How complicated is gender-inclusive language?

Language should make the world describable and understandable. It is becoming increasingly important to make all people, and therefore all genders, linguistically visible. There are various ways of doing this, such as neopronouns, signatures or workarounds such as neutral salutations in e-mails.

Often, inclusive language is neglected in everyday speech with justifications such as “That's too complex for me.” or “I can only do that wrong anyway.”

But is language really that complicated? And why is it important at all? And how can it be implemented in everyday life?

In this impulse lecture, Né Fink gives an introduction to the topic of gender-inclusive language and explains what neopronouns, pronoun rounds, and other current discussions on the topic of gender-equal and gender-inclusive language are actually all about. Using current examples, Né Fink will show the advantages and disadvantages of various possibilities in the lecture. Together we want to develop an idea in the lecture how simple gender-inclusive language is and when, how and where linguistic changes make sense in everyday life at university.

Né Fink is a systemic consultant and self-employed as a gender diversity trainer. Né Fink has coordinated the project “Unterstützung von trans* Studierenden” at Georg August University Göttingen for two years. Through counseling sessions and consulting meetings with employees, Né has gained insight into the situation of many trans* and abinary employees, as well as the challenges they face in their daily lives. Né is voluntarily involved in trans* and family counseling at the Queer Center in Göttingen.