Source
DC Fiscal Policy Institute
Style Guide for Inclusive Language
Access posture
About
The DC Fiscal Policy Institute (DCFPI) is a Washington, DC think tank focused on budget and tax policy that advances racial and economic equity in the District. Its Style Guide for Inclusive Language (December 2017) was written to align the organization’s own publications with its equity mission, and was shared publicly for other organizations to adapt.
On the commons’ source spectrum this is a progressive equity guide. It is among the few guides in the corpus written by an economic-policy organization, which makes it the commons’ main source for Class & Economic Status terminology. Its avoid/instead tables on poverty language (disadvantaged, the poor, low-income) sit alongside sections on race, disability (people-first language), gender, and criminal-justice terminology, including a direct statement of the racism-equals-prejudice-plus-power frame.
In the commons it is a source for terms across five chapters, from poor and disadvantaged to trans-woman and sex-change.
Access
The guide is a free public PDF on DCFPI’s site (linked above) and was live as of the last check — the archived copy is byte-identical to the live file. Host posture is private-mirror-link-out: the commons keeps a private preservation copy for citation verification and links readers to DCFPI’s authoritative version. Quotes are held within fair-use limits.
Publication details
Version history
- 2017 edition Current canonical
December 2017 edition — the only edition published.
Terms citing this source
- Bathroom Bill Avoid
“Avoid … Instead … Bathroom bill … Non-discrimination law, ordinance”
— LGBTQ "Avoid / Instead" table (p. 9)
- Differently Abled Avoid
“Avoid … Differently abled … Instead … Person with a disability”
— Disability section, Specific Recommendations table (Avoid / Instead)
- Gender Identity Disorder Avoid
“Avoid … Gender Identity Disorder … Gender Affirmation …”
— p. 9, "Avoid / Instead" table, Gender & Sexuality section
- Hermaphrodite Avoid
“Avoid … Hermaphrodite … Instead … Intersex”
— "Avoid / Instead" table, gender and sexuality terms (p. 9)
- Implicit Bias Use with care
“Also known as unconscious or hidden bias, implicit biases are negative associations that many people unknowingly hold. They are expressed …”
— Important Definitions / Glossary, "Implicit Bias" entry (p. 10)
- Poor Avoid
“Our work and writing about poverty should always seek to frame issues with an agency lens, rather than depicting people living in poverty as helpless. We should always maintain affected people as the agents in their own story …”
— "Empowering Language" principle + "Poverty & Economic Justice" avoid/instead table
- Prostitute Avoid
“Avoid … Prostitute … Instead … Sex worker”
— LGBTQ section, "Avoid / Instead" two-column table
- Racism Use with care
“These beliefs and behaviors are conscious and unconscious, personal and institutional, and result in the oppression or people of color and benefit the dominant group, white people. A simple definition is: Racism= racial prejudice + power”
— Empowering Language glossary, "Racism" entry
- Sex Change Avoid
“Sex change … Sex change operation … Transition, transitioning … Trans woman, trans man …”
— p. 9, "Avoid / Instead" gender-and-sexuality table
- Sexual Preference Avoid
“Avoid … Instead … Sexual preference … Sexual orientation”
— p. 9, LGBTQ terminology "Avoid / Instead" table
- Tranny Avoid
“Avoid … Tranny … Transgender people”
— Sexual orientation / gender identity "Avoid / Instead" table
- Trans Woman Use
“Trans woman, trans man”
— "Avoid / Instead" table, p. 10 (Instead column)