Signed by Governor Kathy Hochul Legislation by Senator Kaplan and Congressman O’Donnell Update state real estate laws to replace the word “salesman” with “salesman” and update pronouns to be gender-neutral
Research shows that the real estate sales profession is overwhelmingly female, accounting for 64% of real estate agents statewide and nationally.
Carle Place, New York (August 18, 2022) – today, Governor Kathy Hochul signed legislation, S.536a/A.8077a, introduced by Senator Anna M. Kaplan (D-North Hills) and Congressman Danny O’Donnell (D-Morningside Heights) updates the nearly 100-year-old section of New York state law on real estate salespeople, removing outdated gender-specific language and replacing it with gender-neutral language. The new law will come into force immediately.
Before the new law was enacted, the underlying section of state real estate law regulating the real estate brokerage and sales profession, written in 1927, contained 85 references to “salesman” and It included dozens of cases of gender pronouns like him. him, and his. The law contained a reference to “salesman” only in his two places, and no reference to “saleswoman”.
Senator Anna M. Kaplan “Work has no gender, but unfortunately many of our state laws still use gender language when discussing occupations practiced by people of all genders. It’s important to update and send these outdated sections of the law to reflect New York’s values: the message that everyone should be able to pursue their passion, regardless of gender.”
Congressman Danny O’Donnell “People of all professions deserve to feel valued, but the gendered language in our real estate law does not fully recognize the contributions of women and nonbinary New Yorkers. wants its workplace to reflect the diversity of New York City, and to achieve that goal, all realtors feel belonging and the profession is accessible. We appreciate Senator Kaplan’s leadership on this issue and are pleased that Governor Ho-Chol signed this important bill into law.
The Act, S.536a/A.8077a, updates Section 12-A of the Real Estate Act as follows:
- Change all instances of the word salesman to salesperson
- By removing references to “him or her” in favor of “their”, changing “himself” to “themselves”, and changing variations of these words as appropriate, we have removed gender discrimination from articles. remove the words
Research by the New York State Association of Realtors (read here) and the National Association of Realtors (read here) show that men are actually underrepresented in this profession, making them 64% are women. By removing sexist terms from state real estate laws, the laws will ultimately reflect the gender diversity of the real estate sales profession.