buoys though @buoys0ntheside - Tumblr Blog

We love this time of year on campus! Shoutout to Connie Li for this beautiful shot.

Gender neutral language - it’s here, it’s important, and it has tremendous effects on the lived experiences of transgender and queer folks who use it. My research focuses on the need for neutral language to express non-binary gender identities, the struggle surrounding how we represent ourselves in language in the fight against oppression, and how this process varies based on the linguistic and grammatical systems in English, French, German, and Swedish. The time has come for us to unlearn our gendered vocabularies and buck the linguistic binary

Levi Hord is a third-year Sexuality Studies, SASAH, and Scholar’s Electives student with a special interest in and passion for furthering transgender academia and theory. In the past year, Levi has undertaken extensive research on the use of gender-neutral language in transgender communities, and how linguistic identity expression varies based on grammatical gender systems. This project is part of a larger mission to raise awareness, and to enhance research into the subject of transgender identities and how they are embodied and experienced in today’s society. Once Levi has completed an undergraduate degree at Western, they want to apply to graduate school and specialize in Transgender Studies, with the hope of playing an integral part in breaking through the social and intellectual barriers that remain for those who subvert the binary gender system.

Read Levi’s paper on gender linguistics here