Semantics of Veganism

People who are vegan often take care to watch their language to avoid speciesist or condescending connotations associated with words we were raised saying. For example: “animal companion” has replaced “pet” in some circle to equalize the relationship between non-humans and their care takers. “Meat” might become “flesh” to shed the anonymity of the animal for which it came. Etc etc. While many may roll their eyes and scoff something about political correctness ruining these United States words do have meaning which is why we use them and I think coming to a common understanding will help us communicate our true intentions. I’ll be the first to bend, slice, dice and mix and match words but there are a few instances that kinda peeve me out and help illustrate what vegan really means.

“Veggie”- Now i understand the desire to be “all-inclusive” of the wide variety of diet based lifestyles but when referring to veganism say “vegan”! There’s no shame in letting your true intention known. Everybody can eat a vegan diet regardless of their personal restrictions so “vegan” is the true all-inclusive form. That brings me to:

“Diet”- If you truly are vegan only for the dietary aspects and wear fur, beat up on baby seals and kick puppies* then that’s fine to use “diet” in conjunction with veganism but for goddsakes people veganism is much more than about what you eat! It so happens that a majority of animal exploitation revolves around food but it’s not exclusive to it. Next time you throw a vegan event try doing it withOUT food for example. Do not define yourself through your diet. I know it’s a trap one could easily fall into especially when we’re always reading labels or what have you but get your nose outta there, breathe!

“I am a vegan” - Vegan as a noun versus an adjective. When we say “I am a vegan” we are making veganism about us when it isn’t at all. We are people who have decided to be vegan. This makes teh concept much more available to people around us. Let’s not do the work for them and box ouselves up into a cute little category which others can easily dismiss. Say it with me: “I AM vegan”, “I am a person who is vegan.”**

Gendered pronouns for animals - So we have people all up in a fuss for using gendered pronouns to describe people and then also for using neutral “it” pronouns for non-human animals. What the hell is going on here. Oh i dunno*** but gendered pronouns are here to stay for a while i guess and if you refer to a non-human animal as “she” or “he” that might help raise the status of that being into an area that might spark empathy for that creature. Saying “it” when referring to a non-human is something the best animal advocates will slip up on, i don’t sweat it but i do try to make a conscious effort. Not all animals are easily identifiable to a particular sex but that extra work by investigating or bringing the problem to light is good practice.

“animal” - To be factually correct “animal” can mean any flesh & bone creature on this Earth. Further more referring to other creatures as “animal” sets them apart from us when what we really need to do is highlight the similarities. “Non-human animal” is nice to use but darn if that also doesn’t get to be a mouthful at times. Use it to punctuate a point and it can help tear down speciesist preconceptions.

“I can’t eat that” - When somebody offers a vegan**** something and they say “oh i can’t eat that” it makes veganism look dogmatic. It may be like that for some but that’s just a sad state of affairs. Anyway try saying “Oh I don’t/won’t eat that” to imply veganism is a conscious choice and not a disability to be pitied. They’ll say “why” and you can say “BECAUSE DAIRY IS MURDER BITCH!”. Holy crap i am kidding! That brings me to more of a semantical grey area and that is:

“Meat is murder OMG!” - It’s fine to think non-human animal eating people are murderers but screaming that in their faces is not going to endear them to the vegan cause. You were most likely just like these people at one point so try identifying with them instead of putting them on trial. Try thinking of it this way: The plight of animals is a problem and ask these people to help solve it. This is more of an advocacy issue and not necessarily semantical so i’ll stop here for now.

After all that being said please make veganism personal and don’t let xxAnimalxRightsxGuy213xx or
Hippie_Yoga_Star_Flower_Dood or even Dave.Dumbass.Dandelion berate you into adopting their style of veganism. The best form of advocacy is one that comes from the heart and is honest. Find your reasons to be vegan, ask others about theirs and share with those who are not…

…yet.

* I’m kidding people, get some humor!
** I often shortcut “Those vegans” or “Vegans like us” etc but for some reason that’s less insidious than “a vegan”.
***Frankly i find gender identification in language tiresome but it’s not my battle at the moment.
****see how i did that? :p