There is a growing proportion of transgender and nonbinary people worldwide, and the practice of addressing this group by they/them pronouns and using their as a singular possessive pronoun is becoming increasingly commonplace in today’s society.
As a Spanish college professor, I am fielding more and more questions from students about the preferences used in the Spanish language when referring to nonbinary (no binarie in Spanish) persons and how the Spanish language is developing relative to modifications in the English language.
This is where the differences and complexities arise: Spanish, unlike English, has masculine and feminine nouns. The modern Romance languages are among the most gendered languages in the world. As readers of this magazine are no doubt aware, almost half of the languages spoken around the world have masculine and feminine genders to describe nouns. However, for the purpose of this article, we will focus on Spanish.
Spanish is the fourth most spoken language in the world, and second as a native language, with almost 550 million speakers. There are 20 countries that state their official language as Spanish, and among these Spanish-speaking countries, a growing population—especially younger speakers—believes that nonbinary and gender-neutral grammar should be used in the Spanish language. Washington Post writer Sarah Schmidt has spoken and written about the “movement of teenagers in Argentina, but also in other parts of Latin America—that have started replacing vowels with the E. And it’s really come from both the desire to acknowledge and represent nonbinary identities.” Schmidt goes on to say that “it’s also used as a way to sort of protest the entire language. And that way, it really resonates with feminists who feel that Spanish in particular is extremely gendered and is inherently patriarchal.” In this comment, Schmidt is referring to Spanish rules like the fact that one male in a group of females can make the word for that group masculine.
Transgender, nonbinary, and supporting members of Spanish-speaking communities acting in solidarity use gender-neutral or nonbinary grammar in both social and professional settings. The language has evolved to signify a nonmasculine or nonfeminine pronoun, noun, or adjective. The most common way to modify the gender marker in Spanish is to exchange the suffixes o or a for an e. Therefore, the traditional pronouns él/ellos and ella/ellas would change to elle/elles (pronounced “eye/eyes”). Nouns and adjectives are also gendered and would be changed using the e. Below is a table of some examples.
Additionally, some groups use “@” and “*” instead of an o or a in written colloquial Spanish, for example L@s niñ@s (“the kids”). However, this variant is less frequently used as it is difficult to pronounce and can be confusing.
While the Spanish vernacular has developed, there has been significant pushback to allowing an official version of a Spanish transgender language by the Royal Spanish Academy (Real Academia Española, RAE). Founded in 1713, the RAE is best known for compiling the authoritative Spanish language dictionary and also acts as a sentinel for correct usage and linguistic changes. The RAE is based in Madrid and its mission is to protect the purity and clarity of the Spanish language under a global unified policy affiliated with national language academies in 21 other Hispanophone nations through the Association of Academies of the Spanish Language.
In 2020, the RAE ruled against the use of the neutral e to enable words to become transgender instead of the gendered vowels a and o. The Academy declared it “artificial and unnecessary,” as the masculine form can already be used to encompass both genders.
Furthermore, in 2023, Associated Press News reported that Santiago Muñoz Machado, the director of RAE, dismissed grammatical changes to be gender neutral as a political manifestation. “It is not part of the grammar, it is not orthodox, and probably in many places it will not be understood,” he stated. “It is an expression with no practical reality.” This created significant online discourse regarding the decisions and importance of the RAE. The reluctance isn’t just confined to Spain—in 2017, a young Argentinian activist, Natalia Mira, used the gender-inclusive language during an interview about abortion rights and was corrected by the male journalist on the live broadcast. Since then, the recently elected Argentine government led by Javier Milei has banned any gender-neutral language from being used in any “public documents, institutions, and processes.”
One of the criticisms often aimed at the RAE is that it has been extremely slow in adapting. The RAE tends to bias its linguistic decisions toward the Spanish spoken in Spain, and many people view the institution as archaic. Nicole Canchucaja, a Peruvian-American writer for Orgullo Latino, states, “Language is something that belongs to the people, and ultimately, it’s the speakers who decide how it is used. The RAE can make suggestions, but it cannot impose its views on the public. As such, Latinos are at liberty to continue to adapt and change the Spanish language as we see fit.”
Inclusive language is equally important in professional settings as it is in social settings. In 1977, the English address of Mr., Mrs., or Ms. was adapted to include Mx. On the opposite page are some examples of how to use gender-neutral language in Spanish-speaking work environments.
It is also worth noting the word Latinx, an all-inclusive term for Latin Americans, is believed to have emerged in 2004 from queer communities to describe a person of Latin American origin or descent living in the US. It was also created to challenge the traditional binary genders (Latino or Latina). More recently, Latine has been introduced as an alternative to Latinx.
As the Hispanophone social and political environment continues to change, we can expect the language to continue to alter in tandem, whether or not this is supported or ratified by the RAE and other institutions. As language teachers, we will need to be aware of the changing linguistic patterns and be able to explain to our students how the language is constantly evolving. As humans, we should continue to embrace inclusivity and support these changes as we head into the future.
Charlotte West is a Spanish college professor at the American College of the Building Arts in Charleston, South Carolina. Having grown up in the UK, Charlotte has always had a love for languages and speaks French, Spanish, and Portuguese.
