Gender-Neutral Language

Gender-neutral language is an international topic. One article this week addressed the issue of gender neutrality within the German language. While the default for all people in German is the masculine, some Germans are advocating for more gender-neutral options for women and nonbinary individuals. Another article discusses efforts to make French more gender neutral—or actually, more gender inclusive by including feminine in addition to masculine forms of nouns—and the resistance such efforts elicit. An article discussed the issue of Google Translate reinforcing gender roles for gender-neutral languages such as the Filipino language and Finnish.

The University of Manchester received harsh criticism from free speech advocates after encouraging staff to use gender-neutral language. Meanwhile, a law student in Minnesota is heading the “HE2WE” campaign in order to change the state’s constitution from gendered to gender-neutral language. The leader of this movement stated, “In an equitable society, this would not be here. So, someone has to remove it and change it.” The government in British Columbia has replaced over 600 instances of gendered language with gender-neutral terms in their laws and regulations.