Gender neutrality in writing
PATH Style now defaults to gender-neutral language when possible and appropriate. Learn what this means for you as a communicator and how to edit for gender neutrality.
To make PATH communications as inclusive as possible, PATH Style now defaults to gender-neutral language when possible and appropriate. This does not mean excluding all gender-denoting words from PATH language, it simply means:
(1) Describing individuals in gender-neutral ways if their personal preferences are unknown (e.g. replacing he/she with they or simply repeating the individual's name instead of using a pronoun).
(2) Describing gender-diverse groups in gender-neutral ways (e.g. replacing ladies and gentlemen with friends, folks, or everyone).
(3) Substituting unnecessarily gender-denoting terms for gender-neutral ones (e.g. replacing chairman with chair or man-made with human-made).
This guidance is for application when possible and appropriate because some decisions about gender-neutral language will require case-by-case consideration from communicators and PATH staff closest to the work and/or culture.
For example, a gender-neutral term like pregnant people can broaden health dialogues to include transgender men and non-binary individuals, but automatically replacing all occurrences of pregnant women with pregnant people would risk erasure of women and women's health issues, and would not necessarily be well received across PATH's many partners and geographies.
EXA encourages all PATH communicators to familiarize themselves with gender terminology using the PATH Gender Equity in Programming Glossary, and to practice editing for gender neutrality using this self-paced exercise.