Last week, California State Senate Judiciary Committee chairwoman Hannah-Beth Jackson announced that only “gender neutral” pronouns will be permitted during committee hearings. The only pronoun that will be allowed is “they,” which means that “he” or “she” will not be allowed to be used when referring to a male or female. Senator Jackson claims that this change is due to California passing a law recognizing the non-binary designation as a gender, even though the change is going to result in the use of incorrect grammar. Senator Jackson stated the following the regarding the grammar change,
… He and she, we are now merging them so we are using what my grammar teacher would have had a heart attack over: we are using the phrase ‘they’ and replacing other designations so it’s a gender neutral designation.
According to the California Constitution, the Legislature has authority to do what they want for their committee rules, which means that Senator Jackson is able to make the grammar change. We will have to wait and see if this change will cause any issues.
