Be an ally and reevaluate what language you use! Is it inclusive? What can you just get rid of? It’s not that big a deal to switch your vocabulary up. It may not happen over night, but you’ll get it!
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11 Comments
this is something I have always been torn about, I’m a trans woman and gendered speech that is correct for me has always been super affirming but I understand that that kind of language can have the opposite effect for nb peeps. idk if there is room for gendered language for people who really like it or if the is downside too much
I am a teacher teaching students age 12-18 in a mixed environment. The tradition is for students to call teachers “Miss” or “Sir” and often as an echo of that, in an attempt to be a good role model, I call my students “Miss” or “Sir”, but often I will say “how can I help, young man?” or “Hello pretty lady, do you need to borrow a pencil?” or other silly things like that, which most students enjoy and laugh at (which is my goal). I am happy to change my words to nongenderspecific, but not sure how. What is an honourific an Australian kid will accept which is nongenderspecific? What is an honourific students would not get into trouble for calling their teacher, which doesn’t gender the teacher? How can we use posh or British-English language which isn’t gendered?
You see, even outside school, “Y’all” would be considered weird (only ever seen that on TV or in movies, and generally being said by very dumb people or yokels or at least yanks, really very sorry, but it’s not an Australian word or idiom) and “folks” is considered impolite (similar to “peeps”, “homies”, or “Suckers” eg “so long suckers” or even “H’yukk… hey foollks” of goofy cartoons). I already say things like “That student has done the right thing, why don’t you sit next to them” and “G’day mate, do you need to borrow a pen?” and similar lines, but to come up with silly cheerful complements, polite manners, or ridiculous posh language I am suddenly gendering my students or my fellow teachers.
Any constructive advice would be grand. Thanks.
You could always just not have any gendered terms in the sentence at all. So things like “Hello, do you need to borrow a pencil?” and “how can I help?” instead of even including things like “young man” and “pretty lady” at all.
I’m going by America/Canada speak here, but there was a long time in Canada where no one would say y’all at all. That was a ‘down south’ kinda thing for people in the states. But people have really warmed up to it, so maybe you can try “y’all” anyway and see if it sticks. But if you don’t want to use ‘folks’ you can replace that with anything you’re comfortable with. I’ve heard a lot of people use ‘friends’ instead.
You can also just use peoples’ names instead.
As for ‘polite manners’ and ‘ridiculous posh language’ I get that it’s fun to do, but if you say it to the wrong person it could really hurt their feelings. You might have to try new words that just don’t have gender attached to it. You could always go over the top with words like: your highness, my lord, etc? Try out some new words and see how they fit!
Thankyou for answering. I do understand it’s not your job to police the language of a teacher on the other side of the world 🙂
Funnily enough, have been experimenting with Your Highness and M’Lady and similar. Your Highness doesn’t work as well as hoped, but better than some. Formal honourifics and formal pronouns are definitely the way to go. I am honestly trying to come up with formal polite nongendered pronouns, but I’m not kidding about the word “folks”, used it several times, it did not go down well. Definitely considered an insult by the class.
Some of my students do use they/them pronouns, or different pronouns to those assigned at birth. There’s no rule against it here, and government schoolteachers aren’t questioning the students who announce their upgrades, thank goodness. But as you have said, I’m trying to not hurt the feelings of students who might NOT be Out, for any reason.
Y’all really is a non-word here. It’s like recommending I use the word “keskus” for middle. Yes, it’s a word used by the Finnish in their country. No, it doesn’t mean anything here. Other perhaps than you’ve watched too much TV.
Young/pretty person? Mx (mix) instead of Miss or Mr? Everyone, or This Fine Group as a collective plural? (minnasan, but that’s Japanese) I’ve seen a comic where what was used was Mirsam, for an nb alternative to Sir or Ma’am. But some kids do want to be gendered, so… maybe ask them what they prefer but give options beyond binary?
It might be a bit informal, but would “kiddo” be a good one to go with? Or maybe animals, like Mouse or Lion or Cat (cool cats for the win!)?
You could even try something like the Japanese system of “chan,” “kun”, or some of the other suffixes. Some people do assume gender from them, but they are meant to be gender-neutral and more refer to the attitude (kun is more “cute” while “chan” is more rough-and-tumble)
Oh, this is super useful! Thanks!
Is it all right to use ‘guys if that’s how you refer to any group of people, no matter the gender?
It’s still good to be mindful of peoples’ preferences, as say a transwoman might not appreciate ‘guys’. I personally don’t consider ‘guys’ or ‘dude’ to be gender neutral. Better to be safe than sorry!
Honestly, I’ve been corrected for using guys/dude for women but, personally I use it to address people regardless of gender. My friends have never corrected me.
It is still good to be mindful of new people you meet when using gendered language, even if ‘dude’ and ‘guys’ might not feel gendered to you, it might to someone else or to someone in another country.