Guests visiting the Most Magical Place on Earth won’t hear the familiar words, “ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls” anymore. That’s because Disney is scrubbing any references to traditional gender roles at its theme parks, according to Newsweek.
The change comes in the midst of weeks of tension from a culture war amongst the Walt Disney Company, fans of Disney, and the State of Florida legislature related to Florida’s House Bill 1557, the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which was signed into law on Monday by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
Disney’s inclusion and diversity manager, Vivian Ware, announced the removal of nods to traditional gender roles in a video on Twitter, posted by Christopher Rufo. In the video, Ware is giving a presentation via video call, and the “reimagine tomorrow” can be seen on the upper right-hand side of the screen. Ware explained that last summer, live announcements that Guests hear at attractions at Disney Parks were devoid of the traditional “gendered greetings,” which welcome Guests–“ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls.”
“We don’t want to just assume because someone might be, in our interpretation, presenting as female, that they want to be called ‘princess,’” Ware said in the video, which is accompanied by an American Sign Language translator.
“So we no longer say ‘ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls,’” Ware explained in the video. “We’ve provided trainings for all of our Cast Members and in relationship to that so now they know it’s, ‘hello everyone’ or ‘hello friends.’”
Ware said that Disney is currently in the process of making changes to its recorded messages at its theme parks. During the nighttime spectacular at Magic Kingdom, Disney Enchantment, the welcome greeting extends to “dreamers of all ages,” rather than “ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls.”
