Are You Marketing Inclusively Around Gender—or Just Adding a Plus Sign?
A 5-question flowchart to find out what language actually fits your work. Created for anyone asking about finding their ideal clients.
This tool is here to help you choose clearer, more precise language when your work involves gender, bodies, identity, or gendered experiences.
You'll move through a few questions to clarify whether you're speaking about gender identity, anatomy, bodily experience, socialization, or systems like patriarchy, transphobia, and misogyny.
The goal is not to find one perfect phrase. The goal is to say what you mean, mean who you say, and make sure your marketing reflects the people you are truly prepared to serve.
Privacy note: This tool does not collect, save, or record your responses. Your answers are not reviewed, stored, or connected to you. The only information tracked is aggregate click activity, which helps me understand whether the tool is being used and where it may need improvement.
Contact me with any questions or feedback.Question 1 of 5
Does your work, offer, event, or content directly involve gender?
Examples: women's leadership, queer/trans inclusion, reproductive health, birth work, menopause, sex education, body-based wellness, therapy.
Question 2 of 5
Does your work involve specific body parts, hormones, reproductive organs, or bodily experiences?
Examples: menstruation, pregnancy, abortion, menopause, pelvic pain, uteruses, fertility, estrogen, lactation.
Question 3 of 5
Is the experience you're naming about socialization, oppression, or systemic harm?
Am I talking about misogyny, sexism, patriarchy, gender-based violence, or gendered socialization?
Question 4 of 5
When you say "women," who do you actually mean?
"Women" includes trans women. And because dominant culture often treats cis women as the default, it's important to clarify whether your use of "women" truly includes all women—or whether you're using the word as shorthand for something else.
Note: This option narrows your scope significantly. You're focusing only on cisgender women, which may limit who you can serve. Consider whether this is truly your audience or whether you're looking to deepen your understanding of this conversation.
Naming people is not the same as serving them. Before broadening your language, pause and ask whether your business, offer, or space is actually prepared to support the people your words are welcoming.
Question 5 of 5
Are you prepared to care for everyone your language is inviting in?
Inclusive language is an invitation. Before naming trans, nonbinary, intersex, Two-Spirit, gender-expansive, or gender-nonconforming people in your marketing, consider whether your actual space, practices, forms, policies, examples, facilitation, and repair processes are built to support them.
The Gender-Free Zone 🌿
Your work probably does not need gendered language. Don't add gender where it isn't needed. Clarity is more inclusive than decoration. Worried because you don't want to work with cis men? Your marketing will reach the right people when you are clear about what you do, how, and what the impact is. You can always share referrals if/when contacted by cis men—or anyone else—you aren't available to support.
Say instead:
- people
- clients
- students
- participants
- practitioners
- business owners
- parents
- caregivers
- leaders
- community members
Avoid:
- ladies
- women+
- womxn
- mamas (unless you truly mean mothers)
The Body-Specific Path 🫀
Your language should be body-specific, not gender-assumptive. Some women don't have these experiences. Some trans men, nonbinary, and intersex people do. See options below.
🛑 Please also pause and reflect: Are you prepared to care for non-cisgender clients? Do your policies, intake forms, and facilitation actually center these experiences? If not, please dig into learning where applicable. My work is here to support you in this process.
Say instead:
- people who menstruate
- people with uteruses
- pregnant people
- people navigating fertility treatment
- people experiencing menopause
- people with pelvic pain
- people who chestfeed or breastfeed
- parents recovering from birth
Avoid:
- women's bodies
- female bodies
- women+
- womxn
- biological women
- birthing women (unless intentionally only for women who give birth)
The Identity-Specific Path 🪞
Use 'women' when you mean women. Include trans women without typographic gymnastics. Name your group clearly and *make sure your space is setup to actually care for and serve them.*
Say instead:
- women (including trans women)
- cis and trans women
- women and gender-expansive people
- trans, nonbinary, and gender-expansive people
- queer women
- women of color
Avoid:
- womxn
- women+ (the plus doesn't clarify who)
- women and nonbinary people (unless genuinely included)
- women and femmes (unless femme identity is centered)
The Systems-Aware Path ⚡
You may need more than one phrase. Name the system and who is impacted. Precision beats the fantasy of one perfect inclusive umbrella term.
Say instead:
- people impacted by misogyny, sexism, and gender-based harm
- people whose voices have been shaped by sexism and gendered expectations
- a space for women and gender-expansive people navigating burnout under patriarchy
- people socialized as female (when socialization is what you mean)
Avoid:
- women+ who struggle with X
- women's wellness (when you mean something systemic)
- collapsing anatomy, identity, and oppression into one term
The Pause + Repair Path 🛑
Your language may be excluding marginalized individuals in ways you don't intend. And trying to perform inclusion when your structure may not yet support it will not lead to care. Do the deeper work before making the invitation broader. Inclusive language is an invitation—your container has to be ready.
Ask yourself:
- Are your intake forms affirming?
- Do you ask for pronouns without forcing disclosure?
- Do your bathrooms, Zoom norms, and policies match your language?
- Are you prepared for trans and nonbinary people to actually arrive?
- Do you have a repair process?