Cultural weight of gendered adjectives

Question

Hi! This is not a question regarding grammar but more of a cultural question. In many languages, the changes of the social understanding of gender has also changed the way we use grammar. In English, we don't use gendered adjectives, but it's common now to use gender neutral pronouns such as they/them, in Spanish we use the letter -e instead of -o or -a to make adjectives gender neutral. Is there anything similar in french?

Céline Pickard · Accepted Answer

Bonjour Agustina,
That's a great question! French has several gender-neutral innovations although, as you'll see, they're far from settled.
- Pronouns: The best-known is iel (singular) / iels (plural), a blend of il + elle and the closest equivalent to the English singular gender-neutral "they". But there are many others too (among other, for example: ellui, elleux, cellui, celleux). Take a look at the link below for more:
Guide de grammaire neutre et inclusive - Par Divergenres
- Inclusive writing (l'écriture inclusive) with le point médian (midpoint): instead of étudiant / étudiante, you'd write étudiant·e·s. Other examples: acteur·rice·s, ami·e·s.
Qu’est-ce que l’écriture inclusive ?
- Adjective agreement. There's also la règle de proximité, where the agreement is with the nearest noun rather than defaulting to masculine:

De nombreuses étudiantes et étudiants étrangers 
Toutes les étudiantes et les étudiants sont priés de rendre leur dissertation

However it's highly contested. L'Académie française opposes l'écriture inclusive outright. There's also accessibility issues. For example, le point médian (étudiant·e·s / acteur·rice·s / ami·e·s) can pose genuine issues for people with dyslexia and other "dys" conditions, adding to difficulties they already face with written text. At the same time, at the end of 2025 Le Conseil d'État validated its use on commemorative plaques in Paris and no law formally bans it. So the debate is very much ongoing.
I hope this is helpful.
Bonne journée !