STF strikes down law against neutral language!

Last Friday, the 10th, the STF overturned the law that prohibited the use of neutral language in schools in the state of Rondônia. At the time, nine of the eleven ministers voted for the unconstitutionality of this type of law. This should directly impact other Bills and even laws passed in other Brazilian states on the subject.

Bills against the use of neutral language

In recent times the use of neutral language has caused much confusion, especially through its use in official meetings of the Federal government. For many, this is an attack on the Portuguese language, while many others argue that it is an important form of inclusion. This debate even culminated in laws and bills, such as the one stf took down.

Altogether, there are more or less forty-five initiatives similar to the Rondônia law throughout Brazil. According to a survey by the Federal University of São Carlos, UFSCar, it is possible to find initiatives like this in at least nineteen of the twenty-seven federal units in the country.

According to the analysis of several jurists, the STF's vote on this issue should raise awareness of similar bills that are being processed. Currently, there is great resistance from some sectors of society to this type of language.

For example, there is a group that demands, on a daily basis, the Brazilian Academy of Letters for a note opposing this language in official meetings. However, so far the institution has not yet manifested itself.

After all, what is neutral language?

Neutral language is an alternative to the use of the tongue in its binary form in inflection in male and female. This is because there are other individuals who do not recognize themselves in this normativity. Thus, there is a change of pronouns and also of some nouns.

For example, the use of the noun boy or girl would become “menine”. While other pronouns are included, such as elu, to refer to people who identify as “non-binary” or as “intersex”.