The purpose of this website is to provide resources for 12-step meetings, groups, and individuals relating to gender-neutral and gender-inclusive language that can be used for meeting scripts, reading formats, and more. Below you’ll find an assortment of those resources, as well as links to official A.A. literature and resources.
Meeting Script Resources:
The A.A. Preamble
At the 71st A.A. General Service Conference, A.A. as a whole voted to revise the meeting preamble to replace the words “men and women” with “people”, in the introductory sentence “Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of “people.” You can read more about the decision on A.A.’s website here. Tradition Four states that each group is autonomous, except in matters affecting other groups and A.A. as a whole. The new preamble is not mandated, so in order to adopt the language groups should bring the language up at their business meeting, or call for a group conscience. Many groups and meetings have already made the change in their scripts, but the decision to adopt the change must be made by the group as a whole.
Inclusive Language in Meeting Scripts:
Above and beyond adopting the official A.A. Preamble to meeting scripts, there are numerous other ways for meetings to adjust their scripts to be more gender-inclusive. A.A.’s primary literature was written at a time when the predominant habit when writing about people in the third person was to default to male pronouns; e.g. he, him, and his. God, Higher Power, etc. are also consistently referred to with male pronouns.
Being inclusive means acknowledging that men and people who use he/him/his pronouns make up a large percentage of A.A. and other 12-step groups. Using gender-inclusive language does not erase or otherwise exclude men – it simply opens the door to allowing readers to modify readings so the readings are inclusive of everyone, if they so choose.
Some examples to include in meeting scripts are:
“This meeting has no opinion on the language a reader uses when referring to their Higher Power, and invites readers to use the language with which they identify.”
“This group/meeting is comfortable changing pronouns in readings to make them inclusive.”
“We have no opinion on the pronouns a reader chooses to use while reading.”
As you can see, these script modifications do not encourage members to use specific language; instead, it opens the door for people to use the pronouns or language that makes them feel included. Oftentimes in language-inclusive meetings, readers choose not to change the pronouns at all — preferring to rely on the literature as written. However, for those who do feel comfortable changing things up, meetings that explicitlyinvite their members to do so create an atmosphere of welcoming that is in line with Tradition Five.