[ExI] language question

[spike]

Americans are struggling to de-gender our language to make it more
inclusive.  I am all in favor of it; have been doing that for years in
various ways, such as using she and her as the gender-nonspecific form
rather than the more traditional he and his.  This works even if we actually
do know the gender of the person, even if it introduces awkwardness (.the
rapist left a semen-stained undergarment when she fled the scene.)

 

We are hearing another awkward compromise where we use the traditionally
genderless term "they" in place of the clumsy "he or she" and "their" in
place of "his or her."  We pretend that "they" and "their" can be singular
as well as plural, even while recognizing we are throwing away the
specificity between singular vs plural in order to be gender-neutral.  OK,
fair deal.  I can embrace that with all our heart.

 

My question please is for hipster Spanish speakers, with the gender-specific
articles la and el.  If the English-speaking counterparts are doing this,
how does a Latin-based language de-gender-ify itself?  We might end up in a
situation where objects can still keep genders but people cannot.  How weird
is that?  I like weird.

 

OK then, if we agree objects can keep their gender but humans cannot, what
about beasts, which wear their gender right out in the open?  If Spain
figures out a way around la and el for humans, such as making every human
title al or le for instance, what about el toro?  In that deplorable "sport"
(don't eeeeven get me going on that) everyone knows the gender of al tor..
Tor what?  Tore?  Tori?  Toru?

 

And since I am on that topic, let us think about people.  Surely the Spanish
have some things that just always have been and likely always will be male,
such as al matador.  Has there ever been a woman doing that?  Wait, don't
tell us, we retract the question, we don't even want to know.  Leave us to
assume not.

 

Since plenty of us here anticipate some kind of VR existence where we can
change genders with a line of code (how cool will that be?  And so useful
for so many situations!) we can give credence to the currently popular
notion that a person is whatever gender they say they is.

 

OK if that is true now, can we make it retroactively true?  If so, what
about our current references to people in the past for whom we have always
assumed a gender, such as the virgin Mary?  Do we know she identified as a
woman?  Didn't think so.  What do we do with any historical figure, for whom
we now do not know what their gender is?

 

Spanish speakers among us, what are you doing with your language?

 

spike 

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