Ask language academies --- I find this process fascinating. For example, I remember being amazed when they told me how the French Academy spent a lot of time discussing if the iPod should be a female or male noun. It would still be reffered as "l'iPod", but it mattered in terms of subject-verb and subject-adjective agreement.

A similar process may be going on today, at least in Spanish speaking countries regarding people who identify themselves as no-binary and use pronouns different to "he" and "she". There is much debate about how they are changing the language. And, although we cannot know now if they will "succeed" and Spanish will have a gender neutral structure (todes, amigues), they certainly are constructing a new social reality by creating awareness and having people discuss new subjects that were unthinkable 50 years ago.

Source author: Desirée Colomé Menéndez dcolome@sre.gob.mx