LEBANON — Residents will have an opportunity to weigh in tonight on whether to change gender-specific language in the city charter to gender-neutral alternatives, which proponents believe will set a more inclusive tone and better reflect modern expression.

The City Council will hold a public hearing on Wednesday to consider the changes, which are proposed by the Diversity, Equity and Inclusivity (DEI) Committee, a city advisory committee aimed to make Lebanon more welcoming to all community members.

If the council votes to approve the proposed changes, the question will go to Lebanon voters at Town Meeting day next March. If passed by voters, the changes would go into effect on July 1.

The charter, adopted in 1957, contains a variety of gender-specific terminology that is generally considered outmoded. The city manager, as well as elected officials, are still frequently referred to using the pronouns “he” or “him.” Some sections that were amended in the 1970s replaced the male-specific terms with “he or she.”

“It is language from an earlier age when our society was very different,” City Manager Shaun Mulholland told the Valley News. “These changes should be relatively easy to do. There shouldn’t be a controversy.”

The committee’s recommended changes remove gender-specific pronouns altogether, usually by swapping in a noun, such as “said person” or “the city manager.”

“We were not trying to be revolutionary or to make this something that people are going to be angry about,” explained Richard Ford Burley, secretary of the DEI Committee. “We just want the language in these laws and privileges to apply to everyone.”

Burley, a novelist and freelance writer, took on the language changes to the charter, reviewing small sections at a time, tracking down gender-specific terms and pronouns as he read.

“It took me a couple of months (overall),” Burley told the Valley News. “I read through the whole thing. It was actually fun to go through it and find some of the laws that are still there.”

Notably, the city charter still includes several references to “selectmen,” despite Lebanon’s change from a town to a city, whose elected governing board members are called “councilors.”

The proposed charter revisions replace “selectman” with “selectperson,” which is an allowable alternative in New Hampshire, Burley said.

While he tried to minimize using “they,” “their” or “them” as replacements, Burley said there were instances when a pronoun was preferable to a noun in regard to the text’s fluidity.

Burley noted that the use of “they” as a singular pronoun is not new to the English language.

The word “they” has appeared as a singular pronoun in literature dating as far back as the 14th century and has been used this way by authors including William Shakespeare, Geoffrey Chaucer and Jane Austen.

“People who say that ‘they’ has never been (used as a singular pronoun), actually I beg to differ,” Burley said.

The City Council created the DEI Committee in 2021 as a vehicle to foster inclusivity in the city. During the past year the committee — composed of nine members — has provided informational resources to city and school officials, advocated for new policies, including ways to increase equitable housing opportunities and collaborated with partnering organizations to host public events, including Lebanon’s first LGBT Pride weekend and a Juneteenth celebration in recognition of the federal holiday to commemorate the emancipation of enslaved African Americans in 1865.

“They have really hit the ground running and are advancing a lot of issues … all part of trying to make Lebanon a more welcoming place,” City Councilor Karen Liot Hill said.

The public hearing will be held at 7 p.m. Wednesday at City Hall.

Patrick Adrian may be reached at 603-727-3216 or at padrian@vnews.com.