Quebec government bans gender-neutral pronouns in official state documents

MONTREAL – The Quebec government is banning the use of recently invented gender-neutral words in all official communications, in what it says is an attempt to protect the integrity of the French language. 

The updated language policy applies to new words including gender-neutral pronouns that are commonly used by transgender and non-binary people. French-language Minister Jean-François Roberge said Wednesday that “more and more” public bodies have been using such words, which is causing confusion. 

“It’s as if everyone had their own grammar,” he told reporters. “It doesn’t make sense.”

Roberge insisted the move is about ensuring clarity, not an attack on trans rights. “I don’t want to exclude anybody. We are open-minded. We want people to be happy,” he said. The province says non-binary people will still be able to use the gender marker X on certain government documents.

But critics were quick to cast the new policy as a solution in search of a problem, and a ham-handed attempt by an unpopular government to deflect from its own record. 

“I find it unfortunate … that we are sending this message to trans and non-binary people in Quebec who are concerned about their rights and individual freedoms at this time,” said Victoria Legault, executive director of advocacy group Aide aux trans du Québec. 

“We see what’s happening south of the border, and now is not the time to take a step backward and throw us under the bus.”

The new language policy will ban the use of words like “iel” — a recent invention that is equivalent to using the singular pronoun “they” for a non-binary person. It will also prohibit new ways of writing words that attempt to blend their masculine and feminine forms, such as “étudiant.e.s,” which refers to male and female students. 

For now, the policy will apply to government departments and municipalities, Roberge said, but similar rules will be introduced for schools, universities and the health-care system. 

Benoît Melançon, emeritus professor of French literature at Université de Montréal, said the government has offered little evidence to prove that inclusive language is causing confusion. “My question is whether this causes real comprehension problems in public institutions,” he said. “I think the government has more urgent things to do than impose its linguistic preferences on all kinds of people.”

He said the governing Coalition Avenir Québec, which has been polling dismally for months, is “trying all kinds of things” to appeal to voters. 

Legault said the new rules are part of a pattern of decisions running counter to the interests of trans and non-binary people. Last year, Quebec banned the construction of gender-neutral bathrooms and locker rooms in public schools. And earlier this year, the province decided that transgender inmates in provincial detention would be incarcerated according to their anatomical sex and not their gender identity. 

But the language policy will hurt more than just the trans community, Legault said. “I’m questioning whether this government ultimately wants to maintain the status quo, which is male-dominated in every way, and I think the answer is yes,” she said. 

Gender neutrality presents challenges in French, in part because many words used to describe groups of people have both masculine and feminine forms. The masculine form is generally used to refer to groups that include men and women, thanks to a 17th-century edict that “the masculine takes precedence over the feminine,” Melançon said. 

In Wednesday’s announcement, the government said it’s acceptable to use masculine generic terms, to use the masculine and feminine together, or to add the feminine ending in parentheses — “étudiant(e),” for example. 

But a 2021 guide to inclusive grammar, published by a Quebec City trans rights group, says using parentheses implies “that the other genders represented are not as important.”

Another difficulty relates to gender agreement. There is no consensus about how to make adjectives with masculine and feminine forms — “beau” and “belle,” for example — agree with gender-neutral pronouns like “iel.”

“There are things that are incompatible with grammar,” Roberge said Wednesday. 

The style guide of the French service of The Canadian Press encourages the use of gender-neutral language where possible, but advises against the use of neologisms like “iel.”

Melançon acknowledged the challenges, but said inclusive language is in an “exploratory phase” and the government should not interfere. “We are in a phase where people are trying to figure out how to use language that is as neutral as possible. Not everything will be preserved in this process. Many things will disappear because people will say they’re too cumbersome,” he said. 

“Let’s give it some time and see what actually gets kept and what disappears.”

Parti Québécois Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon said Wednesday that he supports the government’s decision, and that inclusive writing leads to “complications.” But Manon Massé, a member of the legislature with leftist party Québec solidaire, accused the government of “inventing problems” as a distraction. 

“No one asked for this,” she said on social media. “Their days in power are numbered, and this is their priority?”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 24, 2025.