Leaders in the House of Representatives announced on Friday a rules package for the 117th Congress that includes a proposal to use “gender-inclusive language” and eliminate gendered terms such as “‘father, mother, son, daughter,” and more.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Rules Committee Chairman James McGovern (D-Mass.) announced on Friday that the rules package includes changes that would “honor all gender identities by changing pronouns and familial relationships in the House rules to be gender neutral.”
A separate announcement from McGovern (pdf) said that the Democratic rules package will make “Changes [to] pronouns and familial relationships in the House rules to be gender neutral or removes references to gender, as appropriate, to ensure we are inclusive of all Members, Delegates, Resident Commissioners and their families—including those who are nonbinary.”
Terms to be struck from clause 8(c)(3) of rule XXIII, the House’s Code of Official Conduct, as outlined in the proposed rules (pdf), include “father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, first cousin, nephew, niece, husband, wife, father-in-law, mother-in-law, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, stepfather, stepmother, stepson, stepdaughter, stepbrother, stepsister, half brother, half sister, grandson, [and] granddaughter.”
Such terms would be replaced with “parent, child, sibling, parent’s sibling, first cousin, sibling’s child, spouse, parent-in-law, child-in-law, sibling-in-law, stepparent, stepchild, stepsibling, half-sibling, [and] grandchild.”
According to the proposed rules, “seamen” would be replaced with “seafarers,” and “Chairman” would be replaced with “Chair” in Rule X of the House.
