The Linguistic Push for Gender Inclusion

-- By AndyZheng - 23 Feb 2024

Problem

Lia Thomas decided to quit swimming because of the pressure she faced from the public. A significant part of her decision is in response to public sentiment that she should not participate in female athletics. To express this sentiment, countless hateful messages ridicule her gender, using he/him/his pronouns to describe her and justify her win in a NCAA competition as a result of her trans status. The question at the core of the backlash against her is whether society rejects trans women as a category or tarns women competing in women’s sports. However, this is not the question I wish to address. I am interested in how linguistic and social changes interact if we envision a world where people like Lia Thomas would feel safe participating in professional sports that most identify with their gender identity.

Solution?

Currently, there has begun a social movement to revive the emphasis on the use of pronouns. Corporations and institutions want to race to be in the forefront of diversity efforts. To that end, they have encouraged individuals to include their preferred pronouns at the end of their email signature. Diversity training also encourages people to consciously mention their pronouns when introducing themselves. All of these efforts aim to encourage inclusion by normalizing the use of pronouns and allow transgender or gender non-binary individuals to announce their preferred pronouns without feeling singled out.

The Real Problem

While the intention of these efforts are benign, there are fundamental faults with the underlying theory of social change. The proposition would be that by instituting these linguistic changes, social change could be possible. The language we use shapes the way we conceptualize the world. Many ancient civilizations lack the word for blue. Not only does this influence the way they describe the world, but they also physically see the world with less blue. Studies conducted demonstrate individuals who speak one of these languages have a harder time distinguishing green from blue than other people. Thus, the very difference in the languages people chose to identify colors shape the way they see the world.

However, this proposition lacks a causal element. It is difficult to conceive that by adding words for blue in these civilizations, that their world would become more blue. While there could be a relationship between social change and linguistic change, the causal impact of linguistic change on social change seems improbable.

Instead, the more likely proposition is that linguistic changes are merely a reflection of social changes. One example is in the decreased usage of the N-word by people who are not Black. The shift in this linguistic change follows a complex history with Black folks that will not be explored here. However, whatever the nature of that social change is merely reflected, and not propelled by the change in the N-word being less utilized. The meaning of the N-word going from a derogatory slur when used by white folks turned into an empowering word used by Black folks in the social movement to reclaim language.

The Impact of Diversity and Inclusion Efforts

Ultimately, if languages adapt to become more inclusive of individuals’ gender identities, the linguistic change merely reflects, rather than caused, the underlying social change of recognizing the humanity and fluidity of gender identity. If I live to see a world where people’s gender identity is merely an afterthought or something not at all relevant to daily conversations, that will not be the result of normalizing efforts like the email signatures and the gender labels on name cards. Instead, it would reflect a broader social movement that has either diminished the importance or moved on from the proper usage of pronouns.

The specific efforts of institutions to push the importance of pronouns will not inherently change social attitudes about gender. When cis-gendered people are asked to include their pronouns at the end of their email, the innate response is that it is simply part of the corporate effort to create an illusion of diversity and inclusion. Some people may even label this effort as “woke” and an effort to tailor to the morality of the elites.

Without creating an underlying social movement that prompts social change, perfunctory acts of virtue signaling cannot serve as the foundation for social change. Instead, linguistic change alone at most serves as the preface of social change by raising social awareness of the issue. While that is the best-case scenario, the worst-case scenario could be regression in the change I want to see, which is the elimination of harmful stigma against individuals who may not fit into society’s neatly created binary of gender identity. Society experiencing these changes in institutional practice could perceive these efforts as insincere and performative. The increased social awareness of the issue could result in a re-affirmation of the currently dominant view that gender must conform to.

Moving Forward

Instead of the virtue signaling, institutions that truly care about respect for gender expression must affect social change. As a result, linguistic change will naturally be widely adopted as a reflection of social change. Although less gratifying and immediate, the work of cultivating an inclusive community involves efforts to change a society’s perception about the fluidity of gender expression and gender identity. While efforts to change linguistic uses of pronouns can be part of the remedy, it cannot serve as any serious solution by itself to recognizing the humanity of transgender and gender non-binary individuals.

The progress towards inclusion of people who do not fit the current categorical binary of man and woman is nonlinear and glacial. However, the current efforts to achieve inclusion through institutional virtue signaling is not only ineffective, but potentially regressive. The root of this is in the infeasibility of linguistic change to affect any meaningful social change. Instead, addressing problems of inclusion must begin and end with social change.

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