Editor’s Corner
The “Theys” Have It – Or Does He or She?
R
ECENTLY, IN A DECISION that was heralded by some as transformative, by others as a “win for gender neutrality,” and by presumably the majority of the U.S. population as entirely irrelevant, the
American Dialect Society (come on, you know you’re a member)
identified the word “they” as its 2015 Word of the Year, and in so
doing gave the pronoun its official – and wide-reaching – approval to be used in the singular form.
Yay?
Let’s put this recommendation in context.
Previously, when reporting my extracurricular activities and
wanting to protect the identity of my companion, I might have
uttered the following sentence:
“I went with a friend to an all-night rave and he or she
ended the night face-planted on my spare couch.”
Now, according to the American Dialect Society, I can safely
say, without retribution from the Grammar Police:
“I went with a friend to an all-night rave, and they ended
the night face-planted on my spare couch.”
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ASH Clinical News
If you’re scandalized, by the way, “rave” is my code word for
“study session at the science library.”
Why is this relevant to us as health-care providers, though?
Certainly, we have all been in the position of discussing a
patient, wanting to protect that patient’s HIPPA rights, and struggling with ways to avoid identifying that patient’s sex or gender.
The word “they” makes that less cumbersome than the loquacious phrase “he or she,” and renders us less likely to slip.
Nota bene: “Sex” refers to a person’s biology, while “gender”
reflects one’s self-image as relating to sexual nature. Whereas in
the past ASH Clinical News has used the term “gender” in our
reporting to avoid the appearance of being too racy, henceforth
we will use “sex” as it relates to the biology of subjects in studies.
The Washington Post, in an opinion piece published December 4, 2015, also declared its intention of using the singular
“they,” in part because of the increasing visibility of genderneutral people.
Seems like a win all-around, right? Easy and politically correct.
Not so fast.
I may be in the minority, but – though I have many patients
who identify as gay, lesbian, transgender, bisexual, and by a variety of other gender- and non–gender-specific terms – I have yet
to treat someone who identifies as gender-neutral. I’m sure I will
one day, and will be sensitive to refer to that person in whatever
way is preferred.
Notice how, in the previous statement, I easily avoided using
the singular “they.”
The majority of my patients, regardless of their gender identity or sexual orientation, actually prefer that I be gender-specific,
rather than being neutral and, as a result, indistinct.
They even expect that, as a doctor, I will be accurate in identifying their gender or sex.
Which makes me wonder, are we using the limited genderneutral advantages of the singular “they” as a cloak for being
lazy about language? Don’t we value accuracy and specificity in
medicine, and trust ourselves to be flexible about our language if
an individual patient prefers nomenclature that differs?
I asked the editors-in-chief
of other ASH publications their
thoughts on this issue.
Bob Löwenberg, MD, PhD,
editor-in-chief of Blood, commented, tongue-in-cheek: “This
has not yet been one of the major
issues for us at Blood. While the
use of ‘they’ instead of the singular ‘he or she’ has the purpose
Mikkael A. Sekeres, MD, MS,
of introducing a neutral term, it
is director of the Leukemia
actually amplifies the impact of a
Program at the Cleveland Clinic
particular phrase. The traditional
in Cleveland, OH.
name of our journal has also been
singular until today. We now plan
to change the name of the Journal
to: Blood x 2, The Journals of the American Societies of Hematology.”
Jason Gotlib, MD, MS, editor-in-chief of The Hematologist,
countered: “I am generally supportive of the use of the genderneutral term ‘they’ when used to replace the awkwardness (albeit
inclusiveness) of the term ‘he or she.’ However, we have no plan
to change our publication to The Hematologists. I am looking
forward to a modern-day reboot of Abbott & Costello’s ‘Who’s
on First?’ to see how these dialect changes would play on the
baseball diamond.”
So, dear readers, please be advised that, for the foreseeable
future, and outside of direct quotes in interviews, ASH Clinical
News will continue to avoid the singular “they” in its pages, as I
suspect will Blood and The Hematologist.
What other grammatical decisions have we made?
With the now standard caveat of “outside of direct quotes,”
you won’t see us using “utilize.” The word “utilize” is defined by
Fowler’s Modern English Usage as being essentially a pretentious
form of the word “use.” It’s what I call an intellectual muscle car –
we deploy it to overcompensate when we want to sound smarter
than we feel, or hope to inject authority where it may be lacking.
In sum, you users should use “use” and hew the use of – ew –
“utilize,” which we rue.
“Currently” or “at the present time” are terms that have been
stricken from our sentences, and even direct quotes. I always
have to ask, what do either of these phrases add to a sentence
written in the present tense? By definition, a trial e