By the Stylebook: Gay grammar and describing same-sex marriages
As AP confirms use of “husband” and “wife” for same-sex married couples, Katie Toth reports on the big shifts in LGBT language Canadian Press has made over the years.
As AP confirms use of “husband” and “wife” for same-sex married couples, Katie Toth reports on the big shifts in LGBT language Canadian Press has made over the years.
By Katie Toth
After raising controversy about the language journalists should use when writing about same-sex marriages, the Associated Press released a statement last week saying they were officially adding an entry for “husband” and “wife” to the style guide. “Regardless of sexual orientation, husband or wife is acceptable in all references to individuals in any legally recognized marriage. Spouse or partner may be used if requested,” the AP statement read.
“The AP has never had a Stylebook entry on the question of the usage of husband and wife,” said AP Senior Managing Editor for U.S. News Mike Oreskes, in a press release. “All the previous conversation was in the absence of such a formal entry. This lays down clear and simple usage.”
The decision was a victory for confused AP reporters and gay activists, after an internal style memo—followed by an awkward update—was leaked to media blogger Jim Romenesko on Feb. 12. The updated memo said:
"We were asked how to report about same-sex couples who call themselves ‘husband’ and ‘wife.’ Our view is that such terms may be used in AP content if those involved have regularly used those terms (‘Smith is survived by his husband, John Jones’) or in quotes attributed to them. Generally AP uses couples or partners to describe people in civil unions or same-sex marriages.”
The memo caused a firestorm within the American journalism community.
GLAAD said the advisory “implies a value judgment on the part of AP—that same-sex marriages ‘generally’ need vocabulary that differentiates them from opposite-sex marriages, and that said vocabulary should consist of words that also apply to unmarried couples.” John Aravosis of America Blog, an LGBT blog out of Washington D.C., said the Associated Press was “banning the use of the words ‘husband’ and ‘wife’ for legally wed gay couples.” The National Gay and Lesbian Journalism Association wrote an open letter to AP, saying, “One has to assume that AP would never suggest that the default term should be ‘couples’ or ‘partners’ when describing people in opposite-sex marriages. We strongly encourage you to revise the style advisory to make it clear that writers should use the same terms for married individuals, whether they are in a same-sex or opposite-sex marriage.”
When senior BuzzFeed reporter Chris Geidner read the memo, he was baffled.
“A couple in Canada, a couple in Iowa, a couple in New York—they don’t get a same sex marriage license [or an] opposite sex marriage license. They just get a marriage license,” he said in an interview. “If the same thing is happening to two people, no discussion of social politics should be involved when it comes to a reporter presenting the facts of what has happened.”
(For a more comprehensive timeline of AP’s decision, see the Storify embedded below.)
James McCarten, Canadian Press Stylebook editor, says that the “common sense” entry seemed like a reaction to the backlash after a quick call was made. McCarten warns about making style recommendations—particularly about sensitive subjects—too rashly or without input from one’s audience. “Style should be a bedrock,” he says. “You have to choose words carefully.”
CP actually has very little specific style guidance around gays and lesbians. Patti Tasko, a former editor of the CP Stylebook, says the flexibility allows reporters to make editorial decisions appropriate to the story on the ground. She also says it’s a reflection of the way gay issues are less politically-charged in Canada than for our southern counterparts.
[node:ad]The current policy at the Canadian Press is to ask one’s sources and let people define themselves. “Boyfriend, girlfriend, partner, husband and wife are all acceptable depending on situation,” says McCarten. “We have to maintain a certain framework—but within that framework we always respect the wishes of the person we’re talking to.”
Tasko originally added information about terms for gay and lesbian partners—including ‘husband’ and ‘wife’—in 2006 as a response to Canadian court decisions through the early 2000s and the Civil Marriage Act of 2005, which left many reporters writing stories about new same-sex couples. “I put that in the book and nobody complained and nobody even noticed,” she remembers. “I just think Canadians are just not that fired up about this kind of stuff; they’re more fired up about whether you use Canadian spelling or not.”
When it comes to language around LGBT people, the Canadian Press has seen some massive shifts over the past 30 years, McCarten remembers. “It was common practice [in the 80s and 90s] to describe in print copy… a ‘gay lifestyle.’ That was a typical phrase you’d see on the wire.”
While it may have appeared on the wire, the book was clear by as early as 1999—“don’t refer to a ‘gay lifestyle,’ or suggest the majority of homosexuals live (unorthodox) lifestyles. Most don’t.”
As early as 1989, the book had also suggested that ‘gay’ could be used as a synonym for homosexual. Nine years later, Tasko would note in the 15th (2008) edition that some people consider homosexual to be derogatory. “We used the word homosexual because that was what society was using,” Tasko said. “My main reason for avoiding homosexual is it’s such an awkward word; so clinical.”
Gerald Hannon is a queer journalist and former journalism teacher at Ryerson University. “It took a long time for ‘gay’ to be accepted,” he remembers. ‘Homophile’ was the preferred—often ignored—term for activists through the early 20th century, and a shift happened in the 70s and 80s more wholly towards ‘gay.’
“We were ‘deviants…’ I can’t remember when the changes began to happen, but slowly they did,” Hannon said. “We insisted on it.”
Tasko and McCarten both credit former CP supervising editor, Peter Buckley, for some of the biggest shifts around how gays and lesbians were discussed in Canadian media. Buckley was the general news editor before he became senior supervising editor, influencing then overseeing the Stylebook through the height of the AIDS crisis. He demanded that reporters avoid fearmongering in their stories and avoid leaving the impression that only gay people could be at risk—an advisory that remained in the stylebook until 2006.
“There was a lot of bad information out there,” Tasko says, about reporting on the illness that was originally known as Gay-Related Immune Deficiency (GRID). “[Buckley] didn’t want CP to be inaccurate about what little we knew at the time.”
While some historic shifts have been made, the language around sexuality and gender continues to evolve, and McCarten wants to stay on top of it. He will consider the best ways to write about people who prefer gender-neutral pronouns before the release of the next edition. “The Peter Buckleys of this world probably never would have imagined that this would come to the fore.”
Tamara Baluja is an award-winning journalist with CBC Vancouver and the 2018 Michener-Deacon fellow for journalism education. She was the associate editor for J-Source from 2013-2014.