Gender Neutral: Aunt/Uncle

For the most part, English can be spoken and written without references gender, although there are cases where it sounds stiff. “Spouse” can replace “husband” and “wife”; “sibling” can replace “brother” and “sister”. There are a few problematic pairings, though. Among the most common of these are niece/nephew, aunt/uncle, and sir/ma’am. For niece/nephew, “nibling” is emerging as a popular neologism. In this essay, I’ll explore aunt/uncle. An emerging term is “<a href="https://nonbinary.wiki/w/index.php?title=Gender_neutral_language_in_English&mobileaction=toggle_view_desktop#Aunt.2FUncle" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">auncle</a>”, but I’m not fond of that. In some dialects, that ought to be homophonous with “ankle”; in others, it sounds too much like “uncle”. “<a href="https://www.waywordradio.org/gender-neutral-aunt-uncle/" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Pibling</a>” has also been offered, but with “sibling” and “nibling”, that feels like too much bling on the family tree for my taste. <a href="https://medium.com/bein-enby/gender-neutral-aunt-uncle-87041eccd765">Read More</a>