We are pleased to announce that Associate Professor of French Louisa Mackenzie has co-edited a forthcoming book in French on non-binary identities in the French language. Edited together with Professor Vinay Swamy of Vassar College, Devenir non-binaire en français contemporain (Becoming non-binary in contemporary French) will be published in February 2022 by the academic press Éditions Le Manuscrit in Paris. Professors Mackenzie and Swamy have assembled a group of scholars, activists, and artists from North America and Europe who both study and participate directly in the formation of non-binary identities in the French language. While the English singular "they" is recognized by an increasing number of dictionaries and stylebooks (though not without its critics) what happens in grammatically gendered languages such as French, in which the entire world -- humans and things alike -- is divided into masculine or feminine? This would seem to create obstacles for individuals seeking to express a non-binary gender in that language. But Mackenzie and Swamy's book sheds light on the range of gender-non-conforming linguistic creativity in French, and the extent to which neo-pronouns and other adaptations have been in use for a while.
The questions addressed in their book have become increasingly visible, and controversial, since the French dictionary Le Robert decided to include in its lexicon the non-binary or neutral pronoun "iel," along with a few variants. The reaction by many French public figures, including the President's wife and the minister for education, was one of outrage: along with some journalists, they did not hesitate to blame the influence of American identity politics, which they denounce as "le wokisme," and to issue full-throated defenses of their language and culture. In this context of heightened reactivity to non-binary identity in particular, and to the perceived threat to French national identity from American social justice movements in general, Mackenzie and Swamy and the contributors to their volume intervene in a timely way, addressing frontally the tensions between France and North America, and revealing the many ways in which French speakers and learners have long been creatively navigating the constraints of their language in order to create new cultures and communities that reflect who they are. In addition to its seven contributing authors, the book has a preface by Karine Solene Espineira, a leading figure in French trans justice, and features cartoons by trans author Sophie Labelle, who visited the UW in 2018.
The book is available for preorder on Amazon.fr.