Letter: People never excluded tend to mock inclusive language

Not everyone is so fortunate; accept that not everything is for or about you.

People never excluded tend
to mock inclusive language

Re: “Berkeley’s neutral name policy makes no sense” (Letter to the editor, July 24):

Berkeley’s gender-neutral language policy doesn’t mean that you cannot use gendered pronouns. It simply asks that you not make assumptions.

Presumably you know your spouse and children well enough to know if they are comfortable with you referring to them as your wife, son and daughter. But you’d want to avoid saying, for example, waiter or waitress when you don’t know the gender identity or pronoun of your server. Most of these words are commonplace; it is not a difficult concept.

Furthermore, recall that there are approximately 254 languages that have no gendered pronouns at all. The several billion people who speak those languages seem to be communicating just fine.

You mock inclusive language presumably because you have never been excluded or marginalized by gendered language. Not everyone is so fortunate. This change harms no one and creates a better environment for some. Accept that not everything is for or about you.

Tess Arrighi
Livermore

 

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