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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.
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< | Solution? |
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> | Struggle between Linguistic Change and Social Change |
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< | 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. |
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> | Adopting a feminist view of history, language has conventionally been used to reinforce power imbalances and oppress marginalized communities. Language gains its meaning from existing social dynamics that have perpetuated throughout history. This is often rooted in inequality. For example, there is empirical sociological evidence about how women tend to use less powerful language than men because of power imbalance between men and women. They tend to use more qualifiers that demean their statements like “I am not sure but” or “I may be wrong but.” This is understandable because the continuity of language throughout history naturally informs the way we are socialized to use and understand language today. As summarized by Sally McConnell? -Ginet in her work, Words Matter, language both reflects existing social dynamics throughout history and has a tendency to construct and perpetuate history. |
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< | The Real Problem |
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> | However, gender as a construct has been understood differently throughout history. Recently, our understanding of gender and language also evolved to emphasize its performative aspects. Feminist theorist Judith Butler roots gender expression as a social performance rather than a biological inevitability. As Simone de Beauvoir describes gender, “One is not born, but becomes, a woman.” This subverts the idea that gender is a stable identity around which we act. Instead, gender expression is more akin to theater, influenced by the way we internalize “instructions” given to us through observation or instruction. We are both told and shown behaviors associated with a man to solidify our understanding of gender. However, this socialization is not always consistent with an individual’s preferred gender expression. The feminist movement to distinguish sex from gender is critical in explaining the greater presence of gender expression beyond that which is consistent with a person’s sex. |
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< | 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. |
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> | The flexibility and performative nature of gender expression creates an opportunity for language to influence social change around the understanding of gender. The issue at hand is identifying the role that language plays in broadening our understanding of sex and gender and engendering a greater social acceptance of various forms of gender expression. One way forward is reflected in Eddie Ellis’s Open Letter. It urged prison reform advocates to move away from dehumanizing language like “prisoners” to more human language like “people in prison.” This is rooted in an understanding of the power of language in influencing social understandings of people in that community. |
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< | 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. |
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> | Pronouns are not just linguistic markers but also carry social and symbolic significance. In advocating for transgender and gender nonbinary individuals, two options seem plausible: Advocating for the respect for the wide range of pronouns that people prefer, or erasing the use of pronouns altogether. Current trans-rights activists have opted for the first option, raising awareness of pronoun usage and normalizing its ubiquity to highlight its important symbolic meaning. Efforts for institutions to suggest employees to include their pronouns at the end of their signature or integrating pronouns as part of introductions (“Please tell us your name, pronouns, [other relevant info].”). This certainly is informed by ways of thinking like Eddie Ellis’s Open Letter encouraging the use of the more personalizing and validating terminologies. |
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< | 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. |
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> | However, a key distinction that may make this method potentially ineffective is that this effort may hinder the historical trend of the English language to lose its inflections. While I do not postulate over the future development of the English language, scholars have observed this trend of languages losing certain types of inflections. By emphasizing and introducing new pronouns like “fae/faer/faers” and “zie/zim/zir” attempts to change the English language in a potentially unhelpful way. The theory behind this movement is that language should be shaped to include identities that accurately capture the expansive range of gender expression. However, it is in opposition towards the trend of losing inflections. |
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< | The Impact of Diversity and Inclusion Efforts |
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> | A potentially more helpful alternative to the current movement is to normalize the use of “they/them/theirs” pronouns for people of all gender identity. This would reduce the need for society to consider gender expression, which could reflect its arbitrariness as a result of social indoctrination. More importantly, this would likely be a more acceptable way of changing social understandings of pronouns. The framework of they/them/theirs pronouns as a placeholder for when someone’s gender expression is unclear is already accepted. The movement towards the normalization of a gender neutral pronoun would be to expand this understanding of gender ambiguity to include all cases of gender expression. This reductionist view of pronouns could be a more productive source of social change because of its consistency with the historical shift in English losing its inflection over time. It is also consistent with the current feminist understanding of gender that highlights its arbitrariness and distinction from sex. By advocating for change within the framework of existing English language usage, the movement to protect gender non-binary folks could potentially be more productively achieved through erasing the distinction in pronouns altogether through replacing all uses of pronouns with a gender neutral alternative of “they/them/theirs.” |
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< | 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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> | While the power of history and social dynamics to influence language is undeniable, language also has the potential to affect social change. By taking advantage of the historical patterns of change in language, advocacy around a shift in language could achieve the social acceptance of the arbitrariness of gender. |
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