Nicholas Kristof isn’t the first person to make this point, not by a long shot. We’ve been discussing the “latinx” problem here since at least 2019. Still, the fact that this topic is getting some play in the NY Times opinion section seems like a good thing.
Latino to Latinx. Women to people with uteruses. Homeless to houseless. L.G.B.T. to LGBTQIA2S+. Breastfeeding to chestfeeding. Asian American to A.A.P.I. Ex-felon to returning citizen. Pro-choice to pro-decision. I inhabit the world of words, and even I’m a bit dizzy…
A legitimate concern for transgender men who have uteruses has also led to linguistic gymnastics to avoid the word “women.” In an effort to be inclusive, the American Cancer Society recommends cancer screenings for “individuals with a cervix,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offers guidance “for breastfeeding people” and Cleveland Clinic offers advice for “people who menstruate.”
The aim is to avoid dehumanizing anyone. But some women feel dehumanized when referred to as “birthing people,” or when The Lancet had a cover about “bodies with vaginas.”
Kristof, as a good progressive, can’t actually bring himself to criticize anything in particular but he is willing to say that, in general, these efforts at rhetorical inclusion have gone too far. He offers three categories of criticism of the new language. First, he sees it as a substitute for doing something about the actual problem. As he points out, using the word “houseless” or the phrase “people experiencing homelessness” instead of just homeless doesn’t get anyone off the street.
Second, the new vocabulary is often wordy and unclear which he suggests isn’t helpful when discussion social problems.
But his third and final point is both social and political. By insisting on all of this new, often weird language Democrats and progressives are creating more distance between themselves and a majority of the American people. And that creates an opportunity for politicians like Gov. DeSantis.
It creates an in-group of educated elites fluent in terms like BIPOC and A.A.P.I. and a larger out-group of baffled and offended voters, expanding the gulf between well-educated liberals and the 62 percent majority of Americans who lack a bachelor’s degree — which is why Republicans like Ron DeSantis have seized upon all things woke.
DeSantis, who boasts that he will oust the “woke mob,” strikes me as a prime beneficiary when, say, the Cleveland Clinic explains anatomy like this: “Who has a vagina? People who are assigned female at birth (AFAB) have vaginas.”
He’s right of course and this has been obvious to many of us for several years now. All of this woke language is off-putting to normal people and all conservatives have to do is point it out to make common cause with voters. Some of the Times’ commenters seem to get it as well. This comment is from someone in San Francisco.
I’m an immigrant and an American Citizen born in Mexico. However I know I will never be seen just as another American citizen. instead since I moved here I’ve been called “Latinx’ Which I can’t stand, “POC” and all sort of labels, that I’ve never heard before. If I was white and an American citizen born in, let’s say Norway, will I be regarded just as American? or would I still be seen as some acronym and an outsider. I understand intentions are good, and I’m all for bringing awareness to diversity but instead of feeling included I feel branded. Let’s be aware of diversity, let’s stop grouping people under useless and complicated acronyms.
Another reader in North Carolina:
My thoughts exactly. I am a liberal Democrat. While my fellow liberal Democrats are worrying about language, the GOP is organizing around issues. We need to stop this focus on words and focus instead on actions.
From a nurse in Idaho:
I’m an ICU nurse. Recently our organization asked us to ask each patient their preferred pronouns and gender identity on admission. For some patients, that’s great. But I work in Idaho and some of my patients are bewildered by the question or worse, feel disrespected, if I asked them whether they identify as male, female, both, or none (that’s the wording in our EHR).
One woman, post hysterectomy with complications, burst into tears and said “I hope I am still a woman!”
Now I just check the box for most of my older patients and assume their gender identity matches their sex unless told otherwise.
One more from a liberal in Washington, DC:
Here here. I’m a lifelong liberal, and I can’t get my head around this bamboozlement perpetrated by the far left.
I suspect this new terminology is less about grappling with social inequity and more about creating status-like signifiers among the cognoscenti. Or–worse–a figleaf meant to cover business as usual.
Here’s my take on this liberal word soup: I’m not interested in your symbolism, I want real political change. Keep your fancy acronyms and innumerate pronouns, give me affordable and universal healthcare including mental healthcare, living wages, paid parental leave, equal access to higher education, serious cuts to climate-warming emissions–and equitable taxation of the uberwealthy to pay for it all.
I agree with Mr. Kristof–this language is absolutely meant to be the opposite of inclusiveness.
I can’t help but think these are the voices of disaffected liberals and progressives, the ones we need to join with conservatives and centrists in a coalition of the sane, i.e. an effort to oppose the “power-mad utopians” on the far left. I don’t think we’re there yet but the woke certainly have a knack for turning off their own partisan allies.
