Inclusive Language

Introduction

Language matters. Words matter. What we write and how we write it affects others. This guide is not comprehensive; if you don’t find answers here, please consult the TRU Office of EDI and Anti-Racism or the resources at the bottom of this web page.

Respect the wishes of the people you are writing about when it comes to language that references them and/or their circumstances. Ask about their preferences. Avoid stereotypes. Check your biases. If you don’t know how to phrase something, ask or look it up. Keep learning.

Age

Don’t use: Elderly, seniors
Use: Older adults, older people

Don’t use: The aged
Use: People 65 years and older

* Elder as a term is specifically for use within Indigenous communities.

Disability status (physical and mental)

Don’t use: Wheelchair bound
Use: A person who uses a wheelchair, wheelchair user

Don’t use: Cripple, invalid
Use: Person with a physical disability

Don’t use: Mentally ill, crazy, nuts
Use: A person living with a mental illness/mental health condition

Don’t use: Special needs
Use: Person with a disability, disabled person

Don’t use: Mentally challenged
Use: People with intellectual disabilities

Don’t use: Deaf person
Use: Person who is deaf or hard of hearing

Don’t use: Person with blindness
Use: Person who is blind or visually impaired

Don’t use: Visually challenged person
Use: Visually impaired person

Don’t use: Committed suicide
Use: Died by suicide

Don’t use: Epileptic
Use: People with epilepsy

Don’t use: Epileptic fit
Use: Epileptic seizure

Don’t use: The blind, the disabled
Use: People who are blind, people with disabilities

* Neurodiversity — refers to autism spectrum disorders and learning disabilities.

Make your writing accessible:

• Hashtags — if you capitalize each word in a hashtag, it’s much easier to read. Instead of #trustudentlife, use #TRUStudentLife.
• When including links, avoid stating “click here” or “read more.” Try: “Refer to the Disability and Learning Related Resources.” This clarifies the message, resource and purpose of the resource. Make sure links are underlined, not just a different colour, to help colour-blind people.
• Closed caption your videos and consider providing text format.
• Spell out all acronyms on first reference, unless they are extremely common or known by the acronym. CBC is well known, but UX isn’t always understood as standing for user experience.
• Use lowercase as much as possible. Capitalization/uppercase is harder for people to read.

Race, ethnicity and culture (immigrants and refugees included)

* Also see the Indigenous section of the TRU style guide.

Don’t use: Minority, visible minority
Use: Biracial, multiracial

• The language around race, ethnicity and culture is ever changing and is highly sensitive. The first rule in ensuring the right words are chosen is to be mindful and ask the person being written about what their preference is. Be mindful.
• Avoid stereotypes, labels and generalizations.
• Only identify someone by race, colour or national origin when pertinent. Do not make broad generalizations about diverse communities.
• Black is accepted as a proper name for a person’s race — hence it is uppercase; white is a generic, broad term, and therefore it is lowercase.
• You will sometimes hear the term BIPOC, which stands for Black, Indigenous and People of Colour. Do not use — it’s seen as lumping different people together.
• Capitalize proper names of nationalities, peoples, races, tribes, etc.
• Cultural and religious practices should not be assumed as understood for some people and not others. IE, not explaining a Catholic ritual but explaining a Muslim one assumes Catholicism is the ‘correct’ religion.

Sexual orientation and gender identity

Don’t use: Birth sex
Use: Assigned sex (at birth)

Don’t use: Born a girl/female/boy/male
Use: Assigned female/male at birth

Don’t use: Tranny, transvestite
Use: Transgender, gender nonbinary, genderqueer, queer

Don’t use: Preferred pronouns
Use: Pronouns (the term preferred suggests a choice about gender)

Don’t use: Ladies and gentlemen
Use: Esteemed guests, everyone

Don’t use: Husband and wife
Use: Partner or spouse

Don’t use: Mother and father
Use: Parents or guardians

Don’t use: Manpower
Use: Workforce or personnel

Don’t use: Mankind
Use: Humankind, humans, people

Don’t use: Miss, Mrs. (unless asked)
Use: Ms.

Use gender-neutral language. If in doubt about someone’s gender, ask or use “they” rather than he or she. Some people do not identify as men or women.

Always ask a person’s pronouns and use as they indicate: He/him/his, she/her/hers, they/them/theirs, ze/zir/zirs, etc. When using singular they, verb conjugations follow the same rules as those for singular you: they did, they are, themself / you did, you are, yourself.

Use a person’s current name — NOT their birth name — even when referring to the past, unless they give permission. This is deadnaming and it is extremely hurtful.

Socio-economic status

Don’t use: Homeless person
Use: A person without housing

Don’t use: Prostitute
Use: A person who engages in sex work

Don’t use: The poor
Use: People below the poverty threshold

Definitions

• Ally — Someone who recognizes their unearned privilege and is willing to act with, and for, others to create equality, even if it means stepping outside their comfort zones.
• Cisgender (Cis) — An individual whose gender identity aligns with their sex assigned at birth.
• Diversity — Involving representation or composition of various social identity groups in an organization, group, community, etc.
• Equity — The ongoing process of correcting unequal access and creating conditions for optimal outcomes by members of all social identity groups.
• Gender expression — How each individual expresses and presents their unique relationship to femininity and masculinity through clothing, hair, speech and mannerisms.
• Gender identity — A person’s innate sense of their gender. It entails a wide range of identities that include woman, man and those that exist between or outside of this binary (non-binary, gay, bigender, etc).
• Inclusion — Fostering an environment that offers affirmation, celebration and appreciation of different approaches, styles, perspectives and experiences so all individuals can participate and contribute.
• Non-binary — An individual whose gender identity does not conform to the gender binary of woman or man.
• Privilege — Unearned power based on status rather than earned merit, particularly the power that white people obtain as a result of benefitting from systemic racism.
• Racial identity — A person’s sense of being defined, in part, by membership in a particular racial group.
• Sex — Assigned at birth based on the anatomy of a child, including sex characteristics, hormones and chromosomes.
• Sexual Orientation — An inherent enduring emotional, romantic or sexual attraction to other people. It is typically defined by another’s gender in relation to one’s own.
• Transgender (Trans) — An umbrella term that describes a wide range of people whose gender identity differs from their sex assigned at birth.
• Two-Spirit — A cultural and spiritual identity used by some Indigenous people to describe gender variance and sexuality. It is a term coined in the 1990s a group of pan-national Indigenous people working to reclaim their traditional words, stories and roles post-colonization.

Resources:

• The Radical Copywriter Style Guide — a blog about writing about transgender people
• The BC Centre for Disease Control COVID-19 Inclusive Language Guide
• Words Matter, the BC Public Service guidelines on inclusive language in the workplace