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I'm gonna be talking, of course, of grammatical gender, because of this viral image:

I'm sure you've seen an image like this floating around and people crying about how having non-binary be translated with a feminine and masculine form depending on usage defeats the purpose of the term.

But it doesn't!!!

Spanish is not like English, it has ✨grammatical gender✨ which has nothing to do with gender identity whatsoever. It's not that we believe chairs are female and stools are male, our grammar is just like this. Every word has a grammatical gender and there must be grammatical gender concordance. Thus, non-binary must have both a feminine and masculine form to use depending with which word you're pairing it.

Let's say you want to talk about a "non-binary person". 'Person' in Spanish is 'persona' a grammatically feminine word (despite its usage being gender neutral and encompassing people of any gender, as I said, grammatical gender ≠ gender identity). Because 'persona' is a grammatically feminine word, you have to apply grammatical concordance accordingly, and so to say "non-binary person" you would say "persona no binaria".

Now let's say you want to talk about "non-binary gender". 'Gender' in Spanish is 'género' a grammatically masculine word, and because of that to say "non-binary gender" you would say "género no binario".

See? It's not about grammatically imposed misgendering, it's about how this language is built.

But Shine, I hear you say, that's all nice and good, but how do I refer to my non-binary friend? And well, dear reader, you're in luck because I'm not only Spaniard but also non-binary myself.

In Spanish 'friend' (like a whole lot of words) has a feminine and masculine form. When those words are used to refer to people, grammatical gender does match gender identity. For the most part. And broadly speaking, feminine words are associated with the vowel -a, and masculine with the vowel -o (this is not universal, there are exceptions to this, I'm trying to paint the broad picture to give you a general idea).

So what about gender neutral? Well, officially we don't have one. The Real Academia Española doesn't recognize it... But the RAE isn't word of god, it compiles usage, so the more a term is used, the more chances it will be officially recognized. Not using a term because it's not officially recognized is actively detrimental to the goal you want to achieve.

Okay, not an official gender neutral, but what have we come up with? Well, at least in Spain, it's associating gender neutral to the vowel -e. So you have the femenine ella/la/-a, the masculine él/lo/-o, and the gender neutral elle/le/-e.

Now time for practical examples!

"My friend, David, is a boy." 🇬🇧 → 🇪🇸 "Mi amigo, David, es un chico."

"My friend, Liz, is a girl." 🇬🇧 → 🇪🇸 "Mi amiga, Liz, es una chica."

"My friend, Alex, is non-binary." 🇬🇧 → 🇪🇸 "Mi amigue, Alex, es no binarie."

And that's how you do it!! At least in queer friendly spaces in Spain, can't speak for other places. I have seen the 'x' thrown around to make gender neutral in Spanish, but -e is way more intuitive for spoken language, so I like it better.

Cats romp in a cherry tree. Tit, Tiny, and Tittens. 1865.

"The hat is customizable," he said, struggling with the velcro patch on the front. "If I need it, I have an ICE one too. I pick based off the business i walk into."

"Customizable is an important hat descriptor," I said. "what can I get you?"

"You wouldn't believe how offended people get these days," he said. "And I'm supposed to do something about it if you're offended? You chose to be offended!"

"We all have hundreds of thousands of decisions everyday," I said. I thickened my accent. "That's what my stepdad always said. But I can make one easier - we have a delicious Ethiopian roast available."

"Like if I told you you have a bull ring," he said, "because bulls have rings in their noses. Is that offensive?"

I laughed. "I've heard that before."

"It's a joke, but people get offended. Maybe you're offended."

I looked at him. I smiled. "You aren't trying to offend me though, right?"

Of course he was. I was being friendly and the friendlier I was, the faster he switched topics. He was saying anything inflammatory he could think of to see if I'd take the bait. After about 20 minutes of my redirecting and deescalating, he settled into a more normal interaction. He took up too much of my time showing me a product I'd feigned mild interest in to get him to stop talking about getting accused of inappropriate behavior at work. When we finally disengaged, he spent 10 minutes trying to catch my eye again. When he failed, he left.

There's this new breed of customer who insists on trying to incite political conversation through their clothing and, when that doesnt work, their snide little comments. If I owned my own business, maybe I would have given the guy the fight he wanted. But I work for a corporation and I love paying my bills so I deescalated.