८ जून, २०२२

"[T]he boys are arguing that their use of biologically correct, if politically incorrect, pronouns is speech protected by the First Amendment."

"The Constitution also forbids the district from compelling them to speak as district bureaucrats suddenly — how long ago did they embrace this orthodoxy? — prefer. Furthermore, the [the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty] says it has spoken with another Kiel Area family “whose daughter was recently given an in-school suspension for ‘sexual harassment’ based on a single statement using an allegedly ‘wrong’ pronoun — and the statement was said to a third party, not even to the allegedly 'misgendered' student."

Writes George Will in "When the pronoun police come for eighth-graders" (WaPo).

The highest-rated comment over there is: "Misgendering someone maliciously is discrimination. Your crutch of 'biological sex' gives your argument a veneer of legitimacy, when you're really arguing that it's fine for these boys to bully this kid. You devoted a whole column to defend teenage bullies picking on the kid that's different. Please think about how sad that is. Why make an argument against inclusion, just because it doesn't fit perfectly into your worldview? Genderqueer people are only asking for basic dignity and respect, it's not 'woke-ness,' it's basic human decency."

९५ टिप्पण्या:

HoodlumDoodlum म्हणाले...

When people look around and say "how the hell did we get here" I tell them things like good manners, kindness, and basic human decency were weaponized and nice, friendly people let it happen. There's a good case to be made for being angrier at those people than at the activists.
Remember the days of "all we want is to be left alone and love each other our way," the days when nice people said this was just about tolerance?

rcocean म्हणाले...

What is it about Lefties and the crazy soccer moms who love them? Nobody was doing this 10 years. Its like someone threw a swtich and all these crazies in our elite decided Transgenders are the most important thing ever.

I realize we have tons of women and teachers with plenty of $$ and time on their hands. Why don't they actually improve somebodies life or do some good for the poor instead wasting everyone's time with the Lbqtz++ nonsense and censoring and punishing people.

Amadeus 48 म्हणाले...

Happy pride month.

I think this could be sorted out on the playground. Repeat after me: Sticks and stones…

Rocketeer म्हणाले...

No, it's not. It's forced compliance with a *political* program. If these mentally ill but culturally and politically powerful "genderqueer" bullies don't back the hell off of their efforts to compel speech, and I mean VERY quickly, they are not going to like the method the vast majority of us normies resort to to protect *our* fundamental rights.

grimson म्हणाले...

These are just junior high kids, and as WILL's initial letter to the school district noted: "as you know, the student in question has teased the boys as much if not more, including calling them numerous names and yelling at them for not using 'they/them' pronouns, even when they were not talking to or about her..."

jaydub म्हणाले...

" it's not 'woke-ness,' it's basic human decency."

You're right. It's not wokeness. Its fascism. Twenty years ago if I called someone a "queer" it would have been considered to be "hate speech." Now, if I don't call someone a queer, it's hate speech. I don't have time for these types of adolescent games, so eat me.

RideSpaceMountain म्हणाले...

Basic human decency is allowing someone to compel you to lie for someone else. It's in the Flying Spaghetti Monster Talman on page 4 for monster's sake.

You shall be compelled to lie. It's scripture!

Alexander म्हणाले...

"We just want to be treated the same" wears a little thin after almost two decades of observably demanding to be treated the opposite under the threat of the law. Normal people don't have a whole month where the apparatus of the ABCNNBCWaPoNYTubeAppoogle demand the entire population clap like seals, for a start.

Long past time to cease tolerating these power plays in the public sphere.

Heartless Aztec म्हणाले...

In the early 2000's I had a male student with hair below his ass. It was the first day of school and from the back he looked like a girl. I asked him from behind - politely - "Please take a seat young lady". I found myself in the Vice principal's office the next day with an angry parent unloading on my mis-genderization of her son. After the parent left the vice principal - a grizzled cigar chomping Korean War vet - leaned in and said "Fuck em' if they can't take a joke" with a gratuitous wink thrown in for good measure.

grimson म्हणाले...

To clarify, "WILL" is the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, not George Will.

Jeff Weimer म्हणाले...

The pronouns thing is a power flex, a way to control people's thoughts and words when the subject isn't even around. It's commandeering *two* separate people to act a certain way - the speaker and the spoken to and it requires them to enforce it out of earshot of the subject.

JK Brown म्हणाले...

"Genderqueer people are only asking for basic dignity and respect"

No they are using government violence to force people to change how they speak based on an ephemeral choice of words. Outside of writing, people use pronouns because they mostly don't remember people's names. Trying to remember some special pronoun is even more burdening. But the simplest solution is to just not speak of or about the person who is imposing the burden.

Sebastian म्हणाले...

"Why make an argument against inclusion"

Just to illustrate that in progspeak punishing kids for incorrect speech is a form of inclusion.

And actually Will wrote a big book about why he would make an argument for basic constitutional principles.

Fredrick म्हणाले...

"Misgendering" someone is simply calling out cultural marxists on their bull.

Deevs म्हणाले...

Of course the "wrong" pronoun was said to a third party. It's a third person pronoun. That's one thing that bothers me about this whole trans thing, and a lot of other people, too, I imagine. It's trying to compel people to say things they don't believe under the supposed auspices of politeness even when the person you're supposedly being polite towards isn't around. Which is funny, because I can't think of anything less polite than that. I guess our hostess can put this comment under her "Civility bullshit" tag now.

rhhardin म्हणाले...

Your speech is about how things seem to you, not about how anybody else thinks things should seem to you.

Temujin म्हणाले...

"Genderqueer people are only asking for basic dignity and respect, it's not 'woke-ness,' it's basic human decency."

Acch, stop the madness, please. "Misgendering (whatever that is) someone maliciously is discrimination." Well...selecting an Askinosie Chocolate bar over a Hershey's Chocolate bar is also discrimination. It shows discriminating taste- which, once upon a time, used to be considered a good thing. Still, we all use it. We all use discrimination in making our choices. It's rational to discriminate between ideas, choices, to separate what you agree with or like, from that which you do not. We all do it. And we all do it every day in every decision we make, large or small.

Not following an informally, ever-changing, newly thrust-upon-us, mandate of speech which includes new words that never before in multiple millennia ever made any sense- is not discrimination. At worst, it's confusion. Maybe frustration. Maybe a bit of standing up for one's own individual rights to use their language as taught, as is commonly used. (and even if it wasn't commonly used- it's their right to use their words).

The only bullying around that's going on today is an oversized declaration of rights to an undersized minority of people in a society, demanding that everything in that society stop to bend to their whims, even as they change themselves from day to day. It's one thing to ask to be respected. It's another entirely to force the whole of society to 'celebrate' you. Even those who may fervently disagree with you may still respect you enough as a human being to live and let live. But when you demand that they change their language, allow you to move between gender worlds- depending on what you feel on a given month, and celebrate you in song, movies, articles, theater- in numbers that far outweigh your actual influence on the society, then we have a problem.

And when you demand that we allow you to work on our kids with your messaging, almost as if you were recruiting the next generation and then some- again, we have a problem.

You would be fine going about your life and not demanding of the greater society that it bends to you. It will bend backward for you for a bit. Then it will snap back. It's a natural reaction.

Paul Kramer म्हणाले...

and it's not Mauism it's Maoism

Scott Patton म्हणाले...

"only asking for basic dignity and respect"
Sounds more like demanding. Not that there's (necessarily) anything wrong with that.
If you're going to get into trouble for using a particular word in a particular circumstance... don't do that. What the district shouldn't be able to do is compel a student to say a word (except maybe as part of an assignment - an argument for another time).
It seems that the concept of pronouns has become obsolete, at least until a practical solution is adopted.
One or none? This person, that person? All persons wishing to be addressed as her must wear a dress, trousers are for hims?
This is an impossible situation at present. Events arising from impossible situations should be resolved at the individual level.

Joe Smith म्हणाले...

How about we just all use the pronoun 'freak.'

Nobody can demand respect.

Nobody can demand compliance.

Nobody can demand that others bow to their will.

Richard Aubrey म्हणाले...

Okay.
My preferred pronoun is "SIR".
As in, "Yes SIR." "No SIR." "Immediately SIR".

This could be a lot of fun.

Does "you're an idiot" fit the grammar definition of pronoun?

PM म्हणाले...

"Genderqueer people are only asking for basic dignity and respect..." Fine, live your life, let's have a beer, but stop demanding everyone stop what they're doing and cater to you.

Michael K म्हणाले...

It sounds like the authorities have the same trouble as Justice Brown with biology.

Lawrence Person म्हणाले...

"How many fingers, Winston?"

Elliott A म्हणाले...

Until the individual in question can strip naked and have only female anatomy, he is a he. Period. Punishment for "misgendering" is insanity. What if I decide I identify as the President and am insulted when not properly addressed. Or even better, identify as royalty and suffer insult if I don't hear "your highness". Acceptance and respect will only come when the trans individual does not draw undue attention to their uniqueness and ask for special treatment with pronouns. Just be a human.

Mike Sylwester म्हणाले...

Such situations -- where an eighth-grade student insists on other-sex pronouns -- are rare.

Instead of making and enforcing strict rules that will just cause mockery and other trouble, the school should try more subtle tactics.

When that student is out of the classroom, then the teacher can persuade the other students to avoid causing trouble with that student.

Tell them: Either use that students preferred pronouns, or else avoid using any pronouns. Don't tease or mock that student. Don't cause trouble about this situation.

If some students nevertheless persist in mocking, teasing and bullying, then deal individually with those few trouble-makers.

Don't cause a huge public controversy about the pronouns that eighth-graders say.

-------

All schools have bathrooms specially for the adults. Let that student use that bathroom.

exhelodrvr1 म्हणाले...

Wrong pronouns is bullying now?

traditionalguy म्हणाले...

OK. Everybody must pretend….or else.

Amadeus 48 म्हणाले...

How about teaching the pronoun-challenged kid to be resilient? It is a hard, cold world out there. He/she/they are going to have a lot tougher challenges than getting some jr. high school twerps to use his/her/their preferred pronouns.

I am sorry for this unhappy child. Calling teacher is not available all the time. Fortunately, many cases of gender dysphoria are resolved by the early 20s without surgical or pharmaceutical intervention. Hey, teacher! Leave the kid alone!

n.n म्हणाले...

Appeasing trans/neogender confusion is entertaining a psychopathic mutation, which was demonstrated by Johns Hopkins through medical, surgical, and psychiatric corruption to unpredictably exacerbate the condition of the majority, and deny them a return resolution. This is why they distinguish between trans/homos, trans/bis, and trans/inters where divergence from normal is nominally stable, from others in the transgender spectrum.

wendybar म्हणाले...

Feck off with the stupid pronouns. You are either he or she...You can't just expect people to GUESS correctly whatever the heck you feel like being for the day. So dumb, it scares me. I can't even believe this is America anymore. Grow up. Sexual harassment?? So dumbing that down, so that REAL sexual harassment will be ignored..just like RACISM. Progressives are so regressive.

rrsafety म्हणाले...

"Genderqueer people are only asking for basic dignity" ... this is not a true statement.

Owen म्हणाले...

I just can’t believe this civility BS. We’re supposed to guess at how somebody’s feeling because they want a different pronoun than standard usage? We’re supposed to care if we picked wrong and now they have the sadz? These clowns just don’t have enough real problems.

Also, and importantly, this is not about pronouns, not at all. It’s just how the Progs humiliate and demoralize everybody: the more fury over the more-minute and absurd pretext, the better.

I would sue these people back into the Stone Age; and make sure that everybody knew it.

Tom T. म्हणाले...

Of course the statement was to a third person! That's the only time one uses the disputed pronouns. When talking to someone directly, the speaker uses the pronoun "you," which is not gendered.

AZ Bob म्हणाले...

They're also asking to use the wrong bathrooms and compete in women's sports.

Robert Marshall म्हणाले...

"a single statement using an allegedly ‘wrong’ pronoun — and the statement was said to a third party, not even to the allegedly 'misgendered' student."

This should ALWAYS be the situation, when the issue is about gendered pronouns. When you are speaking TO the special pronoun person, you would use the second person pronouns to refer to them (you, your, yours), which are completely non-gendered. No room to take offense there.

It is only when you use third-person pronouns, as when you are talking to person X about person Y, that person Y's sex comes into play. I would say that if you have something unpleasant to say about person Y to someone else, you do it out of the hearing of person Y. That's just simple good manners, regardless of pronoun gender.

But, I rather doubt the school district polices middle-school chit-chat very rigorously, EXCEPT when it involves special pronoun usage. So it's not 'basic dignity and respect' that the pronoun people are looking for, it's special kid-glove treatment for their particular quirk. Middle-school gets vicious for just about everyone at some point, but the pronoun people can take advantage of special disciplinary powers to protect themselves only. Everyone else has to live with the 'mean girls' viciousness.

Shoeless Joe म्हणाले...

"Genderqueer people are only asking for basic dignity and respect, it's not 'woke-ness"

Ugh, they're not "asking" for anything -- they're demanding it at the point of a gun. Today its a school suspension, tomorrow your career, and next week it'll be a term in prison not to exceed five years. That slippery slope is actually a chasm to the pit of hell.

gadfly म्हणाले...

I have been using standard pronouns for 80 years, except for the few when only Mommy and Daddy were useful as substitutes. So how can this fiasco apply to adults whose command of English does not fit new twists assigned by inventors half or less our age? I guess we need a Jo v. Pade or some such court ruling to ensure equal treatment for all.

gadfly म्हणाले...

I have been using standard pronouns for 80 years, except for the few when only Mommy and Daddy were useful as substitutes. So how can this fiasco apply to adults whose command of English does not fit new twists assigned by inventors half or less our age? I guess we need a Jo v. Pade or some such court ruling to ensure equal treatment for all.

RMc म्हणाले...

Genderqueer people are only asking for basic dignity and respect, it's not 'woke-ness,' it's basic human decency."

Except you're not going to get respect by putting eighth-graders in the dock for "misgendering" somebody. People aren't stupid; they know that this isn't "basic human decency", it's straight-up Stalinesque BS.

mikee म्हणाले...

If the boys simply ignored the existence of the other kid, never speaking of or to that kid, would that be accepted by the speech police? Because I've done that for decades with people I've worked with, relatives, and even complete strangers who wanted & demanded that I do or say strange things based on their personal definitions of dignity and respect, which for some strange reason they expected me to obey. What you don't care about can be ignored.

Zev म्हणाले...

It is not bullying. It is wokeness. And it's BS besides.
They are demanding we corrupt the language to their satisfaction.
Sorry, but no.

tcrosse म्हणाले...

Can one be guilty of misgendering those who misgender themselves?

cubanbob म्हणाले...

The arrogant assumption the world has to cater to a small minorities mental imbalances.

charis म्हणाले...

Will has always had an odd way of writing -- what do you call them? -- sentences.

Maynard म्हणाले...

Madame Mao would be proud of how our woke warriors have learned from the Cultural Revolution.

Make no mistake about it. This is part of a Marxist attempt to control speech. Once they achieve that objective ...

Liberals better wake up.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves म्हणाले...

bullying is wrong.

using the wrong pronoun? is this really bullying? If so - how?

Static Ping म्हणाले...

Forcing speech is also a form of discrimination and of bullying. Discrimination and bullying can go in all sorts of directions. I'm sure the author of the comment defines "discrimination" as solely directed at persons the author likes and everyone else can go to hell.

It is amusing that the Freedom of Speech is not even considered. This person is no patriot.

n.n म्हणाले...

The premise of their apology, is that transgender conversion therapy could be effective, if only the general population accepts the tenets of their faith, and takes a knee to inculcation by choice, Choice, or force to go along with with a mass Mengele experiment a la one-child/selective-child; non-sterilizing, mutagenic experimental treatments; etc. Sure, why not. There are diverse precedents.

Mary Beth म्हणाले...

Were they taunting this other student, or did they just say "she" instead of "them"? The three boys, and the girl who was given in-school suspension, might feel that the adults in the school system are bullying them.

I don't want to trust the people in power when they say someone said mean things. I want to know the context.

Just out of curiosity, I would like to know, if one student gives another a nickname - something "Red" for a redhead or "Stretch" for a tall kid (something descriptive but not objectively negative)- and the nicknamed child objects but the other kid calls them that anyway, would that child be punished in the same way? I think it's the same problem. Misgendering is disrespectful, but I don't see it as sexual harassment unless there's a lot more to the comments than just using the wrong pronoun.

boatbuilder म्हणाले...

If this were a courtroom, Will would present the "highest rated comment" as evidence, and rest his case.

n.n म्हणाले...

Happy pride month.

There's one problem: [selective] exclusion. We observed the bigotry of the politically congruent ("=") when the trans/bi took the pulse of trans/homo elitists' choice to exclude him from playing their social games. Another problem: [progressive] confusion. Where are the lions, lionesses, and their [unPlanned] cubs playing in gay abandon? And, of course, the handmade tales brayed to pacify the general population in a mass transgender conversion therapy session. Unfortunately, not unprecedented.

Friendo म्हणाले...

fuck off.

Buckwheathikes म्हणाले...

I'm sorry, but I and a lot of other completely normal people, are not going to participate in your mental illness and/or sexual perversity.

If you wish to parade around as a gender you clearly are not, more power to you pal. Doesn't affect me. But the second you wish to use the power of the state I pay for to force me to participate in your descent into madness, to act like it's normal, is the second you and I part ways.

You will not like the way we part ways.

Rusty म्हणाले...

gadfly.
This is the moral paradigm you have been championing your whole life. When all behavior is relative, any behavior becomes acceptable. Progressivism at it's finest.

Narayanan म्हणाले...

what are the incentives in USA school system for administration hierarchy ?
on physical bullying === ignored or punish victim
on verbal bullying === punish alleged perpetrators on hearsay?

Jupiter म्हणाले...

"You devoted a whole column to defend teenage bullies picking on the kid that's different."

Of course, as you noted, at least part of the column was devoted to defending a person who made a comment to a third party. So, the author of "the highest-rated comment over there" is a lying shit-weasel. Of course, given the recent history of WaPo, there is no reason to suppose that comment was actually rated by any readers, or even written by a reader. WaPo has several lying shit-weasels on staff, don't they?

Jim at म्हणाले...

Calling someone an asshole is gender neutral. It avoids their pronoun issues and seems apt.

Dave64 म्हणाले...

"Misgendering" is just another attempt by the far left to create another weaponized word. This allows them and their mentally ill proponents to basically bully people into saying something that they don't believe, and which is biologically impossible. People I know are tired of the whole charade. It needs to stop.

MadTownGuy म्हणाले...

Can Of Cheese for Hunter said...

"bullying is wrong.

using the wrong pronoun? is this really bullying? If so - how?
"

Making people use a preferred pronoun is where the actual bullying happens.

realestateacct म्हणाले...

I don't have a problem for disciplining kids for trying to make another kid miserable. I have problem with making a Federal case out of it.

Oso Negro म्हणाले...

"Genderqueer" teens should be stuck with their preferred pronouns the rest of their lives. Tattooing the pronouns on their foreheads would be a good way to help people remember.

BUMBLE BEE म्हणाले...

Put the gaudy yellow on the boys and load 'em in the boxcar already. it's baseball season for fuck's sake.

Yancey Ward म्हणाले...

Parents need to teach their children this phrase to use when forced to say things they don't agree with "Fuck off and die."

Michelle Dulak Thomson म्हणाले...

It seems to me that this sort of Title IX enforcement has inserted a bifurcation of rules about bullying that really shouldn't be there.

Kids are bullied for anything, plausible or not. I moved to a new school near the end of fifth grade. I had found an extraordinarily tall dandelion stem (three feet or so) and brought it to school. From that moment on, I was "Pickin'-in-the-weeds Dulak." The other kids found out that I liked to watch caterpillars rather than smash them, so a girl followed me into the bathroom and said, "Do you know caterpillars have green guts?" Girls (they were always girls) cornered me in the library and threatened to beat me up, though all they actually got around to was pinching and hair-pulling -- librarians are vigilant. This sort of thing went on until I taped a school bus ride, transcribed it, and dropped it on the principal's desk the next day. That was in ninth grade.

It sounds trivial now, all this juvenile taunting, but for me it was hell while it lasted.

[cont'd]

Jaq म्हणाले...

The only people who have special first and second person pronouns are royalty. “Pronouns” can *only* be used to talk *about* a person, usually when they are not present. Like the royal plural and “your majesty,” etc, it’s about control.

Michelle Dulak Thomson म्हणाले...

[cont'd]

But in the eyes of this new interpretation of Title IX, I wasn't bullied, because most of this had zero to do with sex or gender. Is that fair, do you think? Should the fat kid or the kid with glasses or the girl who likes her hair neon-pink have to suffer bullying because that bullying isn't about something gender-related? Why?

Jaq म्हणाले...

I wonder how blacks feel about advertisers folding Juneteenth into Pride Month and making them equivalent.

Josephbleau म्हणाले...

If I were an 8th grader, and know what I know now, I would make my pronouns Beeblebroxnianweunix. and if someone did not replace the w with the German v I would claim bulliness. But could they accuse me of being a right wing asshole under color of progressiveness?

Josephbleau म्हणाले...

Neahhh, your Mother's pronoun is "it."

M Jordan म्हणाले...

Language can be manipulated but it can’t be mastered. When feminists introduced “Ms.” into the vernacular in any attempt to strip marital status from women’s titles, they instead introduced a new status: Divorcee, the group that used Ms. the most.

Doublespeak works for awhile and then it doesn’t. Hence the need to constantly changing words for things related to mental defects. Imbecile, you know, was once “scientific.”

Gospace म्हणाले...

So if I tell a morbidly obese woman at work, "You're morbidly obese! For heaven's sake, lose some weight for your health!" am I guilty of harassment because I told her the truth?

If a boy calls another boy a boy how is he misgendering? He's telling the truth. Is the goal of education now to teach children how to lie? Or to teach them to obey, no matter how much truth has to be denied to obey?

If the district bureaucrats are intent on forcing children to learn to lie- they are guilty of many things, among them child abuse.

Butkus51 म्हणाले...

Thats why I identify as a Frito chip. Nobody will guess and I can sue everyone.

My wife Chili likes it.

Bender म्हणाले...

The commenters over at WaPo are as maliciously hateful a group as you will ever meet. The com boxes there are toxic cesspools. Worse than the reporters.

There is nothing to be gained by responding to such nonsense.

Bender म्हणाले...

"Obsolete. Obsolete."

I just happened to turn on the Twilight Zone episode about the librarian is tried and convicted of being obsolete.

takirks म्हणाले...

HoodlumDoodlum said:

"When people look around and say "how the hell did we get here" I tell them things like good manners, kindness, and basic human decency were weaponized and nice, friendly people let it happen. There's a good case to be made for being angrier at those people than at the activists.
Remember the days of "all we want is to be left alone and love each other our way," the days when nice people said this was just about tolerance?"


That's how they get ya.

The opening wedge, as we all warned, was the gay marriage issue. Now that they've got that, they're using that acquiescence as precedent, and forcing more and more of their agenda down everyone's throat. It won't end until they've got everything they want, and then they'll decide they want more, something else. Because the "want" is the point; they want to outrage you, to wave their transgressions in your face because you're a square, and not sensitive to their childish need.

There's a reason that the sexually confused have been kept in the closet by about every successful civilization since time began. It's because they're destructive, and cannot live with others. The evidence is before you; they're going to be on to "minor-attracted person" before long, and telling you that wanting to protect your child from molestation is hateful, that you should willingly sacrifice them to Moloch. Because, reasons... Reasons rooted deep in their deranged psyches.

Here's a tip for everyone: If an adult human being is so obsessed with sex that they've wrapped their entire identity around it, whether they be "swingers" or any of the LGBTWTFBBQ spectrum... There's something profoundly wrong there. Such people are to be kept at arm's length, and watched carefully. They're dangerous creatures, usually with accompanying mental illnesses, because if there's something wrong with something as deeply intertwined with their personality and behavior as their sexuality? There's a lot more wrong, somewhere else in their heads. Doesn't matter how they got there, whether it's because they were abused or because they're just wired wrong from birth... There is something wrong with them. You cannot get around that. They cannot get around that, and they're all too likely to drag you down with them.

It ain't the kind of sex, either... It's the obsession with it. Sex was not meant to be the sum total of someone's identity, and if it is? That's a pretty shallow identity.

Caligula म्हणाले...

"Your crutch of 'biological sex' gives your argument a veneer of legitimacy, when you're really arguing ..."

The commenter all but admits that the "crutch" is true, but then dismisses the importance of mere truth in favor of a Higher Ideology?

Since when is truth a "crutch"?


"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows." But if truth itself is now deprecated, surely mere freedom is as well.

M म्हणाले...

We can’t live with people who refuse to deal with reality. I owe nothing to anyone who needs special dispensation for their mental illness. They should be in a hospital, not lording it over the normies like some kid of gayboi revenge porn. If they keep this up eventually people will get so sick of it they won’t care when the more violent of the mentally ill “straights” start killing them off.

I already wouldn’t vote to incarcerate any child who kills an LGBT who abused them in any manner. Including soft grooming like they are doing in schools, libraries, lefty churches and day camps. These people are twisting breaking these children’s minds for their own amusements. I have zero sympathy for them.

Ampersand म्हणाले...

Has it occurred to any adult involved in this that they have a moral obligation to speak out against this insanity? Transgenderism is the current Lysenkoism. But it's even more despicable. Young people are having their lives destroyed.

FullMoon म्हणाले...

"Genderqueer people are only asking for basic dignity and respect, it's not 'woke-ness,' it's basic human decency.""

Dignity, respect, decency,in the eighth grade? Not in the school I went to.

Drago म्हणाले...

Caligula: "Since when is truth a "crutch"?"

Whenever you are in disagreement with a democratical.

loudogblog म्हणाले...

"Forcing someone to use pronouns that they personally consider incorrect is discrimination. Your crutch of 'feelings trump science' gives your argument a veneer of legitimacy, when you're really arguing that it's fine for LGBTQ+ advocates to bully this kid. You devoted a whole column to defend bullies picking on the kid that's different. Please think about how sad that is. Why make an argument against inclusion, just because it doesn't fit perfectly into your worldview? Conservative people are only asking for basic dignity and respect, it's not 'malicious,' it's basic human decency."

Brian McKim and/or Traci Skene म्हणाले...

"...and the statement was said to a third party, not even to the allegedly 'misgendered' student."

But that's how pronouns work. Actually, the "allegedly misgendered student," as she or zhe wasn't party to the conversation in the first place, is actually the third party.

None of this makes sense.

effinayright म्हणाले...

tim in vermont said...
The only people who have special first and second person pronouns are royalty. “Pronouns” can *only* be used to talk *about* a person, usually when they are not present. Like the royal plural and “your majesty,” etc, it’s about control.
******************
Idisagree.

YOU are wrong---and YOU are not even royalty.

glacial erratic म्हणाले...

First they demand "tolerance". You don't have to like it but you shouldn't have laws against it, right? Then they demand "acceptance", followed by the requirement to "celebrate" the perversion of the day. Finally, the full power of the government, media, and academia unite to destroy you if you give anything less than full-throated, enthusiastic cheerleading.

Then, having destroyed one element of civilization, they pick another and repeat.

It's been the Left's tactic since the 60s.

farmgirl म्हणाले...

A checkout person at our grocery store seems a lovely sort. The name tag says devin. A lively type, friendly- w/a feminine voice(high-pitched). I “assumed” female(as did my Mom(who’s 90!)). The last time we went through the line, we were referring to devin as she. Out loud!! “Maybe she’ll ring this out blah blah…”

This person drooped before my eyes, hardly spoke and did not respond to courteous smiles afterward. Trying to put 2+2 together- I do wonder if this person was fluid and crushed to be called a she. Could that be right? What’s the greatest 1st world problem one could face? That there is so much luxury and safety in life to spare copious amounts of time brooding over strangers who can’t tell or don’t believe it’s offensive(or could care less)that they follow their eyes and instincts over your “gender”?

I think that might be it.

Tom म्हणाले...

Everyone has right to choose what they want to be, even if they want to be something they biologically are not. People don’t have the right to my participation. I may choose to participate and I may not. And that may or may not depend on how hot they are.

Oh, and I’m changing my pronouns to Miss Gendered.

Kevin म्हणाले...

All they want is to enshrine their preferred cultural norms with the force of law.

What could possibly go wrong?

boatbuilder म्हणाले...

A thought experiment: What would happen if the boys called the "victim" "genderqueer?"

Thomas म्हणाले...

Ah, the truth is no defense... so a question: how many micro-offenses can dance on the head of a pin?

natatomic म्हणाले...

Would it be considered bullying if you told an anorexic girl that she was incredibly skinny? I didn’t realize it was suddenly considered bullying to not participate in someone’s delusion.

Real American म्हणाले...

it's the trans people who are misgendering themselves. The rest of us are sane.

Bill Peschel म्हणाले...

takirks says: "The opening wedge, as we all warned, was the gay marriage issue."

I disagree. It's a simpler line to draw from criminalizing hate crimes and hate speech to criminalizing all speech.

Just like when colleges began instituting "whiteness studies" back in the '90s. It took a generation of idiots who graduated from those departments to grow up and move into positions of power, and here we are.

Smilin' Jack म्हणाले...

My preferred pronouns: 1st person: We; 2nd & 3rd: His Majesty.

Bunkypotatohead म्हणाले...

"If the boys simply ignored the existence of the other kid, never speaking of or to that kid, would that be accepted by the speech police?"

Then they'll be convicted of "othering" them, with similar consequences.