Gender neutral language in French

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Gender neutral language

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Like all Romance languages, French has many gendered markers in nouns and adjectives. This page explains the different strategies that are used to be as neutral as possible with this language.

Non neologisms

Refeminization

Before the 17th century, French had — as Italian, Spanish, and other Romance languages still have today — a feminine inflection for female professionals. However, for several reasons (both societal, i.e., misogynistic and linguistic, as the French language was being standardized and dialect speakers were expected to learn French), grammarians made sure that the feminine denominations vanished from the language. Today, a lot of people talk of 'feminization', because they feel like these occupational titles are neologisms. However, they actually aren't, since they are being recovered from an older version of the French language, which is why 'refeminization' is more accurate. Even though it sounds counter-intuitive, refeminization is part of a process to degenderize the French language, since studies from different languages have shown that the generic masculine is cognitively not neutral, even though the French prescriptive grammar considers it as such. By mentioning also the feminine form of a word, speakers visualize people of more genders than just one.

Masculine	Feminine by the Académie	Refeminized
un auteur	une auteur(e)	une autrice
un professeur	une professeur(e)	une professeuse
un peintre	une peintre	une peintresse
un chirurgien	une femme chirurgien	une chirurgienne

Doublets

For example, « Nous prions les étudiantes et (les) étudiants de remettre leur copie à la personne responsable ». Some people don't enjoy the repetition, others consider that the doublets don't encompass all genders, others again are unsure which form to mention first, since the order conveys information about the value the speaker gives to each item.

Shortened doublets

The feminine suffix is attached to the masculine, rather than the whole word being repeated (as in classical doublets).

Middle dot	Dot	Parentheses	Slash	Dash
professionnel·les professionnel·le·s	acteur.rice	employé(e)	chanteur/euse	boulanger-ère

Epicene person descriptions

For example, « Les élèves apprennent leur leçon. »; « L'enfant regarde la télévision. »; « Les juges ont pris leur décision. ». Since singular articles mark gender ('la' and 'le'), this functions best with plural forms. It works with singular forms if the noun starts with a vowel, because the article automatically turns into 'l'...', which doesn't mark gender. A downside is that there aren't epicene occupational titles for all professions or functions.

Grammatically fixed gender nouns and impersonal formulations

The table below shows gendered language on the left and neutral — i.e. grammatical gender that has nothing to do with biological sex or gender identity — language on the right.

Impersonal formulations

Inclusive gendered language	Inclusive neutral language
Les auditrices et auditeurs sont attentifs.	L'auditoire est attentif.
Les spectateurs et spectatrices sont très calmes aujourd'hui.	Le public est très calme aujourd'hui.

Grammatically fixed gender nouns

Explicit binary gender	Grammatically fixed gender
Je ne connais pas cet homme.	Je ne connais pas cette personne.
La mère de Jo ne parle pas le néerlandais.	Le parent de Jo ne parle pas le néerlandais.

Proximity agreement

Up to the 18th century, in adjectives and past participles, the masculine gender didn't necessarily prevail over the feminine in cases where the genders could theoretically be congruent: proximity and free-choice agreement coexisted along with the masculine-over-feminine rule. For a long part of ancient French history, proximity agreement was the most widespread way to make adjectives, past participles, etc. agree (cf. Anglade 1931:172). Today, this agreement could allow for equality between grammatical genders instead of the masculine-over-feminine hierarchy that was suggested in the 17th and 18th century by the French grammarians Malherbe, Vaugelas, Bouhours and Beauzée:

• « Le genre masculin, étant le plus noble, doit prédominer toutes les fois que le masculin et le féminin se trouvent ensemble. » (Claude Favre de Vaugelas, Remarques sur la langue française, 1647).
• « Lorsque les deux genres se rencontrent, il faut que le plus noble l’emporte. » (Bouhours 1675).
• « Le genre masculin est réputé plus noble que le féminin à cause de la supériorité du mâle sur la femelle. » (Beauzée 1767).

Masculine-prevails-over-feminine rule	Proximity agreement
Ces œillets et ces roses sont beaux.	Ces œillets et ces roses sont belles.
Les nombreux filles et garçons.	Les nombreuses filles et garçons.

Neologisms

Personal pronouns

Subject pronouns

French only marks gender on the third person singular (cf. 'elle' and 'il'). Up to the 12th century, French knew the neutral subject pronoun 'el'/'al'. Today, 'el' cannot be recuperated from ancient French as it would be pronounced the same as 'elle', the current feminin subject pronoun. As for 'al', it sounds like 'elle' in spoken Laurentian French (Canada). It could, however, be an interesting candidate for the rest of the francophone community. Nowadays, according to the Guide de rédaction inclusive (2021:14) from the Laval University, the Guide de grammaire neutre et inclusive (2021:5) from Divergenres, the Petit dico de français neutre/inclusif (2018) from La vie en Queer, and Wiki Trans (2019), the most widespread subject (neo)pronoun is 'iel'. It was added 2021 to the grand dictionary Le Robert. Next to 'iel', Laurentian French also uses 'ille'. In metropolitan France, the 'al' pronoun proposed by the linguist Alpheratz in their book Grammaire du français inclusif (2018) has gained some recognition. The following table presents the main gender neutral subject pronouns found in the French-speaking world.

	Gender neutral subject pronouns
Dominant usage	iel [jɛl]	ille [ij]	al
Peripheral usage	ol	ul	ael

Clitic and tonic pronouns

French distinguishes between clitic and tonic pronouns. A clitic is a word that attaches in a syntactically rigid way to another word to form a prosodic unit with it, lacking prosodic as well as distributional autonomy. Currently, there is no prevailing gender neutral clitic direct object personal pronoun; the most common ones are detailed below.

Clitic pronouns

Subject	Direct object	Indirect object
il	le, (l')	lui
elle	la, (l')	lui
iel	lae [lae]/lo/li/lu, (l')	lui
ils	les	leur
elles	les	leur
iels	les	leur

Tonic pronouns are also called 'autonomous' because, in opposition to clitics, they form their own prosodic unit and can stand alone in the sentence, hence their distribution isn't as fixed as the clitics' one. There are currently two competing systems: one consists in syncretizing (cf. analogical levelling) clitic and tonic pronouns, following the paradigm of standard French 'elle', which equates keeping the gender neutral subject pronoun — be it 'iel', 'ille', 'al' or 'ol', etc. — as such; the other approach, exemplified in the table below with 'iel', supports differentiating (cf. analogical extension) clitics from tonic pronouns, thereby aligning with the paradigm of 'il'.

Analogical extension

clitic subject pronoun	tonic pronoun
il	lui
elle	elle
iel	ellui [ɛllɥi]
ils	eux
elles	elles
iels	elleux [ɛllø]

Determiners

Indefinite and definite article

The distinction between 'analytic gender neutral' versus 'synthetic gender neutral' is usually referred to as 'inclusif' versus 'neutre'. On the one hand, while there is no evidence from psycholinguistic studies suggesting that compounds — such as 'maon', from 'ma' and 'mon' — and portmanteau words like 'utilisateurice' cannot be cognitively interpreted as neutral, these forms could technically also be called that way. On the other hand, since gender neutral forms are inherently inclusive of all genders, there is no reason why they cannot be called that way either. The subsequent interchangeability of these terms makes them unsuitable for differentiating these two methods of creating gender neutral/gender inclusive French words. For this reason, the following table distinguishes them based on their morphological properties— blend words being more analytical and non blend words being more synthetic.

	Masculine	Feminine	Analytic gender neutral	Synthetic gender neutral
Indefinite article	un	une		an [ã]/[an], eune [øn]
Definite article	le	la	lae [lae], lea [ləa]	lo, li, lu, lia

Possessive adjectives

	Masculine	Feminine	Analytic gender neutral	Synthetic gender neutral
1SG	mon	ma	maon [maõ]	man [mã]/[man], my [mi]
2SG	ton	ta	taon [taõ]	tan [tã]/[tan], ti
3SG	son	sa	saon [saõ]	san [sã]/[san], sine [sin]

Demonstrative adjective

Masculine	Feminine	Analytic gender neutral	Synthetic gender neutral	Plural
ce/cet	cette		cèd	ces

Non personal pronouns

Possessive pronouns

	Masculine	Feminine	Analytic gender neutral	Synthetic gender neutral
Singular	le mien [lə mjɛ̃]	la mienne [la mjɛn]	lae mienn [lae mjɛ̃n]	lo miem
Plural	les miens [le mjɛ̃]	les miennes [le mjɛn]	les mienns [le mjɛ̃n]	les miems

Demonstrative pronouns

	Masculine	Feminine	Analytic gender neutral	Synthetic gender neutral
Singular	celui [səlɥi]	celle [sɛl]	cellui [sɛlɥi]
Plural	ceux [sø]	celles [sɛl]	celleux [sɛlø]	ceuxes [søks]

Nouns and adjectives

The predominant neutral form, between the analytic and the synthetic gender-neutral approach, is denoted in italics in the table. Words such as 'professionnel' and 'professionnelle', which are orally epicene and, thus, indistinguishable in speech, are not included; the use of their shortened doublet form enables inclusivity and gender neutrality in written language.

	masculine	feminine	analytic gender neutral	synthetic gender neutral
	Endings from Latin '-or' and '-rix'
-eur/-euse	enquêteur	enquêteuse	enquêteureuse	enquêtaire
-eur/-rice	acteur	actrice	acteurice	actaire
-eur/-_resse1	docteur	doctoresse	docteuresse	doctaire
-eur/-_resse2	enchanteur	enchanteresse	enchanteuresse	enchantaire
-e/-esse	maître	maîtresse	maîtré/maîtrè (or maîtræ)	maîtrexe
-ard/-asse	connard	connasse		connarde
	Endings from latin '-ōsus'
-eux/-euse	amoureux	amoureuse		amoureuxe [amuʁøks]
-eux/-esse	dieuxe	déesse	dieuesse	dieuxe
	Endings with '-x' (♂︎) and '-[s]' (♀︎)
-x/-sse	roux	rousse		rouxe
-x/-ce	doux	douce		douxe
	Endings with nasal vowels in the masculine form
-ain/-aine	écrivain [ekʁivɛ̃]	écrivaine [ekʁivɛn]	écrivainn [ekʁivɛ̃n]	écrivan
-ain/-ine	copain	copine	copainn [kɔpɛ̃n], copaine [kɔpɛn]
-in/-ine	cousin [kuzɛ̃]	cousine [kuzin]	cousinn [kuzɛ̃n]	cousaine [kuzɛn]
-an/-anne	paysan [pɛizã]	paysanne [pɛizan]	paysann [pɛizãn]	paysaine [pɛizɛn]
-ien/-ienne	citoyen [sitwajɛ̃]	citoyenne [sitwajɛn]	citoyenn [sitwajɛ̃n]	citoyan
-un/-une1	brun [bʁœ̃]	brune [bʁyn]	brunn [bʁœ̃n]	braine, bran
-un/-une2	opportun [ɔpɔʁtœ̃]	opportune [ɔpɔʁtyn]	opportunn [ɔpɔʁtœ̃n]	opportaine
-on/-onne	mignon [miɲõ]	mignonne [miɲɔn]	mignonne [miɲõn]	mignan
	Endings with silent consonant (♂︎) and audible consonant (♀︎)
-t/-te	pâlot	pâlotte		pâlode, pâlat, pâlasse
-d/-de	grand	grande		grante, granxe, gransse
-iet/iète	inquiet	inquiète		inquiède
-g/gue	oblong	oblongue		oblonk
-c/-che	blanc	blanche		blank
-er/-ière	premier [pʁəmje]	première [pʁəmjɛʁ]	premiérère, premiér [pʁəmjeʁ]
-s/-se	antillais	antillaise		antillaisse
-s/-che	frais	fraîche		fraisse
-s/-sse	bas	basse		base
	Endings with a rounded vowel (♂︎) and '-_(l)le' (♀︎)
-eau/-elle	jumeau	jumelle	jumelleau, jumeaulle
-ou/-olle	fou	folle	follou, foulle
-aux/-ales	spéciaux	spéciales	spécialaux, spéciaules
-eux/-lle	vieux/vieil	vieille	vieilleux, vieuille
	Endings with consonant $x$ (♂︎) and consonant $x$ with phonetic change triggered by presence of final "-e" (♀︎)
-c/-che	sec	sèche	seckèche
-f/-ve	naïf	naïve	naïfive
	Some examples of gender neutral nouns from irregular substantives
👑	roi	reine	roine
🦸🏽‍♂️	héros	héroïne	héroïnos	héroane, héroal
👨‍👨‍👧‍👦	frère	sœur	frœur, srère	adelphe
👱🏿	Monsieur	Madame		Monestre

Discussion

The analytic gender neutral forms that originate from Latin '-or' and '-rix' are currently in use, even though they haven't been added to any French dictionary yet. Some podcasts where you can hear them are Les Couilles sur la table, Parler comme jamais and Papatriarcat. Apart from the italic denoted forms, most of the words depicted in the table are not in use. The table thus merely represents suggestions that have been made for neutralizing French, and features the items that have been retained by most blogs, researchers and LGBT communities in the French-speaking world.

Regarding the neoforms created with the '-aire' suffix (avantages et désavantages par rapport à '-eureuse').