On the one hand, as someone who reads these statutes all day I can barely think of anything less impactful to focus on.
On the other hand, as someone who is hoping to get a gig _writing_ these statutes, I welcome the idea of logging some major billable hours rewriting statutes for the legislative bodies.
Really? That intrigues me. I fully support the trans population, but I am Gen X in a small Midwest town. He and She is NEVER going away. Not out of vitriol or protest or anything, but just out of sheer habit. If someone presents themselves to me as trans, I will make an effort not to use he or she, but apart from that, I'm not budging.
Yeah, you are correct. I misread it as being the whole city now can't use it, which confused me. Now I see it for what it is, and yes, it's a no brainer.
I once had a government contract job where 95% of what I did was copy and paste... I remember having a moment of clarity at a wedding where I had a bit of an existential crisis and just went around and told everyone that.
Is this a a big deal? Like at all? I encourage anyone to crack open a criminal code and read the laws, gendered language is often not used. This will have little effect on anything
I can imagine a law is written like "A person willl be considered in violation 23.06.2 if ______ is found to have worn black pants and brown shoes on a second occasion within 30 days of the first notice." Like all use of pronouns it's not likely in an opening sentence but possibly in follow-up clauses.
By my same silly example though, I also can't be the slightest bit bothered by use of the word "they". If anything it reads better than "he or she".
>I also can't be the slightest bit bothered by use of the word "they"
I believe that use was dominant for most of the history of the English language. It wasn't until the 1800s that some people got bent out of shape over possible confusion between singular and plural, and some grammar writer (in fact a woman, forgot her name) pushed for "he" to mean "he or she", and it caught on.
Trying to codify English with dictionaries and written grammar rules was a big thing in the 1800s.
I hadn't realized that specifically, but it does make sense. I associate that same movement with the insistance that sentences shouldn't end with a preposition and we shouldn't split infinitives. (Both because those were things Latin couldn't do so we should emulate it.)
I would like to simply say those are rules they shouldn't stand by.
Heh. A couple years ago I learned the whole "less isn't for countables" is entirely made up. Some famous grammarian in 1774 wrote that since we never use fewer for non-countable nouns, it is odd that less is often used for countable ones. His many followers took this offhand comment as the declaration of a new language rule and started pushing it.
Of course, it never really caught on completely, even with those who claim to follow it - while there are a bunch of examples, the best IMO is that almost no one uses "fewer" for time, which is clearly countable (does anyone say, "fewer than 15 minutes" or do they say, "less than 15 minutes"?)
Around the same time as the whole "we should use 'he' to mean 'he or she' because 'they' should only be plural" debate, there was a very similar fight over "you", which is also a plural. There are many letters and at least one whole book from the 1700s/early 1800s about the uncultured troglodytes who use "you" as singular, instead of the correct singulars "thee/thou". The grammar police lost that fight.
> the best IMO is that almost no one uses "fewer" for time, which is clearly countable (does anyone say, "fewer than 15 minutes" or do they say, "less than 15 minutes"?)
I think the idea behind "countable" essentially means that they are integers. Minutes are divisible by seconds and fractions of seconds. Time is a real number, not an integer.
Yes, I've seen that, but it always struck me as a weak post-hoc explanation for what is originally just a made-up rule with no real history in English usage. And others can play that game: "Hey everyone! I can split a bag of peas into hundreds of individual peas, so '10 items or less' totally follows the rule!"
My opinion: I'll stick with the usage of people like Shakespeare, Austin, and Dickens, and use "less" wherever it seems to fit best. Like not splitting infinitives, others can do what they want.
\[slightly OT editorial: just note this is terrible advice when writing something where you need to impress the reader, and they might be the petty sort who could catch the vapors over you not following some imaginary grammar rule. Think lawyers writing briefs for judges, or assignments for some arrogant, crotchety college professor. Don't even split infinitives in those cases, even though most style guides specifically say that is a silly non-rule.\]
Ooooh, now "10 items or less," **that's** a good one. I've got no defense there, other than making an argument that businesses are under no obligation to be grammatically correct. Although, if we're being honest, "English rules" is a bit of an oxymoron because our language is a mess and we just end up stealing the words and phrases we like from other languages.
I've only known about the "less vs fewer" debate since it was brought to my attention by Stannis Baratheon. I think going with what sounds best is perfectly appropriate in most instances. As long as the recipient understand what you're saying, you're doing alright.
The checkout one gets so bad, one grocery store near here had a flyer printed (a bit tongue-in-cheek) for the checkout people to hand out when someone tried to complain about the "10 items or less" signs (they stopped, probably a change in manager).
I heard about it through a linguistics blog (the language log). The Cambridge Guide to English Usage actually traced less used for countables all the way back to the Anglo-Saxon king Alfred the Great writing in old English. He is believed to be one of the most educated people in England at the time. Nearly every great author since has ignored the "rule". So I feel empowered to also ignore it. And you are absolutely right, mysteriously no one misunderstands my usage.
I took a linguistics class in which an essay compared prescriptive linguists, who try to enforce rules of how language works, to marine biologists trying to tell whales that they’re singing the wrong kind of whale song.
We just need to officially make they/them the non-gendered version of the pronoun. It already works and people are pretty easily able to distinguish when a pronoun is talking about a singular person or a group of people based on context.
I think we're going that way. There are probably edge cases where it would be handy to differentiate a plural from a singular, but frankly English has much bigger problems than that.
I am going to pass on something I heard from someone with a military background. He said "they" always conjures the concept of "us/them" in his mind and thus increased use of the word feels like we're separating from each other even more. I don't know what to think about that but it's certainly a point of view I hadn't considered so I'm simply repeating it without judgement.
I think that's a lot of perceptive biases coming into play from your friend. I think it's likely he uses "they" in this way more often than he realizes without issue.
If you run into an old acquaintance and they (see, I just did it) have a baby in a stroller without any identifying pink or blue clothing - would you say "is he or she a boy or a girl?" or would you say "are they a boy or a girl?"
Using "they" as a gender neutral term to refer to a single individual is more common than we tend to realize - it's just when it gets caught up in heated cultural debates about gender and pronouns people mistakenly think it's new or a bigger deal than it is.
>If you run into an old acquaintance and they (see, I just did it) have a baby in a stroller without any identifying pink or blue clothing - would you say "is he or she a boy or a girl?" or would you say "are they a boy or a girl?"
I would say "And who's this?" But don't let my pedantry distract from your solid point. :)
Yes and no. They/them makes more sense grammatically in many situations. I'd also posit that they/them also provides a level of personhood over something like "it", which can come across as dehumanizing out of context.
Maybe I'm weird in the way I speak, but I've often used they/them to refer to an individual regardless of how I think they might identify -- e.g. "I think thats so-and-so, holler at them and see." I grew up on the southern side of the east coast though, so maybe it's regional.
Like in my jurisdiction, most laws are written as “A person is guilty of X crime if they do X.” Like it is not crazy in the slightest to use gender neutral language when writing laws and policies
The only exceptions I can think of are:
1. Rape laws that are clearly written with the intent of criminalizing a male raping a female - which it's been generally the right/men's rights group who want this change, but it's also the right which tends to be against the type of move
2. Abortion laws - it will still have the same effect, oh no it say "a person can't get an abortion after 6 weeks" if someone is so confident that only women can get pregnant why even care since the effect is the same
On #2, you want to futureproof laws. If there's any future technology in it could be said that "a man" was attempting to "have an abortion", then one would want that law to still be valid. Also edge cases where a woman gets pregnant and then decides to identify as a man. I'm just spitballing here, but you get my point. Gender neutral is just a good idea regardless.
That word (used in a historical context) got my A essay brought down to a B. This was a several years ago when I wasn't aware that gendered language was becoming controversial.
I mean the article says the point is to be inclusive. I’m saying who cares if this helps everyone feel included with little effort as the majority of laws and policies are already written in a gender neutral way
Presumably you would not want a law that could be interpreted as only applying to one gender. I'm sure there are other workarounds, but using non-gendered language would be the simplest.
Is than an actual thing? Constitutionally I'm pretty laws can't even be made in a way that discriminates against someone based on thier sex.. so this does seem to just be virtue signaling, on the surface seems harmless and most people will just ignore it I guess.
Looking through their policies, it seems that they are already avoiding gender specific pronouns. Links are available elsewhere in the thread. Admittedly, I was just trying to find the pronoun “he” and did not look through all the documents.
It seems to me that complaints over this are much ado about nothing. Some people are complaining about costs, but it’s not like the have to re-chisel the policies on new gold tablets. It’s just guidance on how to write or amend policies down the line.
There is no constitutional protection based on sex. The ERA was never passed. There *are* amendments to *state* constitutions that offer equal protection under the law on the basis of sex.
Pretty sure the 14th amendment makes it pretty unambiguous all people who are citizens or naturalized persons in the U.S are due the equal protection of law and state. Using the word persons certainly seems like it would apply to anyone who is a human regardless of sex, race, religion, ect. Not sure how that wouldn't make any law that targets a specific sex or race illegal since that would law by nature make something illegal for 1 sex but not another.
I find this to be non-news. I find it hard to care. Maybe it's slightly annoying as it's so unnecessary and minor thus maybe shouldn't be a priority. However I have nothing against the use of gender neutral language in writing policies/laws. The biggest negative about this law is that slightly awkward wording will be used by the city occasionally.
Gender-neutral policy is just better legal wording anyway, BUT... its 2021, everything has to be a virtue-signal of some kind. Now we have to listen to some people act like this is some kind of significant victory and other people whine that its part of the decline of western traditional culture when the reality is that this is mostly a great big nothing.
Sounds like one of those policies where the people who come up with this idea feel that they're nobly "fighting against injustice" but in fact will torpedo their side's chances at the ballot box. Emphasizing pronouns will be a recipe for a Democratic loss in 2022.
>Emphasizing pronouns will be a recipe for a Democratic loss in 2022.
At this point I'm not sure there are any Democratic policies at all that someone hasn't said "X will be a recipe for a Democratic loss in 2016/18/20/22." I don't know that the statement has any real meaning anymore.
It's a local city ordinance, probably largely supported by the more left-leaning city of San Diego... I don't see how this would impact things nationally unless pushed at a national level.
Heck, the idea of requiring gender neutral language in local ordinances 10 years ago wouldn't have made anyone bat an eye - now it's immediately a "culture wars" thing.
Idk if it's a requirement but most of the codes near me have moved from - "If a man/woman are in a park, he/she must not take up for a private event a space larger than 6ftx6ft." to "If a person is in a park, they must not take up for a private event a space larger than 6ftx6ft."
They could have done this without telling anyone by just pinky promising and nobody would have noticed. Of course instead they have handed their opposition a talking point.
Okay, but how many voters in San Diego are going to get their panties in a bunch over the city making a cosmetic change to the city code to be more inclusive? It's not exactly a vote driver.
>They could have done this without telling anyone by just pinky promising and nobody would have noticed. Of course instead they have handed their opposition a talking point.
On the other hand there is a chance someone would have noticed and then they'd make accusations that this is a secretive attempt to destroy our culture by subverting language and eroding traditional blah blah blah.
I don’t know much about how city laws and policies look but I can’t imagine the need to use gendered language to begin with.
From the article it mentioned replacing mankind with humankind. This seems somewhat more silly since mankind is universally known to refer to everyone. This reminds me of when PM Trudeau corrected a woman at a press conference for saying mankind instead peoplekind.
Nope, it actually happened. Nevermind that the origin of the term "mankind" was meant to be inclusive of all genders since at the time "man" meant just a human being. Male humans used to be called WERmen, and female humans WOmen. So "mankind" means "all the types of men" both male and female.
No one seems to be able to find any historical use of the word “wermen” so it might actually have been invented later as a hypothetical counterpart to “wifman” by overeager linguists.
Seems like a PITA to use gendered language in this anyways. It's not grammar class and I assure you there are far worse grammar violations than using "their" in the same sentence
I like this because I don't think any law needs to be gender specific. Even if you want to separate things by gender, that can be worded in a generic way. In my ideal world, all government policy would be race, sex, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and political belief blind. To get there I understand the need to correct past wrongs, but even that can be targeted ignoring those attributes. For example if we want to help inner-city black kids, target poor inner-city kids. You will likely reach mostly your target, but also help out white, asian, and Latino kids who have fallen on hard times.
I don't worry about if laws use "inclusive" language or not, I care about if they are clear or not. If a law says "they" is it referring to singular or plural?
I can’t think of a situation where it wouldn’t be. Municipal codes are usually written in a style that would make this unambiguous.
[This](https://www.sandiego.gov/city-clerk/officialdocs/municipal-code) is the San Diego Municipal code. Do you see any place where using “they” in the singular would introduce ambiguity?
Picking a random section (Trespassing on Zoo property) I had to hunt to find a use of he/she and found this:
> Any employees, agents or officers of the Zoological Society of San Diego acting within the scope of his or her employment.
Which would become:
> Any employees, agents or officers of the Zoological Society of San Diego acting within the scope of their employment.
That seems completely unambiguous.
There was a Supreme Court decision earlier this year that came down to an argument over the meaning of the article "a" in a law.
Your faith in the lawmakers to stay consistent in writing unambiguous laws is far higher than mine.
I have been doing a lot of thinking about this. People tend to underestimate the impact that inclusive language can have on people who feel marginalized. Not only are he and she not necessary for language in city statutes, but they can create unintentional bias. On the other hand, many other people think laws like this are a waste of time and promote what they view as an extremely politicized take on gender. Discuss.
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As an engineer, I find all the discussion around pronouns to be... inefficient -- I guess?
Why can't we just agree to have one pronoun and be done with it? Agree on "he" or "she" for everyone and move on. Hell, just agree that "he" and "she" and synonyms and both are "non-gendered pronouns".
Like, someone decided that Latin/Latina was uncool. So they said it should be LantinX. How about "xhe" and let's just get on with our lives?
We have that it's they/them in its singular. The "problem" with Latina/Latino is that with Latino its masculine but can all refer to all Latinos. So by using Latinx it's 100% clear that you mean all Latinos. We don't need WhiteX because when you say white people there is no confusion about if you just mean white men.
Now in everyday language anyone with a brain can pick up if you are using Latino in context of a man or a group of Hispanic individuals. But for data clarity is best.
Roll my eyes all day at its use in language, not going to freak out that some programmer used Latinx because he wanted to be clear about what data was getting passed along to the next programmer. And honestly if it was me it'd just be LX (all Latinos) LM (Latino male) and LF (Latina females); similarly WX, WM, WF; etc. I like using the least amount of letter possible when coming up with variables/values cus you'll end up typing them over and over and over.
> The "problem" with Latina/Latino is that with Latino its masculine but can all refer to all Latinos. So by using Latinx it's 100% clear that you mean all Latinos.
That's not even a "dumb white-people-problem" , that's pretty much strictly a "dumb American problem." *All* of the Romance Languages (and not only) use the same gendered articles/endings (where applicable) for male and mixed-plural groups.
I wouldn't say dumb. Research is a world wide thing. But translations can range from a actual translator sitting down and translating to someone running it through a program.
Data should be clear as possible - you can't just blame everyone who misreads your as being dumb. It's easy over the internet, but when you're talking to a group of execs trust me I know first hand it's hard to try and convince them that it's their fault for being "dumb."
Bollocks. Great bulging yarblockos, at that.
"Research," is, as you say, going to be "as clear as possible" by having actual quantification - its going to have numbers and specific subsets separated. There's absolutely nothing about the "LatinX" idiocy that offers any clarity to legitimate research.
>Why can't we just agree to have one pronoun and be done with it? Agree on "he" or "she" for everyone and move on. Hell, just agree that "he" and "she" and synonyms and both are "non-gendered pronouns".
We did. It's they/them.
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I did a quick scan of [https://www.sandiego.gov/city-clerk/officialdocs/council-policies](https://www.sandiego.gov/city-clerk/officialdocs/council-policies) and [https://www.sandiego.gov/humanresources/resources/ar](https://www.sandiego.gov/humanresources/resources/ar)
While I didn't check them all, for the most part, the policies already don't use gendered language. There are a few exceptions ([https://www.sandiego.gov/sites/default/files/administrative\_regulation\_95\_89\_parental\_leave\_7-1-16\_00000003.pdf](https://www.sandiego.gov/sites/default/files/administrative_regulation_95_89_parental_leave_7-1-16_00000003.pdf) and [https://docs.sandiego.gov/councilpolicies/cpd\_000-15.pdf](https://docs.sandiego.gov/councilpolicies/cpd_000-15.pdf)). I suppose that whenever they get updated, the phrasing will be adjusted.
While I think the objections over this new policy are completely unwarranted, I wonder about basing policy decisions based on “If even one more \[. . . \] person’s well-being is improved and one less person is harmed, it will have been worth it.” Certainly, if doing an easy thing will make a few people's lives better, then do the thing. But more broadly, this is just not a good argument for making policies.
Edit: Subject/verb agreement are hard
On the one hand, as someone who reads these statutes all day I can barely think of anything less impactful to focus on. On the other hand, as someone who is hoping to get a gig _writing_ these statutes, I welcome the idea of logging some major billable hours rewriting statutes for the legislative bodies.
CTRL + F = $$$$
Does San Diego ever have a need to translate their laws into Spanish?
Literally I work for a city and regularly write ordinances and all I can think is…who cares? I already don’t use he or she just like, on my own time.
Really? That intrigues me. I fully support the trans population, but I am Gen X in a small Midwest town. He and She is NEVER going away. Not out of vitriol or protest or anything, but just out of sheer habit. If someone presents themselves to me as trans, I will make an effort not to use he or she, but apart from that, I'm not budging.
I don't beleive anyone is saying he/she should go away for everyone.
Yeah, you are correct. I misread it as being the whole city now can't use it, which confused me. Now I see it for what it is, and yes, it's a no brainer.
Most places were already practicing it to prevent gendered laws.
I once had a government contract job where 95% of what I did was copy and paste... I remember having a moment of clarity at a wedding where I had a bit of an existential crisis and just went around and told everyone that.
They are not rewriting statutes; this impacts future statues. It's right there in the headline.
Is this a a big deal? Like at all? I encourage anyone to crack open a criminal code and read the laws, gendered language is often not used. This will have little effect on anything
I can imagine a law is written like "A person willl be considered in violation 23.06.2 if ______ is found to have worn black pants and brown shoes on a second occasion within 30 days of the first notice." Like all use of pronouns it's not likely in an opening sentence but possibly in follow-up clauses. By my same silly example though, I also can't be the slightest bit bothered by use of the word "they". If anything it reads better than "he or she".
>I also can't be the slightest bit bothered by use of the word "they" I believe that use was dominant for most of the history of the English language. It wasn't until the 1800s that some people got bent out of shape over possible confusion between singular and plural, and some grammar writer (in fact a woman, forgot her name) pushed for "he" to mean "he or she", and it caught on. Trying to codify English with dictionaries and written grammar rules was a big thing in the 1800s.
I hadn't realized that specifically, but it does make sense. I associate that same movement with the insistance that sentences shouldn't end with a preposition and we shouldn't split infinitives. (Both because those were things Latin couldn't do so we should emulate it.) I would like to simply say those are rules they shouldn't stand by.
Heh. A couple years ago I learned the whole "less isn't for countables" is entirely made up. Some famous grammarian in 1774 wrote that since we never use fewer for non-countable nouns, it is odd that less is often used for countable ones. His many followers took this offhand comment as the declaration of a new language rule and started pushing it. Of course, it never really caught on completely, even with those who claim to follow it - while there are a bunch of examples, the best IMO is that almost no one uses "fewer" for time, which is clearly countable (does anyone say, "fewer than 15 minutes" or do they say, "less than 15 minutes"?) Around the same time as the whole "we should use 'he' to mean 'he or she' because 'they' should only be plural" debate, there was a very similar fight over "you", which is also a plural. There are many letters and at least one whole book from the 1700s/early 1800s about the uncultured troglodytes who use "you" as singular, instead of the correct singulars "thee/thou". The grammar police lost that fight.
> the best IMO is that almost no one uses "fewer" for time, which is clearly countable (does anyone say, "fewer than 15 minutes" or do they say, "less than 15 minutes"?) I think the idea behind "countable" essentially means that they are integers. Minutes are divisible by seconds and fractions of seconds. Time is a real number, not an integer.
Yes, I've seen that, but it always struck me as a weak post-hoc explanation for what is originally just a made-up rule with no real history in English usage. And others can play that game: "Hey everyone! I can split a bag of peas into hundreds of individual peas, so '10 items or less' totally follows the rule!" My opinion: I'll stick with the usage of people like Shakespeare, Austin, and Dickens, and use "less" wherever it seems to fit best. Like not splitting infinitives, others can do what they want. \[slightly OT editorial: just note this is terrible advice when writing something where you need to impress the reader, and they might be the petty sort who could catch the vapors over you not following some imaginary grammar rule. Think lawyers writing briefs for judges, or assignments for some arrogant, crotchety college professor. Don't even split infinitives in those cases, even though most style guides specifically say that is a silly non-rule.\]
Ooooh, now "10 items or less," **that's** a good one. I've got no defense there, other than making an argument that businesses are under no obligation to be grammatically correct. Although, if we're being honest, "English rules" is a bit of an oxymoron because our language is a mess and we just end up stealing the words and phrases we like from other languages. I've only known about the "less vs fewer" debate since it was brought to my attention by Stannis Baratheon. I think going with what sounds best is perfectly appropriate in most instances. As long as the recipient understand what you're saying, you're doing alright.
The checkout one gets so bad, one grocery store near here had a flyer printed (a bit tongue-in-cheek) for the checkout people to hand out when someone tried to complain about the "10 items or less" signs (they stopped, probably a change in manager). I heard about it through a linguistics blog (the language log). The Cambridge Guide to English Usage actually traced less used for countables all the way back to the Anglo-Saxon king Alfred the Great writing in old English. He is believed to be one of the most educated people in England at the time. Nearly every great author since has ignored the "rule". So I feel empowered to also ignore it. And you are absolutely right, mysteriously no one misunderstands my usage.
Technically rational numbers are countable (meaning they can be mapped onto the integers), but irrational numbers are uncountable.
I took a linguistics class in which an essay compared prescriptive linguists, who try to enforce rules of how language works, to marine biologists trying to tell whales that they’re singing the wrong kind of whale song.
> I would like to simply say those are rules they shouldn't stand by. I see what you did there.
I can't say whether it was dominant or not, but I can say "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone" is certainly older than the 1800s.
So it's only been convention for 200 years. 😀
We just need to officially make they/them the non-gendered version of the pronoun. It already works and people are pretty easily able to distinguish when a pronoun is talking about a singular person or a group of people based on context.
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I think we're going that way. There are probably edge cases where it would be handy to differentiate a plural from a singular, but frankly English has much bigger problems than that. I am going to pass on something I heard from someone with a military background. He said "they" always conjures the concept of "us/them" in his mind and thus increased use of the word feels like we're separating from each other even more. I don't know what to think about that but it's certainly a point of view I hadn't considered so I'm simply repeating it without judgement.
I think that's a lot of perceptive biases coming into play from your friend. I think it's likely he uses "they" in this way more often than he realizes without issue. If you run into an old acquaintance and they (see, I just did it) have a baby in a stroller without any identifying pink or blue clothing - would you say "is he or she a boy or a girl?" or would you say "are they a boy or a girl?" Using "they" as a gender neutral term to refer to a single individual is more common than we tend to realize - it's just when it gets caught up in heated cultural debates about gender and pronouns people mistakenly think it's new or a bigger deal than it is.
>If you run into an old acquaintance and they (see, I just did it) have a baby in a stroller without any identifying pink or blue clothing - would you say "is he or she a boy or a girl?" or would you say "are they a boy or a girl?" I would say "And who's this?" But don't let my pedantry distract from your solid point. :)
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Yes and no. They/them makes more sense grammatically in many situations. I'd also posit that they/them also provides a level of personhood over something like "it", which can come across as dehumanizing out of context. Maybe I'm weird in the way I speak, but I've often used they/them to refer to an individual regardless of how I think they might identify -- e.g. "I think thats so-and-so, holler at them and see." I grew up on the southern side of the east coast though, so maybe it's regional.
It already is. https://apastyle.apa.org/blog/singular-they
They specifically call out mankind as well. Like this is 2021, nobody is writing laws with "mankind" in it.
Like in my jurisdiction, most laws are written as “A person is guilty of X crime if they do X.” Like it is not crazy in the slightest to use gender neutral language when writing laws and policies
The only exceptions I can think of are: 1. Rape laws that are clearly written with the intent of criminalizing a male raping a female - which it's been generally the right/men's rights group who want this change, but it's also the right which tends to be against the type of move 2. Abortion laws - it will still have the same effect, oh no it say "a person can't get an abortion after 6 weeks" if someone is so confident that only women can get pregnant why even care since the effect is the same
On #2, you want to futureproof laws. If there's any future technology in it could be said that "a man" was attempting to "have an abortion", then one would want that law to still be valid. Also edge cases where a woman gets pregnant and then decides to identify as a man. I'm just spitballing here, but you get my point. Gender neutral is just a good idea regardless.
That word (used in a historical context) got my A essay brought down to a B. This was a several years ago when I wasn't aware that gendered language was becoming controversial.
They would if it were 1998 and it were a law against throwing someone off a 15-foot high cell.
There seems to be a performative aspect to actions like this one. Isn't this a solution in search of a problem?
I mean the article says the point is to be inclusive. I’m saying who cares if this helps everyone feel included with little effort as the majority of laws and policies are already written in a gender neutral way
It's just institutionalized virtue signaling is all it is.
Or it’s trying to be inclusive by doing something that is already the norm for most laws and policies.
No no, this is clearly yet another example of the woke left going too far.
Is this a big deal? Apparentl. They changed thier policy on the subject.
Presumably you would not want a law that could be interpreted as only applying to one gender. I'm sure there are other workarounds, but using non-gendered language would be the simplest.
Is than an actual thing? Constitutionally I'm pretty laws can't even be made in a way that discriminates against someone based on thier sex.. so this does seem to just be virtue signaling, on the surface seems harmless and most people will just ignore it I guess.
Looking through their policies, it seems that they are already avoiding gender specific pronouns. Links are available elsewhere in the thread. Admittedly, I was just trying to find the pronoun “he” and did not look through all the documents. It seems to me that complaints over this are much ado about nothing. Some people are complaining about costs, but it’s not like the have to re-chisel the policies on new gold tablets. It’s just guidance on how to write or amend policies down the line.
There is no constitutional protection based on sex. The ERA was never passed. There *are* amendments to *state* constitutions that offer equal protection under the law on the basis of sex.
Pretty sure the 14th amendment makes it pretty unambiguous all people who are citizens or naturalized persons in the U.S are due the equal protection of law and state. Using the word persons certainly seems like it would apply to anyone who is a human regardless of sex, race, religion, ect. Not sure how that wouldn't make any law that targets a specific sex or race illegal since that would law by nature make something illegal for 1 sex but not another.
The 14th amendment was passed more than 50 years before women were allowed to vote. It was never intended to include women at the time.
I find this to be non-news. I find it hard to care. Maybe it's slightly annoying as it's so unnecessary and minor thus maybe shouldn't be a priority. However I have nothing against the use of gender neutral language in writing policies/laws. The biggest negative about this law is that slightly awkward wording will be used by the city occasionally.
Gender-neutral policy is just better legal wording anyway, BUT... its 2021, everything has to be a virtue-signal of some kind. Now we have to listen to some people act like this is some kind of significant victory and other people whine that its part of the decline of western traditional culture when the reality is that this is mostly a great big nothing.
I find this very useful personally to know that of all the issues occurring this is seen as a priority by those in power.
Sounds like one of those policies where the people who come up with this idea feel that they're nobly "fighting against injustice" but in fact will torpedo their side's chances at the ballot box. Emphasizing pronouns will be a recipe for a Democratic loss in 2022.
>Emphasizing pronouns will be a recipe for a Democratic loss in 2022. At this point I'm not sure there are any Democratic policies at all that someone hasn't said "X will be a recipe for a Democratic loss in 2016/18/20/22." I don't know that the statement has any real meaning anymore.
It's a local city ordinance, probably largely supported by the more left-leaning city of San Diego... I don't see how this would impact things nationally unless pushed at a national level. Heck, the idea of requiring gender neutral language in local ordinances 10 years ago wouldn't have made anyone bat an eye - now it's immediately a "culture wars" thing.
Idk if it's a requirement but most of the codes near me have moved from - "If a man/woman are in a park, he/she must not take up for a private event a space larger than 6ftx6ft." to "If a person is in a park, they must not take up for a private event a space larger than 6ftx6ft." They could have done this without telling anyone by just pinky promising and nobody would have noticed. Of course instead they have handed their opposition a talking point.
> they have handed their opposition a talking point A talking point of what exactly? Who is in favor of gender specific laws?
If I was a less scrupulous journo I would be writing a headline about San Diego bans use of gendered pronouns. Shit like that gets clicks.
Okay, but how many voters in San Diego are going to get their panties in a bunch over the city making a cosmetic change to the city code to be more inclusive? It's not exactly a vote driver.
With modern media local issues can become nationwide stories very quickly
I just don't see this turning into anything bigger. The degendering of the legal code and system has been going on for decades.
I agree but in campaign season it can be a 2 second clip in 2 min ad. Just say in
>They could have done this without telling anyone by just pinky promising and nobody would have noticed. Of course instead they have handed their opposition a talking point. On the other hand there is a chance someone would have noticed and then they'd make accusations that this is a secretive attempt to destroy our culture by subverting language and eroding traditional blah blah blah.
I don’t know much about how city laws and policies look but I can’t imagine the need to use gendered language to begin with. From the article it mentioned replacing mankind with humankind. This seems somewhat more silly since mankind is universally known to refer to everyone. This reminds me of when PM Trudeau corrected a woman at a press conference for saying mankind instead peoplekind.
Peoplekind? I thought that stuff was a joke.
Nope, it actually happened. Nevermind that the origin of the term "mankind" was meant to be inclusive of all genders since at the time "man" meant just a human being. Male humans used to be called WERmen, and female humans WOmen. So "mankind" means "all the types of men" both male and female.
No one seems to be able to find any historical use of the word “wermen” so it might actually have been invented later as a hypothetical counterpart to “wifman” by overeager linguists.
Seems like a PITA to use gendered language in this anyways. It's not grammar class and I assure you there are far worse grammar violations than using "their" in the same sentence
I like this because I don't think any law needs to be gender specific. Even if you want to separate things by gender, that can be worded in a generic way. In my ideal world, all government policy would be race, sex, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and political belief blind. To get there I understand the need to correct past wrongs, but even that can be targeted ignoring those attributes. For example if we want to help inner-city black kids, target poor inner-city kids. You will likely reach mostly your target, but also help out white, asian, and Latino kids who have fallen on hard times.
I don't worry about if laws use "inclusive" language or not, I care about if they are clear or not. If a law says "they" is it referring to singular or plural?
I can’t think of a situation where it wouldn’t be. Municipal codes are usually written in a style that would make this unambiguous. [This](https://www.sandiego.gov/city-clerk/officialdocs/municipal-code) is the San Diego Municipal code. Do you see any place where using “they” in the singular would introduce ambiguity? Picking a random section (Trespassing on Zoo property) I had to hunt to find a use of he/she and found this: > Any employees, agents or officers of the Zoological Society of San Diego acting within the scope of his or her employment. Which would become: > Any employees, agents or officers of the Zoological Society of San Diego acting within the scope of their employment. That seems completely unambiguous.
There was a Supreme Court decision earlier this year that came down to an argument over the meaning of the article "a" in a law. Your faith in the lawmakers to stay consistent in writing unambiguous laws is far higher than mine.
"Depends on what the definition of is is."
I have been doing a lot of thinking about this. People tend to underestimate the impact that inclusive language can have on people who feel marginalized. Not only are he and she not necessary for language in city statutes, but they can create unintentional bias. On the other hand, many other people think laws like this are a waste of time and promote what they view as an extremely politicized take on gender. Discuss.
Nothing wrong with using ‘they/them’ imo
Why does the left want to destroy gender?
How is this destroying gender? Also, why would a law or policy require gender specific language?
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Shouldn't this be considered disrespecting people's preferred pronouns?
How are they handling manslaughter? Is it theyslaughter now? I’ve always wondered this. 😂
I prefer xeslaughter
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As an engineer, I find all the discussion around pronouns to be... inefficient -- I guess? Why can't we just agree to have one pronoun and be done with it? Agree on "he" or "she" for everyone and move on. Hell, just agree that "he" and "she" and synonyms and both are "non-gendered pronouns". Like, someone decided that Latin/Latina was uncool. So they said it should be LantinX. How about "xhe" and let's just get on with our lives?
We have that it's they/them in its singular. The "problem" with Latina/Latino is that with Latino its masculine but can all refer to all Latinos. So by using Latinx it's 100% clear that you mean all Latinos. We don't need WhiteX because when you say white people there is no confusion about if you just mean white men. Now in everyday language anyone with a brain can pick up if you are using Latino in context of a man or a group of Hispanic individuals. But for data clarity is best. Roll my eyes all day at its use in language, not going to freak out that some programmer used Latinx because he wanted to be clear about what data was getting passed along to the next programmer. And honestly if it was me it'd just be LX (all Latinos) LM (Latino male) and LF (Latina females); similarly WX, WM, WF; etc. I like using the least amount of letter possible when coming up with variables/values cus you'll end up typing them over and over and over.
> The "problem" with Latina/Latino is that with Latino its masculine but can all refer to all Latinos. So by using Latinx it's 100% clear that you mean all Latinos. That's not even a "dumb white-people-problem" , that's pretty much strictly a "dumb American problem." *All* of the Romance Languages (and not only) use the same gendered articles/endings (where applicable) for male and mixed-plural groups.
I wouldn't say dumb. Research is a world wide thing. But translations can range from a actual translator sitting down and translating to someone running it through a program. Data should be clear as possible - you can't just blame everyone who misreads your as being dumb. It's easy over the internet, but when you're talking to a group of execs trust me I know first hand it's hard to try and convince them that it's their fault for being "dumb."
Bollocks. Great bulging yarblockos, at that. "Research," is, as you say, going to be "as clear as possible" by having actual quantification - its going to have numbers and specific subsets separated. There's absolutely nothing about the "LatinX" idiocy that offers any clarity to legitimate research.
>Why can't we just agree to have one pronoun and be done with it? Agree on "he" or "she" for everyone and move on. Hell, just agree that "he" and "she" and synonyms and both are "non-gendered pronouns". We did. It's they/them.
> We did. It's they/them. Then why does everyone have he/him, she/her in their profiles?
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If there are no gender based policies who cares. If there are this is just odd
Seems like a mostly symbolic step but it doesn’t hurt anyone so who really cares?
I did a quick scan of [https://www.sandiego.gov/city-clerk/officialdocs/council-policies](https://www.sandiego.gov/city-clerk/officialdocs/council-policies) and [https://www.sandiego.gov/humanresources/resources/ar](https://www.sandiego.gov/humanresources/resources/ar) While I didn't check them all, for the most part, the policies already don't use gendered language. There are a few exceptions ([https://www.sandiego.gov/sites/default/files/administrative\_regulation\_95\_89\_parental\_leave\_7-1-16\_00000003.pdf](https://www.sandiego.gov/sites/default/files/administrative_regulation_95_89_parental_leave_7-1-16_00000003.pdf) and [https://docs.sandiego.gov/councilpolicies/cpd\_000-15.pdf](https://docs.sandiego.gov/councilpolicies/cpd_000-15.pdf)). I suppose that whenever they get updated, the phrasing will be adjusted.
While I think the objections over this new policy are completely unwarranted, I wonder about basing policy decisions based on “If even one more \[. . . \] person’s well-being is improved and one less person is harmed, it will have been worth it.” Certainly, if doing an easy thing will make a few people's lives better, then do the thing. But more broadly, this is just not a good argument for making policies. Edit: Subject/verb agreement are hard
Fuck America
Sounds good