What is Humanizing?
Some words come with a particular prefix attached. For example, I may feel discombobulated, but I cannot remember the last time I was simply "combobulated." The same goes for "dehumanize" and its conjugations. There are countless stories of dehumanizing working conditions, hazing rituals, etc., but is anything described by the inverse? What does it mean to be "humanizing?"
Perhaps "to humanize" is the opposite of "to dehumanize", which means "to deprive of human qualities." Then humanizing is providing human qualities, like a standard of living. Workers in exceptionally poor conditions are dehumanized, so to improve their environment would be humanizing. Along this line of reasoning, I may define humanizing as moving up the pyramid of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. To progress from seeking food, water, and shelter to pursuing self-actualization is a spectrum of humanization.
Maybe humanizing means becoming more human, as a sort of literary device. In that case, humanizing may be synonymous with personifying or anthropomorphizing. I can imagine a dystopia where an artificial intelligence humanizes by constructing itself a bipedal vessel. I can see a story about a ruthless felon who is brought to tears and humanized by receiving letters from a young girl who forgives him.
I suppose humanizing may not be an inherently good thing, it may mean to be "only human" in the sense that people are flawed. They make mistakes. It could be that to be humanized is to be humbled. For instance, it may be a larger-than-life tennis champion who is beaten and therefore humanized. Maybe the realization that oneself is capable of substance abuse and infidelity is a humanizing thought, for better or worse.
Humanizing seems to be a nuanced and versatile concept that I will be adding to my vocabulary. Use it at your own risk, but I encourage you to give it a try.