‘Inclusive language’ is both a social and linguistic movement aimed at challenging gender hierarchies and increasing recognition for non-binary identities—particularly in languages with grammatical gender. In such languages, nouns, pronouns, and adjectives are gendered, often reflecting patriarchal traditions where the masculine dominates. This system marginalises women and non-binary people, prompting decades of efforts to reshape language in more inclusive ways, especially as right-wing ideologies resurface globally.
This may seem a foreign concept to those who only speak English. When it comes to inclusivity and gender-neutrality in English, we tend to only require two strategies: neutralising nouns (e.g. ‘flight attendant’ instead of ‘steward/stewardess’), and using the pronoun ‘they/them’ in the singular form, or using neopronouns like ‘xe/xir’.
However, in French, for example, there are two gendered forms of “they” – “ils” [masculine or mixed gender] and “elles” [feminine]. A phrase like “the beautiful president” must be fully gendered – “le beau président” [masc.] and “la belle présidente” [fem.] – where each has a gendered pronoun, adjective, and noun. In Spanish, even the term ‘non-binary’ is gendered – “no binario” [masc.] and “no binaria” [fem.].
As the inclusion and visibility of women, trans, and queer people has been fought for and normalised over decades, it has led to many projects and forms of ‘inclusive language’, particularly in French and other Romance or Germanic languages. As always, it is especially women, POC, queer people, and activists who are the ones leading the fight and developing our languages the most. In Argentina, inclusive language became popularised through the protesters in the movements of Ni Una Menos (Not a Woman Less) (2015) and those that supported the Interrupción Voluntaria del Embarazo (Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy) Bill (2018).
However, inclusive language is being used as a scapegoat to justify “anti-woke” ideology. It has extended beyond a debate about inclusivity and become a fight to maintain the power of Western empires and the status quo. This has emboldened centre and far-right political actors in France to continue their witch hunt against “le wokisme” while tying it into fears about migrants and foreign values bastardising the French language and culture.
The French language that we know today has been artificially imposed and standardised over the last few centuries as a political project, beginning in the early 17th Century as the French monarchy imposed the Parisian dialect of French across the nation. At this time, the infamously conservative Academie Française (French Academy) was formed as the principal French council for matters pertaining to the French language, whose founding fathers referred to the masculine as the more “noble” gender. Yet today, many people adamantly deny that the French language is sexist. However, numerous scientific studies by psychologists and language specialists, such as that by J. Kim et. al (2022), have proven that languages with grammatical gender do have a masculine bias which influences social attitudes amongst speakers of the language.
Feminist linguistics initially focused on “feminising” languages. In French, job titles were historically defaulted to the masculine. “Le président” referred to a president of any gender, while “la présidente” would denote his wife. In Quebec, the feminisation of titles was introduced in 1977 by the Office québécois de la langue française (Quebecois Office of the French Language), a full 42 years before the Académie Française did so in France. Francophones in Belgium have followed suit, but the conservative France lags behind.
In 2022, far-right presidential candidate Marine le Pen used her election campaign to stoke fears around ‘protecting’ the French culture and language from ‘external influences’ of inclusive language and “en masse” immigration. French centrist parties have also for years been banning the use of inclusive writing in official communications and in schools, and Macron has been on a warpath to assert that the French language “forges the nation,” asserting that inclusive language is “unreadable” and unnecessary.
When inclusive language has been “banned” in certain institutions, this is generally referring to the use and teaching of simple and common terms that combine the masculine and feminine forms using the point médian or interpunct (e.g. président·e, to combine président and présidente). It is claimed that such terms are complicated and look ugly, or make the language hard to use and learn.
All the while that French politicians have been arguing about and trying to ban the use of inclusive language, progressive parts of Francophone society and grassroots groups have moved way beyond onto new and innovative ‘post-binary’ transformations of the language.
Bye Bye Binary, a Franco-Belgian group, promotes inclusive typography as a way to expand the written language beyond binary forms. Founded through collaboration between design schools in Brussels, they describe typography as an “emancipatory technology” capable of expressing queer and non-binary identities. They understand typography as an “emancipatory technology” that “offers the possibility of materializing queer, non-binary, genderfluid, agender, and genderfuck existences.” Their work includes new symbols that visually merge masculine and feminine endings, offering alternatives to the criticised interpunct.
Like Bye Bye Binary, we see that it’s often young people who are leading this struggle; the youth in Buenos Aires demonstrating against gendered Spanish and inclusive language being banned in Argentinian schools, the Groupe d’action trans (Trans Action Group) of the University of Sherbrooke, and the Conseil québécois LGBT (Quebec LGBT Council) in Montreal who are advancing this struggle and coming up with resources on gender-neutral and non-binary inclusive writing.
This is why many people are now taking the fight to foreign language classrooms (in countries where inclusive language is not banned), in order to disprove arguments that inclusive language models are complicated and hard to learn, and to have as many speakers of a language as possible use it in a way that accommodates and respects all gender identities.
This week, students are putting on a workshop on gender-neutral writing in French in collaboration with the Discipline of French and Francophone Studies and the USyd French Society, to explore inclusive writing and to present a new proposition for a student-designed model that offers a fresh response to some of these linguistics questions. Come along on Thursday 8th May 2025 from 5pm to 7pm, SSB Lecture Theatre 200.
