Gender-Neutral Policy

Multiple articles addressed the topic of gender-neutral policy. After analyzing city contracts, the city council in Asheville, North Carolina decided to transition away from their race and gender-neutral policy due to the lack of engagement with Black owned businesses. The city’s Business Inclusion Manager stated, “Until now, the business inclusion policy has been race and gender neutral. The result of the disparity study showed that the race neutral program model has not successfully addressed disparity. Therefore, we are recommending our policy to move from embracing gender neutral to race and gender conscious.”

The Office of the Legislative Counsel in California must write all measures in a gender-neutral format, such as using gender-neutral pronouns or avoiding pronouns altogether. Voters in Westlake, Ohio and Woonsocket, Rhode Island have changed their city’s charter from using gender-specific language to gender-neutral language. In other news, the Education Ministry in Thailand has changed to gender-neutral policies regarding student’s hairstyles after protests from the “Bad Students” campaign.