Where this guidance sits
The Style Manual groups its inclusive-language advice under one aim: language that is culturally appropriate and respectful of the diversity of Australia’s peoples. It has five pages under that heading.
- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples
- Age diversity
- Cultural and linguistic diversity
- Gender and sexual diversity
- Disability and neurodiversity
Pronouns belong to the fourth. That page opens: “Inclusive language conveys gender equality and is gender neutral. Respect people’s gender and sexual identity with pronoun choice, job titles and personal titles.”
Pronouns: the guidance, line by line
- Learn the person’s pronoun. If it isn’t clear and you can’t ask them, choose gender-neutral pronouns.
- Singular they is gender-neutral: it avoids specifying a person’s gender.
- You can use they or them where you would otherwise use he, she, him or her.
- You can use themselves or themself instead of himself or herself; themself is an extension of using they for one person.
- Singular they takes the plural form of the verb.
The Manual also explains whom this serves. Using gender-neutral pronouns for a person of unknown gender has a long history, it says, and usage now covers people who don’t wish to identify as a particular gender, and people who identify as non-binary or gender-fluid. The history has its own drawer: singular they.
When you don’t need a pronoun at all
The Manual notes that there are many ways to avoid gender-specific pronouns, and gives three examples:
You must provide copies of the application to your referees. (speak to the reader directly)
Candidates must provide copies of the application to their referees. (make the subject plural)
Every candidate must provide copies of the application to referees. (leave the pronoun out)
Titles: Ms and Mx
Personal titles carry some of the same information as pronouns, and the Manual treats them together.
- Ms is now widely used instead of Mrs or Miss, and doesn’t disclose marital status.
- Mx refers to non-binary people and those who don’t wish to be referred to by their gender. The Manual’s advice is to use it when a person indicates this is what they prefer, but not otherwise.
On forms and surveys, the Manual says not to ask for a title or gender identity unless the form is designed to collect that information. A form can ask for a person’s given and family name without asking for a preferred title.
Job titles
The same page advises against job titles ending in -man or -woman, and against job terms that specify women. These pairs are the Manual’s own.
| Write this | Not this |
|---|---|
| police officer | policeman |
| firefighter | fireman |
| supervisor | foreman |
| minister of religion | clergyman |
| actor | actress |
| flight attendant | stewardess |
Selected from the Style Manual’s lists. It adds that gender-specific adjectives belong only where gender is relevant, as in an economic analysis of “female-dominated” or “male-dominated” industries.
Where language is still changing
The Manual is candid that this area is moving. It asks writers to take care where language is changing, and to follow the rule that people have the right to identify their sexual orientation and gender identity as they choose. It says the discussion about words for other aspects of gender and sexual diversity is still evolving.
It also notes the law in the background: under the Sex Discrimination Act 1984, it is unlawful to discriminate against a person in areas such as work, education, and goods and services, on grounds including their sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and intersex status. That is the Manual’s summary of the law, not legal advice about any situation. The Act itself also sets out exemptions. Under section 38, for example, the Act does not make it unlawful to discriminate on grounds that include sexual orientation and gender identity, but not intersex status, in deciding who is offered a staff position at, or in dismissing staff from, an educational institution run in line with a particular religion’s teachings, or in the education it provides, where that is done in good faith to avoid injury to the religious susceptibilities of that religion’s adherents.
Terms, as the Style Manual defines them
The Manual gives short definitions of the words people use about gender and sexual diversity. It is careful to say they are not the only ways to use these words, and that they highlight some of the main points and distinctions.
- Gender
- About social and cultural differences and identity.
- Gender expression
- The way a person expresses their gender.
- Gender identity
- About who a person feels themself to be.
- Non-binary, gender-queer
- People who don’t identify as either male or female. They may identify as both or neither.
- Gender-fluid
- People who do not identify with a fixed gender.
- Transgender
- People whose gender identity is different from that given to them at birth.
- Intersex
- People with innate genetic, hormonal or physical sex characteristics that do not conform to medical norms for female or male bodies.
- Sex characteristics
- A person’s physical sex features, such as chromosomes, hormones and reproductive organs.
- Sexual orientation
- A person’s romantic or sexual attraction to another person.
- LGBTI and LGBTIQ+
- The Manual notes that Australian Government agencies use both.
For more on these terms, the Manual points readers to the Australian Human Rights Commission, the Australian Institute of Family Studies and Intersex Human Rights Australia.
In practice
Most of this comes back to the first line of the guidance. If you know the pronoun a person uses, use it. If you don’t, and can’t ask, they is the Style Manual’s choice. And where a sentence reads more simply with no pronoun at all, the Manual shows that is an option too.
Sources for this drawer
- Australian Government Style Manual, Gender and sexual diversity
- Australian Government Style Manual, Inclusive language and Pronouns
- Federal Register of Legislation, Sex Discrimination Act 1984