In a unanimous vote, the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors voted to remove gender-specific pronouns from the County Ordinance Code.
Terms such as “he” were replaced with neutral descriptors like “the department head” in 841 instances across 1,300 pages, “ensuring the code is inclusive and representative of all residents,” according to the County.
“We are changing our county ordinances to reflect today’s reality and removing gender references turns the page on a practice that has no place in county policy,” said District 1 Supervisor John Gioia, Chair of the Board’s Equity Committee.
The effort was sponsored by the County Administrator’s Office in partnership with the County Counsel’s Office with advice from the Office of Racial Equity and Social Justice.