“I am not your partner, I am your partner”: so a non-binary person burst into tears and asked to be mentioned in inclusive language | the Chronicle

A reference person in the LGBTQ + community and student of the Digital Art career in Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico, He demanded in a virtual classroom that inclusive language pronouns be respected and his request went viral on networks.

“I am not your partner, I am your partner”he protested, between tears, Andra Escamilla, whose claim has gone viral through a video that has accumulated thousands of views on social networks.

Escamilla explained that she identifies as a trigger person, that is to say, non-binary, which is self-perceived in various genres. For this reason, he demanded that his person be designated by the inclusive pronoun “she” O “he”.

For his part, the partner who treated him with the feminine pronoun, identified as Max Carvajal, issued a public apology in the virtual classroom. “Sorry, excuse me buddy … there was a hurricane recently here in Xalapa, there were people affected”said the student.

Despite the apologies, the non-binary person accused his teachers of being homophobic, after the topic of hurricane damage was brought up in class. “Grace”, which affected thousands of people in Puebla and Veracruz, Mexico.

In the class in question, a presentation on suicide had taken place, leading Andra to speak about the vulnerability of the LGBTQ + community. Andra was upset from the moment we talked about the gender binary and not “Binary”. The discussion escalated despite the fact that the professors tried to intervene and come back to the topic of the presentation on several occasions.

The term ‘companion’ has become a trend on Twitter

On Twitter Mexico the word “partner ” it has become a trend, as many people have used the term to criticize rather than to care about inclusive language. In ese sentido, el chico que llamó “compañera” a Andra, lamentó que en las redes se volviera blanco de críticas, burlas y memes, por lo que en su vídeo pidió no atacar a Andra y le ofreció su apoyo en caso de que necesitara talk with someone.

Despite the fact that some social media users have vowed to criticize the person claiming to be named through inclusive language, other netizens have supported his position: “It is important to respect the way people want to be referred to”.

Others have wondered where the limits of inclusive language are, that is, the way of speaking, writing and thinking that seeks the greatest use of neutral words, in terms of gender.

For his part, a TikTok user, identified as @ Lishf_5112, explained on his channel that it was not the first time that Andra had this type of reaction.

The position of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) on inclusive language

The Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) qualified as “useless” the use of inclusive language, after a request made by a user via Twitter under the hashtag #dudaRAE, the channel through which the institution receives questions about the language.

“Say girls or everyone in exchange for boys and everyone is dumb?”, a user asked via Twitter a few months ago, so the @RAEinforma account replied: “The use of the letter ‘e’ as a supposed gender inclusive mark is foreign to the morphology of Spanish, and unnecessary, since the grammatical masculine (‘boys’) already fulfills this function as an unmarked term of gender opposition “.