Avoiding Speciesist Terms

Joan Dunayer Adapted by the author from her book Animal Equality: Language and Liberation (Derwood, Md.: Ryce Publishing, 2001) and reproduced with her permission.

Terms to Avoid Alternatives animal agriculture food-industry enslavement and slaughter animal experimentation, animal research, biomedical research (that harms animals)

vivisection

animals (excluding humans) nonhuman animals, other animals, nonhumans beef, hamburger, steak, etc. cow flesh beef cow, broiler chicken, food fish, veal calf cow/chicken/fish/calf reared for slaughter beef industry, pork industry, poultry industry cow-flesh/pig-flesh/bird-flesh industry beef producer, cattle rancher cattle enslaver circus animal circus captive companion animal nonhuman companion, pet (with reference to possibly or

definitely disrespected nonhumans, as in “the pet trade”) dairy cow, milk cow enslaved cow, cow enslaved for her milk dairy industry cow-milk industry, goat-milk industry, milk industry endangered animal, endangered species (in reference to an individual not personally endangered)

member of an endangered species

euthanize (a healthy animal) kill, murder even (as in “Even insects feel”) also, too, including, as well (as in “Insects, too, feel”) experimenter, researcher, scientist (who harms animals)

vivisector

factory farming factory “farming,” food-industry confinement, intensive confinement

farm animal, farmed animal animal enslaved for food, “farmed” animal fur industry pelt industry game animal hunted animal, sport-hunted animal guardian (in a legal context or in reference to someone who may not love or adequately care for a nonhuman they legally own)

owner

it (in reference to an animal) she (female); he (male); he/she, she/he (hermaphrodite); she, he (particular individual of unknown gender); they (unspecified individual of unknown gender)

lab animal vivisected animal, animal used in vivisection laying hen enslaved hen, hen enslaved for her eggs leather cow skin meat flesh milk (from cows) cow milk overfishing fishing, genocide by fishing, decimating a fish population poultry (in reference to living birds) birds/chickens/ducks/geese/turkeys enslaved for food purebred inbred shelter (that kills healthy animals) adoption-and-killing facility that, which, what (in reference to an animal) who wild animals, wildlife free-living nonhumans, non-“domesticated” nonhumans zoo animal zoo captive, zoo inmate, zoo prisoner