Disney Is Teaching Cast Members ‘Genderless’ Park Greetings

We already knew that the Walt Disney Company was trying to become more inclusive and gender-neutral since the announcement last year that Disney would no longer say “boys” or “girls” within Disney Parks at Walt Disney World Resort and Disneyland Resort (including within Cast Member’s scripted dialogue or greetings and spiels from the Disney World Resort or Disneyland Resort stage shows and the Magic Kingdom fireworks show), but that effort is expanding even further now!

Disney’s Diversity and Inclusion Manager Vivian Ware recently spoke in a conference call about Disney’s shifts toward gender-neutral approaches to Disney Guest relations, and she made it clear in the recording that Disney is taking its focus on gender-neutral efforts to a whole new level.

Disney is currently in the process of removing gender-specific pronouns from any Disney Park recordings, and Vivian Ware also revealed that Disney Cast Members from practically every department have been trained in order to be better prepared for Guest interactions that are free from gender pronouns.

SCOOP: Disney diversity and inclusion manager Vivian Ware says the company has eliminated all mentions of "ladies," "gentlemen," "boys," and "girls" in its theme parks in order to create "that magical moment" for children who do not identify with traditional gender roles. pic.twitter.com/OWsGTUoeCA

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) March 29, 2022

“Last summer, we removed all of the gendered greetings in relation to our live spiels,” Ware explained, referring to the fact that Disney Cast Members no longer said ‘ladies and gentlemen’ or ‘boys and girls’. “We provided training for all of our Cast Members in relationship to that. So now they know it’s ‘Hello, everyone’ or ‘Hello, friends'”.

“I love the fact that it’s opened up the creativity, the opportunity for our Cast Members to look at that,” she added. “We have our Cast Members working with merchandise, working with food and beverage, working with all of our Guest-facing areas where perhaps we want to create that magical moment with our Cast Members, with our Guests”.

The Diversity and Inclusion Manager also said in the conference call that Disney Cast Members would avoid calling any Guest who “might be in [their] interpretation…presenting as female” by the title “princess”.

The main question that Disney has apparently been asking itself, according to Vivian Ware, is “how do we really engage with our Guests in a meaningful and inclusive way that makes it magical and memorable for everyone?”