Reporters and editors want to be sensitive to personal and minority-group concerns alongside their professional duty to be clear, accurate and non-partisan.
How to handle this balancing act amid the West's fast-evolving verbiage to accommodate feminist or LGBTQ+ advocates? The media need to consider that proposed prohibitions now go well beyond replacement of "binary" pronouns with the singular usage of they-them-their (which breaks strict grammar in English and creates ambiguity on antecedents).
Grace Church School in lower Manhattan (sticker price $57,330 per year) provides a revealing rundown on new expectations for usage and diction in its "Inclusive Language Guide," enacted last September. It says e.g. that instead of "boys and girls," school personnel should now say "people, folks, friends," or specifics like "readers" or "mathematicians." Similarly, "husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend" give way to "spouse / partner / significant other." The Grace community is asked to say "grown-ups, folks or family" and shun the formerly acceptable "parents" or "Mom and Dad."
Some Moms and Dads were apparently upset upon learning about the guide when posted online in January. School leaders defended their new "inclusive" regimen but hastened to explain that wordings are "suggested," not "mandatory," and apply to the adult faculty and staff, not students.
The 12-page Grace guide, posted here under "Antiracism Resources" at is by no means unique in concept. It draws from such resources as the 2018 "language values" policy at New York City's Bank Street College of Education, which media policy-makers need to be monitoring.
The key disputes involve LGBTQ+ expectations and especially regarding gender identity and fluidity. Grace opposes "heteronormativity," that is, "the assumption that cisgender is the 'norm' or standard and transgender is the outlier or an abnormality." (Editors should ponder the "cisgender" neologism for labeling persons whose gender identity or gender expression matches their biology.)
"Language is constantly evolving," Grace correctly states, and the longstanding term "homosexual" should be eliminated. "More appropriate" designations include "queer,” formerly a derogatory equivalent of the N-word — but now rehabilitated as individuals' deliberate "political identification."