Listicle: No more ‘cisgender’ and ‘othering,’ as Democrats are told to try to sound ‘normal’

Democrats have spent years creating a political thesaurus so convoluted that even the Oxford English Dictionary is begging for mercy. But now, the left-of-center outfit Third Way has delivered a startling revelation to fellow progressives: Maybe stop talking like you just walked out of a graduate seminar on postmodernism.

In a new memo, Third Way gently scolds the left for using words no normal person ever says — terms like “othering,” “centering,” “food insecurity,” and “dialoguing.” Instead of making Democrats sound empathetic, the group admits, this therapy-speak only makes them sound like they’re running a support group for doctoral candidates.

The response from the far-left blog The Blue Alaskan was immediate and foul:

But before you think this means Democrats are changing their tune, think again. The message isn’t “stop being woke,” it’s simply to stop sounding woke. The agenda stays the same: Just swap out the thesaurus. “Birthing person” might quietly shuffle offstage, but the anti-woman policies that created that term it will stick around.

The memo divides bad language into categories like “Therapy-Speak” and “Seminar Room Language.” (Which is funny, because entire Democratic campaigns could be filed under “Seminar Room Language.”) Apparently words like “microaggression,” “intersectionality,” and “existential threat” are alienating. Who knew? Maybe voters don’t want a lecture every time they buy groceries.

Here are the terms that leftists are advised to avoid:

Therapy-Speak

• Privilege
• Violence (as in “environmental violence”)
• Dialoguing
• Othering
• Triggering
• Microaggression / assault / invalidation
• Progressive stack
• Centering
• Safe space
• Holding space
• Body shaming

Seminar Room Language

• Subverting norms
• Systems of oppression
• Critical theory
• Cultural appropriation
• Postmodernism
• Overton Window
• Heuristic
• Existential threat to [climate, the planet, democracy, the economy]

Organizer Jargon

• Radical transparency
• Small “d” democracy
• Barriers to participation
• Stakeholders
• The unhoused
• Food insecurity
• Housing insecurity
• Person who immigrated

Gender/Orientation Correctness

• Birthing person / inseminated person
• Pregnant people
• Chest feeding
• Cisgender
• Deadnaming
• Heteronormative
• Patriarchy
• LGBTQIA+

The Shifting Language of Racial Constructs

• Latinx
• BIPOC
• Allyship
• Intersectionality
• Minoritized communities

Explaining Away Crime

• Justice-involved
• Carceration
• Incarcerated people
• Involuntary confinement

Still, Third Way assures the comrades that they’re not policing language or banning phrases, but rather suggesting that, for public consumption, Democrats speak like actual humans. In private, of course, they can still whisper about cisheteronormativity to their heart’s content.

The irony is delicious: the party that gave America “Latinx” is now warning its own people that no one actually uses the word Latinx. Third Way even admits that the tortured jargon “invites distrust” among ordinary folks. Translation: If you sound like a sociology syllabus, people start to wonder what you’re hiding.

Of course, none of this changes the fact that Democrats are still Democrats. Whether they say “the unhoused” or “homeless,” the policy is the same. Whether they say “justice-involved individual” or “felon,” the end goal doesn’t budge. The rebranding is purely cosmetic, like putting a friendly smiley face on a tax increase.

So don’t expect a grand awakening here. This is not a pivot; it’s a vocabulary lesson. Third Way isn’t asking Democrats to be different, only to sound different. As if voters can’t tell the difference between a fresh coat of paint and a crumbling foundation.

In short: same wine, new wineskins. Or to put it in Third Way-approved language, they’re just “holding space” for a more “authentic dialogue” with voters.