Removing gender from language is another step towards equality

Pride is a yearly event that takes place in a host of cities around the world. It celebrates diversity of sexuality and freedom of expression in this matter. Many of the strongest critics are those who still see the world in binary (male/female), and do not wish their view of life to be challenged. But they are failing to hold back the tide. This month, the management of the London Underground decided to abandon announcements that start with "ladies and gentlemen" and instead say "hello everyone". This is a step into the future, not a left-wing language coup.

Who says we should say "ladies and gentlemen" rather than "gentlemen and ladies"? Why do we start a formal letter with "Dear Sir / Madam" rather than "Dear Madam / Sir"? Where have those standards of etiquette gone these days? Surely women should always go first, no matter how illogical the sequence? And isn't everything male or female? Why are we being told there's this new non-binary gender? It's just the current trend, obviously, being run by left-wing ideologues to subvert the world order and bring down the system.

Well, not quite. In fact, not at all.

This is simply the way the world has been going. For many years, anything that contradicted the status quo was disapproved of, frowned upon, buried under other news or even carried the threat of a criminal record. Lots of people who were forced into heterosexual relationships or marriage in the past because it was expected of them lived in terrible depression and anxiety because they felt pressurised into this, and a great deal of those who are now in their forties and above have seized their chances to realign more appropriately with their orientation in this newly-open societal change. Young people today realise who they are much earlier, and all to the good. In many countries this is now clearly not the case, but the proliferation of this multi-gender, rainbow-coloured society can only continue now that it does not carry quite the stigma it once did (and only recently). However, it will be harder in a lot more countries than it is in others.

Why?

Gender grammar in language is one of the greatest obstacles.

The predominantly three-gender or common and neuter Germanic and genderless Anglophone countries are the main drivers of this new trend. Gender-neutral languages like English make it much easier to accept the idea of multiple sexuality. Latin-based languages like French and Spanish put everything and everyone exclusively into categories of masculine and feminine, even categorising more traditionally male/female objects in their grammar - la table, la maison, la cuisine (women in French should be in the house), le travail, le problème (only men work and solve problems in French, apparently), el tiempo, el muro (men only can tell the time and build walls in Spanish), la mesa, la flor (women in Spanish should take care of flowers on their tables at home). This happens in many languages and will not disappear overnight. So it is much harder for speakers of two-gender languages to conceive of more genders. Society puts great pressure on people to follow the herd, but we are starting to see changes brought about by changing attitudes and the raising of awareness of issues to do with gender and sexuality. Only the most judgemental of people are causing a delay in the progress and advancement of society, with language a vital tool in the battle to change hearts and minds.

German and Dutch throw up oddities, like the word for girl, which is Mädchen and meisje respectively. Due to -chen and -je endings signifying pejoratives, which are always categorised as neutral, girls in these languages, paradoxically, are grammatically not considered female. When asking "where is the girl?" in German,"wo ist das Mädchen?" it is still not uncommon to hear "it is here" ("Es ist hier") as a reply.

In English, there has been a shift towards using "they" for non-binary people, and this is catching on quite rapidly. However, language has been a powerful tool in establishing norms for centuries, so it may be much more difficult for French or Spanish speakers to get used to this idea. In French and Spanish even the word "they" is split by gender: ils/ellos, elles/ellas. This is why the idea of gender is easier for English speakers. German and Dutch, as well as the Slavic languages, with their notions of neutral gender will also find the transition from binary much easier. I believe this is why countries like Poland have always had such a high number of women in employment, and why Scandinavia is the home of linguistic sexual experimentation, where parents in some places are encouraged not to teach gender distinction to their children.

This is clearly not a phenomenon that is typical of whole countries and the speakers thereof. There are most certainly a great number of people in countries with genderless or multi-gender languages who still think in binary. They can be those who never thought of the idea before, but would not be against it, or they can be traditionalists who believe only in heterosexual marriage. They might be religious, they might be political (or both), but they are clearly shrinking in number as exposure to more and more non-binary people is becoming commonplace, especially in the big cities. All opinions and theories are there to be challenged, and now that it is becoming clearer that the pressure put on people for a very long time to blend in with established "norms" has caused untold misery and resentment down the years, we can finally do something about making amends for this. Medical and scientific research has highlighted that many children, some very young, feel uncomfortable with the gender they are born into. Fortunately, this world we are living in now is more equipped to deal with people's orientation than ever before. We just need languages to change with the times too.

Some genderless languages:

Afrikaans
Burmese
Chinese
English
Estonian
Finnish
Hungarian
Japanese
Korean
Mongolian
Persian
Thai
Turkish


Some languages with masculine and feminine genders only:

Arabic (with some exceptions)
French
Hebrew
Hindi
Irish
Italian
Latvian
Lithuanian (with some exceptions)
Spanish
Welsh


Some languages with masculine, feminine and neuter:

Bulgarian
Croatian
Dutch (although with the article de being used for both masculine and feminine, they are barely distinguishable any more)
German
Greek
Gujarati
Icelandic
Norwegian (with some regional exceptions)
Russian
Czech, Polish and Slovak (Western Slavic languages) have three genders, but also distinguish between the animate and the inanimate

Eurovision 2014: Conchita fires the starting pistol for 21st-century warfare

Something monumental yet very subtle happened last night in Copenhagen. Something that was barely noticed by the audience of 11,000 in the B&W Hallerne and approximately 120 million in the rest of Europe and the world at large. It was so subtle, I think most people haven't actually got it even now, 24 hours later. Conchita Wurst, the Queen of Austria, swept away the competition towards the end of voting, giving her home country its first win since 1966. It wasn't this either. It was the bit before that. The liberal-minded people of Europe voted for her against a backdrop of recent turmoil in lands further east, where it is not uncommon to attack, harass or even jail people of Conchita's kind with total impunity. There was a subliminal groundswell of support for Conchita earlier in the week; but what happened on the night was the Europe of tolerance and understanding giving the inflexible and sneering part of Europe a damn good open-hand slap on the chops.

What made this the moment the starting pistol of war was fired, even if it was a pistol stuffed full of shredded tinsel and stardust and made a fizzing sound upon pulling the trigger, was Conchita's acceptance speech on-stage: "This is dedicated to everyone who believes in a future of peace and freedom. You know who you are. We are unity and we are unstoppable." Bang. 

Or is that Boom-Bang-A-Bang?

Anyhow, it infuriated the Russians, who swiftly turned their post-Eurovision chat show into a tubthumping diatribe of everything wrong with Europe and why you'd be morally safe and sound under Putin's parental umbrella. In fact one of the key speakers in the debate said that it was the "end of Europe". Look out for your children all those with sons and daughters abroad in the EU - they might return gay. Or worse still, wearing a long figure-hugging sequined dress and sporting a beard. Yeah, right... I think if you find something to your liking you'll do it anyway. And vice-versa.

"I really dream of a world where we don't have to talk about unnecessary things like sexuality, where you're from or who you love," she went on. "This is not what it's all about." Well that's now where Europe's at, girlfriend. It's just up to the rest of the world to fall into line. In fact, I think you single-handedly made Gay Pride events in the EU obsolete. They were set up to further tolerance and understanding for the LGBT community. Well I get the impression they've been firmly accepted now. And thanks to you, we can get to grips with what is really right and wrong on our controversy-torn continent. There is one thing you can tell to President Putin over there in his sumptuous palace that he is loath to abandon: people's freedom does not start at the ballot box. It does not start at the push of a telephone button. It does not even start at the supermarket checkout. The freedom to choose, which is an important one, whether it be a politician, the next singing sensation or that evening's dinner, is so wide of the mark as to be insulting to 21st century human intelligence. And two of those you try your hardest to rig. The fact is, it starts in our heads and in our hearts. And when leaders of pressure groups, religious organisations and political parties try to lobby for the censorship of what you can and cannot see/do/think/feel, it can only create a huge storm in our society as to make the tectonic plates of opinion and philosophy rub so hard against each other as to cause an irreparable continental divide so powerful, it will take a war to put it together again. 

And that is what happened last night. 

But this war will not be not a cold war. It is not any particular temperature at all. We had the War of Jenkins' Ear, well this will be the War of Conchita's Song, and it will not be fought on any battlefield with any military hardware at all. This will be fought on computer keyboards, smartphone tapscreens and tablets all over the world. It is a war against immorality. 21st-century immorality. I am totally convinced that the word "morality" has fundamentally changed in meaning. It no longer just stands for that Judaeo-Roman ideal of patriarch-dominated heterosexual image of society as the "Guide to Family Life" would have us believe. "Morality" is not about believing society will collapse like Sodom and Gomorrah. "Morality" in the 21st century stands for accepting the idea of freedom to be who you want to be, without fear of insult, slander or persecution. It is the freedom to make choices based on your own sexual preference, your own religious belief and your own political stance. 

And the war we are fighting is one of 21st-century morality: small-mindedness versus understanding.

I remember, when I was an impressionable young lad back in the nineties, being taken round a busy office building. It was a bit like open day. And I distinctively remember seeing a guy with a beard, hairy neck, a bit of a beer belly and stubby, freckled arms and legs, also fairly hairy. I say legs, because I saw them poking out from under his tartan skirt. A little later, and a long way out of earshot, I discreetly inquired as to that man, and the answer I got changed my opinion about life in oh-so-many different ways: the guide, who was also his boss, said: "if you're ever as good as he is in your job, you can come to work in a bikini if you like." Well I won't, because the weather's bad enough as it is, without me causing driving rain and thunderstorms by showing off my legs and arms. And I am sure way more than half of those who voted for Conchita last night would say the same. But this is where we stand out from the intolerant rabble: we wouldn't dress in a skirt and beard ourselves, but you have our blessing, and we'll damned well defend your right to do it if you want. 

So Conchita, I salute you for showing up the amoral people in our society for the small-minded, mealy-mouthed drabs that they are, and I look forward to love-bombing a few of them on your behalf very soon.

See you in Vienna in May 2015!