Should Spanish Be Taught Gender-Neutral?
Here's the problem with adding inclusivity to the language in the classroom.
When across the United States, Latin America, and Spain chicas becomes chiques, amigos becomes amigues, and todos becomes todes, a sociolinguistic phenomenon takes place, and a heated debate ensues. In the Spanish-speaking world, the inclusion of gender-neutral verbiage is contested. Whether or not Spanish should incorporate gender-neutral endings domestically or abroad boils down to the following questions: Is Spanish already gender-neutral, and to what extent? Does a more “gender-conscious” Spanish language actually result in more inclusivity? And finally, should teachers who teach non-native populations adopt the “gender-conscious” language when the majority of native speakers do not?
Firstly, it’s important to understand what modern movements for gender-neutral language in Spanish consist of. The change appears predominantly in the addition of the suffix –es, -X, or -@, instead of the previously grammatically masculine or feminine suffixes, –os and –as, for nouns referring to people. For example, the gender-neutral forms of [add original forms] would become LatinX, amigues, or bienvenid@s. However, linguistically, Spanish does encompass gender neutrality. Spanish’s gender binary trickles down from Latin. Over time, the Spanish language accepted the gender-neutral Latin gender by usurping it into the masculine gender, and, according to the LanGo Institute, “the 3-gender system of Latin, with its categorization of all nouns as either masculine, feminine, or neuter, is in fact preserved intact in Spanish.” [1] Additionally, Spanish grammar contains a linguistic feature called “epicenity,” in which a word may contain a grammatical gender (like la persona, or the person, which is “structurally” feminine), but actually refers to any sex. El estudiante could refer to a student of any gender. Taking this into account, the statement of “gender-neutral language” in this article refers to the contemporary changes presented to the Spanish language, rather than its existing neutrality.
Linguistically, the presence of epicenity in Spanish implies gender neutrality or ambiguity within a grammatically gendered language. This made movements for the change to -es or another suffix a difficult transition for much of the native population in Latin America and Spain; newer endings such as -es are more directly inclusive, while the original implication of neutrality, especially for non-native speakers, is more difficult to comprehend. The Real Academia Española, charged with monitoring the Spanish language, labels gender-neutral proposals “artificial and unnecessary” due to the existing inclusion of neutrality in the language’s binary. [2] Argentina in 2022 banned gender-neutral conjugations in its education systems for reasons of, according to its statement, “violating the rules of Spanish and rendering more difficult the learning of Spanish for its youth.” [3] There is also a discussion to be held about the merits of “monitoring” or “keeping” a language in the way the Academia, L’Academie Française, or other ministries or councils of language, do.
Language is an inevitable product of society and should be put in the context of the groups that speak it–both native and non-native–to be fully understood. Currently, the vast majority of speakers in the Spanish-speaking world do not use “gender-inclusive” language, but the promotion of gender-neutral adaptations in native-speaking communities does exist. [4] Meanwhile, A Statista census reports the United States as having the highest population of LGBTQ+ people in the world, at 11%, including 1.2 million non-binary people. [4,5] Though the English language has only considered its nouns non-gender-affiliated since the 20th century, a parallel is naturally sought in binary languages to offer the same inclusion. [6] When teaching Spanish with gender-neutral terms, a balance between the integrity of the language – along with the cultures it embodies – and consideration for the community must be established. Within the U.S., gender-neutral Spanish trends with the rising consideration for gender outside of a binary. Outside of the U.S., the majority of Spanish speakers don’t necessarily align with this movement, and neither does the language.
Language is alive; it grows, adapts, and flourishes among the people who use it. It acclimatizes itself to the temperament of a population that today can be spread across the globe, with possibly entirely different values and cultures. This new almost-dialect of Spanish can be appropriate for many US schools’ strong inclusivity-oriented environments, but doesn’t currently apply among the masses of the native community. Its implementation can do a disservice to its students, blinding them from the actual nature of the Spanish language for the sake of a more sensitive system.
[1] https://langoinstitute.com/blog/2021/7/9/language-change-how-latin-became-spanish
[2] https://theworld.org/stories/2020/12/21/royal-spanish-academy-dismisses-movement-make-spanish-more-gender-inclusive
[3] Translated from original sentence: “violaba las reglas del español y obstaculizaba la comprensión lectora de los estudiantes” (from snippet: https://drive.google.com/file/d/10xM0XkD6GfwSj4tWtUaOpAnKL1YjYsUT/view?usp=sharing)
[4] Additionally, In the United States, about 25% of native speakers have heard of the term LatinX, though only about 3% use it. (https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2020/08/11/about-one-in-four-u-s-hispanics-have-heard-of-latinx-but-just-3-use-it/)
[5] https://www.statista.com/chart/30142/respondents-who-identify-as-lgbt–in-selected-countries/#:~:text=The%20Philippines%2C%20the%20United%20States,Australia%2C%20each%20with%209%20percent.
[6] https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/nonbinary-lgbtq-adults-us/
[7] https://shs.hal.science/halshs-01361466/document
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