We cannot disagree with the fact that this year has been a very controversial one. A lot of topics included in the news majorly involve gender, race, sexuality and nationality. With social media being on top of its game, these issues spread like wildfire.
From Caitlyn Jenner's complete transformation to Miley Cyrus and Lily Rose-Depp's confessions of being a pansexual (sexually fluid), these iconic people paved the way for awareness concerning gender and sexuality.
Last June, Rachel Dolezal, a civil rights activist and NAACP chapter president, made headlines concerning her racial identity when her parents publicly announced that she was born white. Dolezal defends her racial identity as genuine. She identifies more on black culture - regardless of ancestry, it is perceived as authentic. This issue has initiated a lot of talk especially over the use of the term, 'transracial.'
With these pressing issues this year, it's not really a wonder anymore why Dictionary.com has chosen the word identity to represent its WOTY as Time reports.
"Over the past year, headlines tied to gender, sexuality and race dominated the news," as stated by the company's editors. "In particular, many of the year's biggest stories focused on the way in which individuals or members of a group are perceived, understood, accepted or shut out."
Based on their records, they have chosen the word 'identity', when they saw an apparent rise in lookups for the following words: transgender, cisgender and microaggression.
The CEO of Dictionary.com, Liz McMillan said in their statement at AOL.com, "Our data indicated a growing interest in words related to identity, as people encountered new terms throughout the year based on events tied to gender, sexuality, race, and other key issues."
Because of these new models about gender, race, and sexual identity were exposed to the society, there are certain changes that go along with it. There have been some additions to definitions and entries for identity-related words at the site.
