On November 13, the discovery of the body of Ociel Baena Saucedo, who held a position in the electoral court of Aguascalientes, Mexico, was announced. His death shocked us. And for those of us who are journalists, reporting on another death presented an additional challenge: reporting on the death of a non-binary person.
For many people, working in a media environment requires comprehensive knowledge of the language, its spelling rules, its grammatical peculiarities as well as correct or error-free writing and speaking. What happens when you have to report the death of a person who explicitly identifies as neither male nor female, but as non-binary? How can we expand our language skills to talk about someone who doesn’t use the male or female gender?
For decades, the push for inclusive language has grown and changed: from seeking expression for those who identify with the female gender to speaking about people with disabilities or those who are part of gender diversity. Over the last decade, all languages have sought alternatives to using the male gender as the measure and expression of all people. Among these alternatives is the one proposed by the Spanish professor and engineer Álvaro García Meseguer in 1976: the use of the letter e. So García Meseguer wasn’t thinking about people who identify as non-binary, but rather about finding a form of expression in which male gender was not the only way to refer to a mixed group.
Currently, the use of inclusive language is not just reserved for a small group. Recognizing the obligation to stick to the facts that those of us who work in the media have, it is necessary that we get up to speed, learn and use inclusive language. Especially in cases like the death/murder of Judge Ociel Baena Saucedo. Because naming him as he wanted and as he recognized himself remains true to the facts: Baena Saucedo was the first person in Mexico to receive a passport and ID card from the National Electoral Institute recognizing his non-binary gender identity became; Both are the most important identification documents in Mexico. The hard fact is that Jesús Ociel Baena Saucedo has been identified as a non-binary person by the Mexican state and recognized as such by the Mexican state. It is appropriate that reporting on Ociel Baena respects his gender identity.
And what does that mean linguistically? If this person identifies as non-binary, they do not see or recognize themselves in either the masculine (he, nor the words of the masculine grammatical gender, such as magistrate) nor the feminine (she, nor the words of the feminine grammatical gender) . : Judge ). Although there is no section in the grammar of the Spanish language dedicated to neutral or non-binary grammatical gender, there are those who have been looking for a linguistic alternative that corresponds to the reality of non-binary gender identity.
Those of us who work in the media rarely find it necessary to update our language skills, as if they had not changed since we first studied. Today shows us that everything is changing and, as always, the way we express ourselves, the words we use or stop using, also changes. Whenever I talk about inclusive language, I think about the case of Covid. An acronym that quickly became a common word around the world, created by an institution that was not the Royal Spanish Academy, in order not to stigmatize people from China because there was a president (Donald Trump) who was infected with the “Chinese virus “ spoke. ”
When it was just an abbreviated way of talking about the disease caused by the SARS-CoV2 virus (Covid-19), no media, no Spanish speaker asked whether they should use that word or not: the Royal Spanish Academy was not the one. suggested it, plus he hadn’t said what spelling rules he should follow. However, all media adopted the acronym proposed by the World Health Organization, amplifying the birth of this new word that marked our life in the pandemic. There were those who chose to say “Covid-19” (“because it comes from…”) virus”) and there were those who used “covid-19” because the acronym referred to the disease caused by the coronavirus – this was the one that followed the spelling rules –; Today Covid is a noun that can be used in both masculine and feminine forms. Herein lies the power of those who speak a language to shape it.
The case of inclusive language is no different: it arises from the desire to respect the way in which people want to be named, to use – and, if necessary, create – words that correspond to a reality that existed in 1492 or 1847 (as We neither saw nor considered two of the reference grammars of Spanish. The inclusive language that attempts to name non-binary people, strange as it may seem, is based on Spanish grammar: it uses well-formed words and looks for agreement between noun, article and adjective. To do this, he uses, nothing more and nothing less, the letter that we use most often in Spanish: the -e.
“The Judge Was Found Dead in Her Home” uses well-formed words in Spanish that may seem strange to us, but not incomprehensible. Because the well-known grammatical norms are expanded to include a gender that is neither male nor female: non-binary. Because we use letters that we as Spanish speakers know, understand, pronounce and can read.
As journalists, it is our duty – beyond our faith – to stick to the facts. And that requires, on many occasions, that we question what we took for granted. Words are the first tool we have at our disposal to carry out our profession. It is part of our professionalism to update our knowledge of the language and to react sensitively to the changes it undergoes. We have a responsibility to report accurately and recognize the importance of respecting the way people want to be called.
Paulina Chavira Mendoza She is a journalist and language consultant. From 2016 to 2019, she was editor of The New York Times en Español and author of the publication’s style guide.
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