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Gender Neutrality

Gender neutrality in gendered languages: why it's important.

Many languages used in Latin America are inherently gendered; nouns have genders, adjectives have genders, names coincide with specific genders.... However, gender is a social construct, which means that different societies sometimes construct gender differently, and not every person always fits comfortably into a binary construction of it (i.e. not everyone comfortably identifies as EITHER a man OR a woman). In the American queer community, gender is usually seen as more of a spectrum, and one's gender identity can exist outside the bounds of a normative gender binary.

Queerness in the States is about inclusivity, but inclusivity can face challenges in different contexts. When the language you speak at home is inherently gendered (as is the case for many Latinxs), queer ideas of gender can be tricky to express and non-binary people are often silenced or robbed of agency. In recent years, queer Latinxs have begun to find some ways to get around this seemingly-inescapable difficulty.

 

Spanish

According to Sabemos Digital in 2015:

El mundo está dividido en dos géneros y ahora se pide un tercero, el neutro. #ElleEnLaRAE es una petición que ha sido Trending Topic durante casi 10 horas y eso no es nada habitual para una discusión lingüística.

[The world is divided into two genders and now we are asking for a third, the neutral one. #ElleEnLaRAE is a petition that has been on Trending Top for almost 10 hours and this is very unusual for a discussion about linguistics.]

 

#ElleEnLaRae is a hashtag that gained momentum in 2015. As the source above notes, it is a petition to get the Spanish gender-neutral pronoun "elle" recognized as a legitimate word in the Real Academia Español (essentially, the Webster's Dictionary for Spanish).

Read more about the gender-neutral pronoun "elle" here.

 

Some alternative ways to refer to gendered words:

 

This piece from a Dartmouth student:

 

 

 

 

 

[Words are included in the dictionary because they are used, they aren't used because they are included there, use them and be done.]

 

Other, non-hispanic Latin American languages also face gender challenges:

 

Check out this Brazilian-American's blog about their own gender fluidity here!

 

Gender Neutral Pronouns

(Source)

 

According to this site, French has also begun to adopt some gender-neutral pronouns, including:

  • iel
  • ul and ol
  • ael
  • im and em
  • ille and el

 

Not all Latinx communities have embraced gender-neutral pronouns, and not all of them can. Until a unanimous solution is found, queer Latinx people will continue to make space for themselves in their communities. The best way to be an ally is to listen to their needs and desires, and don't be afraid to ask questions! It is usually always better to ask what pronouns people prefer (even if they are very masculine- or very feminine-passing, you can never be too sure!) and how they identify than making blatant assumptions on your own.