Washington Post reporters are now allowed to use the singular “they” to refer to persons who do not wish to be assigned a gender, the newspaper’s copy editor announced this week.
“It is usually possible, and preferable, to recast sentences as plural to avoid both the sexist and antiquated universal default to male pronouns and the awkward use of he or she, him or her and the like: All students must complete their homework, not Each student must complete his or her homework,” the Post’s Bill Walsh said in note to reporters.
Poynter was first to obtain a copy of the Walsh memo.
“When such a rewrite is impossible or hopelessly awkward, however, what is known as ‘the singular they’ is permissible: Everyone has their own opinion about the traditional grammar rule. The singular they is also useful in references to people who identify as neither male nor female,” he added.
The move comes on the heels of the New York Times making the slow but gradual move towards incorporating “Mx.” into its reporting as a gender-neutral substitute for persons who don’t wish to be identified as “Mr.” or “Ms.”
Examples of the Times using “Mx.” as an identifier can be found in articles published this weekend, as well as in reports published in June of this year and June 2014.
Though the newspaper appears to be warming to the idea of using “Mx.” with greater frequency, the Times’ standards editor Philip B. Corbett told the Washington Examiner that the term hasn’t been fully incorporated into the group’s style guide.
“In my view, it’s too soon to set down any clear-cut style guidelines in this area. Our approach on style decisions is generally to follow accepted, settled usage, not to make the rules,” Corbett said in a statement provided to the Examiner and the New York Observer.
“But in referring to people who don’t identify as male or female, I think usage is still evolving and there’s not one settled or widely recognized set of guidelines. In the meantime, we just have to discuss situations case by case. The two main goals are to be respectful to those we write about, and to be clear to our readers,” he added.
