LSA Files Amicus Brief in Florida Demonstrating that Pronouns Are Social, Complex, and Dynamic

August 2, 2024
 
WASHINGTON, DC--The Linguistic Society of America has filed an amicus brief with the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit regarding a Florida law barring transgender and non-binary teachers from stating their chosen pronouns or titles in the classroom.
 
The brief provides extensive linguistic evidence disproving Florida’s misguided claim that a transgender person using their preferred pronouns constitutes a false statement, and that doing so confuses children.
 
Linguistic science demonstrates that pronouns express qualities such as “formality, politeness, social distance, social status, place of origin, religious role, age, and gender.” They do not make an “objective truth claim” about biological characteristics. This becomes plainly clear when a child refers to a stuffed animal as “he,” or an adult refers to a boat as “she.”
 
Linguistic research also demonstrates that there is broad variation in the number and uses of pronouns across languages. Although Florida tried to assert that pronouns are exclusively tied to biological sex by selectively quoting English dictionaries, “the gold-standard Oxford English Dictionary (2024) defines ‘he’ and ‘she’ by reference to both ‘sex’ and ‘gender’—the latter defined as referring to a set of social and cultural traits, not biological ones.”
 
Moreover, linguistic literature demonstrates that children readily learn the languages that surround them, even when those languages include dozens of pronouns used in dynamic and changing ways. Indeed, the brief demonstrates that it would be far more confusing for children if the school community ignored all visible social characteristics of a transgender woman and referred to that person as “Mr.” and used “he” and “him” pronouns.
 

For more information, contact lsa@lsadc.org.
 
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About the Linguistic Society of America

The Linguistic Society of America was founded in 1924 with the mission of advancing the scientific study of language. LSA plays a critical role in supporting and disseminating linguistic scholarship to linguists and to the public for the advancement of knowledge and the betterment of society.