a description of “radical genderfuckery in the queer community” is merely a subset of lgbt+ people (getting tired if repeating the q word sorry i’m using them interchangeably with no intent to color your presumptions of like, the subset being inherently different than a more “traditionally named” set or anything lmao) being quirky and experimental in a way only differentiable from longstanding cultural dynamics by the way its behavior is informed by extremely online bullshit, with relatively little differentiating the end results except for bad takes on internet discourse and having the most annoying headcanons imaginable. like for instance the actual difference between, like, a lesboy? and like one-seventh of butches out there in general from an internal experience of gender standpoint is PROBABLY (my estimate i’m not a mind reader) way fucking less than the terminology makes it seem. which does invite argument as to whether such precise-of-detail yet imprecise-of-relational-dynamic-to-related-concepts-(orientation-systemic-privilege-etc) is warranted or necessary or if not necessary than a net good in any case, but should not, MUST not foster contempt nor scorn towards other fucking people who just fucking use that language because it works for them or they believe in it. except maybe if its some phenomenally misinformed clown nose bullcrap but lets face it all of us are terrible at identifying whats actually a farce produced out of malign ignorance and whats just some fucking kid playing around with language

also, and this goes for pretty much any fucking faction, arguments towards tradition or precedent for ANYTHING are easily exploited, functionally incomplete, and can only at best proove a phenomenon is not recent. like yes in years past we all used more lumpy labels without the same sense of internal division, or YES in years past we moved past using such lumpy labels and found more precise means of identification. those both are literally true, non contradictory, and yet despite each half swaying in opposite directions as to the goodness of this change of language each says jack shit to emphasize WHY that change may have been good or bad, besides that this was going on a while ago