Hi @dolorsit
You sound like a linguist yourself! Languages are fascinating, I agree.
Everyone seems to discussing languages out of interest and respect, nothing unpleasant here, so it seemed reasonably safe to make a joke given all the general silliness that has appeared in other places. I didn't think you were suggesting anything.
My impression is that the French are very proud of the language. They are very proud of all things French! It's not unusual to find young people at parties discussing grammar, along with boyfriends and girlfriends or how crazy expensive Paris apartments are.
Language is heavily emphasised in schools and children have to go to school from a young age. Macron did recently talk about putting more emphasis on the French language both in France and globally, but I think that was mostly talk than anything, as it is already culturally important in France and he speaks english everywhere he goes!
In general there is already respect and care within french people for all things french, that includes the language.
Whilst there are varying accents, there is not the same variation of use and inability to use grammar as we see in the english language. French people know their language and it is important to them. Grammar is always correct, it is an important part of the culture and identity.
On the metro people still read, still too many phones unfortunately, but books have not disappeared. Young people read, there are bookstores everywhere in Paris and second hand classic novels are very popular. Every french home and apartment tends to have books. All this plus correct grammar important enough to be discussed at trendy parties, oh my I have found my spiritual home.
Even the slang used in text messages and so on is fairly uniform and has rules! It isn't used to replace correct use of the language and not appropriate in general situations. Any suggestions of changing the language are not really well appreciated, for no underhand reason. It is simply the strong connections between language, culture and identity.
The language developed, as with several other latin based european languages, with gendered words, across all word groups. Everything agrees as I said and often the gender of words guides the understanding of what is being referred to. We do the same subtly in english too, simply in a different way, so that we are understood. Otherwise everyone would be lost.
Gender of words really isn't anything to do with humans as the language is used. The origins of a word being masculine or feminine is fascinating and yes often connected to ancient views of masculinity or femininity. Le soleil and la lune for example, in many cultures and traditions the sun is a masculine energy and the moon feminine. However there is no current day connection to equality or inequality. I find that if I or a french person is clarifying or referring to a word taking a masculine or feminine form or agreement, we say "masculine" or "feminine". It isn't male or female, the terms are really just grammatical descriptions in the context of the language.
It's true that there isn't a personal pronoun without gender such as "they" in english. There are gender neutral words for "who", "them" and a few others, but the "who" and "them" will already have been identified as masculine, feminine, singular or plural (except in the case of plural, but after another sentence, agreement of words will make the subjects and objects clear).
Changing the language to adapt for the trans or non binary community isn't really a discussion as far as I have experienced. Everywhere has its conversations and current discussion, but this just isn't currently one of them as far as I can tell. For a trans person, they choose their identity, no one cares. It's France, be french, after that you can do what you like. All the personal words will be used to suit what a person chooses.
There are prejudices within and against certain communities of course, but how individuals identify within the language or the use of gender words is not something that I have come across.
For non-binary, honestly this is so new that I haven't heard it discussed at all and the masculine feminine aspect to grammar is so in depth that I think it would be very difficult to remove this. So I don't know how this would work.
So, I would be very surprised to see the fundamentals of the language changed, not for any reasons of bias against anyone, but because of the regard for the language (again, young people discussing finer points of grammar at trendy parties!) and the inherent nature of the language.