A major exam board has now signed off on gender-neutral language in GCSE French, Spanish and German exams – despite the terms being completely alien to how those languages are actually spoken in their home countries.
The move, buried in new specifications for 2026 exams, hands students the green light to ditch standard masculine and feminine forms in favour of made-up “inclusive” pronouns, nouns and adjectives.
Yes, you read that right. They’re letting students make up their own parts of foreign languages in exams.
'Absurd!' British exam board allows GCSE French students to use gender-neutral language despite terms not being used in Francehttps://t.co/IjXsL9J8ZK
— GB News (@GBNEWS) May 10, 2026
Staff at Pearson Edexcel have explicitly permitted teens to use “inclusive” pronouns, nouns and adjectives in both written and oral GCSEs. Yet as the article linked above makes clear, “the French do not pander to the same bid for inclusivity, with all their grammatical concepts being strictly categorised into gendered variants.”
Adjectives must match the noun in masculine or feminine endings. Gender-neutral terms simply do not exist in grammatically correct French or Spanish.
French, by its very nature, is a gendered language. Words are denoted as being "le" or "la," depending on whether they are masculine or feminine. This is silly and culturally ignorant. https://t.co/pj2TmzTdGQ
— Alex (@Admalez) May 9, 2026
Former French education minister Jean-Michel Blanquer blasted the move as “absurd”. He stated: “French grammar has not changed in this regard. And the use of ‘iel’ does not correspond to any widespread usage among the French population.”
Some French universities and socialist councils have tried pushing “iel” and “iels” as neutral replacements for “il” and “elle”, but Blanquer made it clear this is not mainstream French. The exam board’s decision flies in the face of actual language as used by native speakers.
The new specs include a dedicated section on “gendered language”, backed by the usual LGBT activists at Stonewall. Pearson claims gendered language “can present specific challenges for trans and non-binary students”. As a result, they’ve added vocabulary for “trans” and “non-binary” to the list and vowed to “recognise students’ use of non-binary or gender-neutral pronouns when describing themselves or others” in exams.
Absolute insanity. When these people go out into the real world, only then will they discover that no one has a clue what it is they’re saying.
Students can even deploy new adjectival endings “according to their preferred way of identifying”, along with special spellings using full stops, “x’s”, asterisks and underscores. This isn’t teaching French – it’s turning language exams into an identity politics playground.
The move comes just weeks after the government’s new trans guidance for schools, a framework that openly allows primary school children – some as young as four – to socially transition at school, complete with different pronouns, as long as teachers show “caution” and consult parents.
What started with pronoun policies in the classroom has now leaked into the actual curriculum and assessment system.
Director of Advocacy at Sex Matters, Helen Joyce, nailed the bigger picture, noting “It may seem baffling how quickly schools have been captured by gender ideology in recent years.” Joyce pointed to Stonewall-linked external providers pushing a “pro-trans agenda” and warned: “The next challenge for the Department for Education will be to tackle the pernicious creep of gender ideology throughout the curriculum, and the role of external providers in driving this.”
Pearson tried to walk it back in a statement, insisting: “Gender-neutral pronouns are not required as part of Pearson Edexcel GCSE French, German, or Spanish. The specifications require students to learn and be assessed only on the standard masculine and feminine forms used in these languages.” They added that the vocabulary list reflects “everyday life, including references to men and women, him and her, boys and girls, mothers and fathers,” and claimed their Stonewall membership ended over two years ago.
The Department for Education itself sounded a note of caution, stating: “Our expectations are clear: gender identity is an area of significant debate. Schools should not endorse any particular view or teach it as fact – including the idea that all people have a gender identity.”
Yet the guidance still permits the very practices critics say undermine real education. Allowing fantasy spellings and pronouns in a French GCSE doesn’t prepare kids for the real world – it prepares them for ideological conformity. French speakers in France won’t understand “iel” any more than they’ll understand a British teen demanding to be called “they” in Paris.
This is the inevitable next step after the trans guidance fiasco. Once you accept that feelings trump biology in the classroom, it was only a matter of time before the same logic infected subjects like languages, history and science. Stonewall’s influence may be officially over at Pearson, but the damage lingers in the specs they helped shape.
Parents and common-sense voices have every right to be furious. Education should teach facts, grammar and reality – not indulge every passing social trend. The UK already lags behind in basic skills; turning GCSEs into optional pronoun workshops only accelerates the decline.
Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.
More news on our radar
