PSA: X marks gender-neutral

[Independent voter]

My 2nd grade teach used to have us do exercises where we would write essays with gender neutral language. I didn't like it. I remember getting into an argument with her about the use of "he" when you didn't know who your audience will be.

Looks like she finally won in the end.







http://kottke.org/16/06/x-marks-gender-neutral

"Mx." (pronounced "mix" or "mux") is a gender-neutral honorific. It's used by
people who don't want to be identified by gender, whether their gender
identity isn't well-represented by the older forms, or they just don't want to
offer that information or assume it when addressing someone else. "Mx." was
added to Merriam Webster's unabridged dictionary in April, has begun to be
used on official forms in the UK (the Royal Bank of Scotland has been an early
adopter), and appeared in two recent stories in the New York Times, once as a
preferred honorific for a Barnard College student who doesn't identify as male
or female, and once in a story about "Mx." itself.

Linguistic experts say it is harder to change usage habits of words
uttered frequently in speech, such as "she" and "he." But a realignment in
honorifics may be more quickly achieved because courtesy titles are less
often spoken than written, like in the completion and mailing of
government, health care and financial documents, as well as in newspapers
and other media publications.

This second story, quoting Oxford University Press's Katherine C. Martin, also
notes that some of the earliest uses of "Mx." were in the 1980s, "when some
people engaged in nascent forms of digital communication and did not know one
another's gender."

Likewise, "Latinx" aims to be more comprehensive and more inclusive than the
older terms Latino and Latina. "The 'x' makes Latino, a masculine identifier,
gender-neutral," writes Raquel Reichard. "It also moves beyond Latin@ - which
has been used in the past to include both masculine and feminine identities -
to encompass genders outside of that limiting man-woman binary."

This lights up my amateur linguist brain in all sorts of ways, but here's one
of them: the telescoping (maybe kaleidoscoping?) between usage, in all its
messiness, and forms, in their desire for clear standards and finite options.

You can break that down further into usage within a community or group versus
usage outside that community, and the formal protocols a publication like a
newspaper or dictionary might follow versus paperwork or a database run by a
business or government office. They all interplay with each other, and
linguistic change happens or doesn't happen through all of them.

And I guess the last thought is about how digital culture, by expanding and
transforming the kinds of communities, identities, forms, and publications
that are possible, can accelerate those changes or hold them back.

This tweet by NBC News is a good example: the tweet uses "Latinx" (and
"Hispanic") -- the linked story, like the name of the news vertical and
twitter account, overwhelmingly uses "Latino," in both the body and the
headline.

Latinx community hit hard in Orlando shootings, most victims were Hispanic
https://t.co/hHIuwM6NfM pic.twitter.com/s7TyuImyMc

— NBC Latino (@NBCLatino) June 13, 2016

Or take Planned Parenthood. Many of the health provider's affiliates have
updated their intake forms and other paperwork and communication. The new
language is more gender-neutral, gender-inclusive, and more specific,
eparating anatomy, sexual activity, and gender identity. The national office
is working on a new style guide to help other affiliates make their own
changes.

Language about certain kinds of birth control has changed as well. "Male
condoms" and "female condoms" are now referred to as internal and external
condoms at Planned Parenthood of New York City.

"The language we're using today reflects the fact that gender is a
spectrum and not a simple system, a binary system of male and female,"
says [PPNYC's Lauren] Porsch. "We really talk about having sexual and
reproductive health services: women who have penises, men who have
vaginas, and there are people with all different types of anatomy that may
not identify with a binary gender at all," she says. "The Tumblr audience is
smart. They understand feminism. They understand
that sex ed isn't one-size-fits-all--even though that's what they were
taught in school," says Perugini. "And they know that words matter. They
didn't see themselves reflected in the language we were using on our
social media pages or our website, and they let us know."

This is happening. It's happening in progressive, diverse, digital communities
first. And for all their fractiousness, and the inherent difficulty in dealing
with areas as complex and personal as identity, gender, and sexuality, it does
feel like some standards are emerging. These are words worth watching. If you
work with digital technology and people (and yeah, that's almost everyone), I
hope you're paying attention.

Again, while the changes eventually get reflected in Planned Parenthood's
intake forms and other official language, it was implemented early in digital
and social media -- specifically, in response to users on Tumblr.

[Crissi]

Gender threads aren't allowed

Closing