Step aside “Miss,” “Mrs,” and “Ms” – The venerable OED has announced they are including the gender-neutral honorific “Mx.” (pronounced “mix” – who knew?) to represent transgender people and other gender non-specific people, according to a report in The Sunday Times of London. Although it feels like a relatively new term (I’ve only known about it because of trans icon Mx Justin Vivian Bond, above), OED assistant editor Jonathan Dent said the first recorded use of Mx. was actually discovered in a 1977 issue of Single Parent magazine. Since then, examples of its use have been found at the Royal Bank of Scotland, the UK Department for Work and Pensions, and the Royal Mail Group (“Not exactly the kinds of organizations you’d expect to be in the vanguard of trans and ‘genderqueer’ causes,” notes the International Business Times).
The OED’s Jonathan Dent was philosophical about the inclusion of the new word: “This is an example of how the English language adapts to people’s needs, with people using language in ways that suit them rather than letting language dictate identity to them,” he told the Times. (via IBM)
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