Milei ends Argentine government use of ‘inclusive language’ promoted by gender ideology advocates

Buenos Aires, Argentina, Feb 28, 2024 / 19:19 pm

Argentine President Javier Milei has ordered the prohibition of inclusive language by the national government, the spokesman for office of the president, Manuel Adorni, announced at his daily press conference.

In Spanish, all nouns have a gender, usually designated by the “-o” ending for masculine and the “-a” ending for feminine. In order to make a generically masculine word to cover both sexes, inclusive-language proponents have invented gender-neutral endings. 

Adorni explained that steps are to be taken “to prohibit inclusive language and everything related to gender perspective throughout the national public administration” and specified that “the letter ‘e’ the ‘@,’ [and] ‘x’ will not be used along with the unnecessary inclusion of the feminine variation of a word in all public administration documents.”

“The language that covers all sectors is the one we use,” the spokesman continued. “It’s the Castilian language; it’s Spanish.”

On Feb. 23, the Ministry of Defense released a resolution in which it stated that the use of “so-called ‘inclusive language’” does not correspond to the regulations set by the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) and the Argentine Academy of Letters.

Therefore, the document states, “it is necessary to adopt a measure to eliminate incorrect forms of language within the Ministry of Defense and the Armed Forces.”

So-called “inclusive language” promoted by gender ideology advocates usually requires the modification of the grammatical gender of words so that they do not directly refer to masculine or feminine, using letters such as “x” and “e” or symbols like “@,” thus changing words like “todos” (a masculine generic for “everyone” whether men or women) for the gender neutral “todxs,” “todes,” or “tod@s.” 

Another common usage is to take a generically masculine word such as “ciudadanos” (“citizens,” whether male or female) and make a distinction by using the separate masculine and feminine forms of the word. An English equivalent would be instead of just saying “citizens,” saying “men and women citizens.” 

According to the United Nations, inclusive language serves to “promote gender equality and combat gender prejudice.”

Royal Spanish Academy rips ‘inclusive language’

On more than one occasion, the RAE, which officially determines the correct use of Spanish, has made a pronouncement on so-called “inclusive language,” considering it “unnecessary” and alien to “the morphology of Spanish.”

The institution has also maintained that the generic grammatical masculine “is firmly established” and “does not imply any sexist discrimination.”

The director of the RAE, Santiago Muñoz Machado, told the Spanish newspaper ABC in 2021 that inclusive language “disfigures the language in an unsustainable manner.”

Pope Francis and gender ideology

On several occasions, Pope Francis has referred critically to gender ideology. The most recent instance was in January during a speech to the Diplomatic Corps accredited to the Holy See, when he stressed that gender ideology is “extremely dangerous” because “it erases the differences in its claim to make everyone equal.” 

In March 2023, the Holy Father spoke along similar lines, saying: “Gender ideology, at this moment, is one of the most dangerous ideological colonizations. It goes beyond the sexual. Why is it dangerous? Because it dilutes differences and the value of men and women and of all humanity.” 

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.