It is impossible for language to define the incredible variety and diversity of human reality. At our school we want all people to feel included and at the same time express our disagreement with any type of discrimination and our commitment to change. That is why we make a great effort to publish our website in Spanish, Valencian and English and in all school documentation we try to use inclusive and non-sexist language.
In the longer documents that are part of our Proyecto Educativo de Centro and for which we have more time, we are very careful with the vocabulary we use, moving away from the generic masculine, using both genders or more inclusive words following the recommendations of documents such as the ” Guía para la revisión del lenguaje desde la perspectiva de género” prepared by Mercedes Bengoechea, from the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the University of Alcalá de Henares or the ” Guía de Comunicación no sexista ” published by the Cervantes Institute.
In shorter documents, ads, slogans and visual presentations or telegram communications, the publications are only in Spanish and we tend to use the “@” symbol, sometimes for economy and sometimes for design purposes. When some of the fonts we use do not allow this symbol, we use the “x”, not as a gender identifier, but precisely to help make all the variants visible and to stop perpetuating stereotypes as indicated by current regulations on education in the Valencian Community, highlighting the problem of injustice and inequality that exists in our society.
In the end, each person must decide whether or not they feel part of that reality that the language describes. We would love to have enough staff and time to be able to do all the presentations so that all of our students would feel represented, but that would be impossible, so I encourage you to feel fully included in that X.