It's Wrong to Play the Pronoun Game
I’m a parent of a “trans identified” teen, so the pronoun dilemma is close to home for me. However, as a society, we cannot tackle this issue only when it impacts us personally —we need to band together as a society to say no to this toxic ideology, and saying no to pronouns is a critical part of this process.
Here’s why I don’t put pronouns in my email signature (and you shouldn’t either)…
Note: Since this essay was written, Colin Wright penned an excellent op-ed about this topic for the Wall Street Journal.
[Please send to schools and friends]
People who promote “using pronouns” claim “for a cisgender person, it costs you nothing.” They claim it normalizes the process of “transitioning” for someone else and somehow makes the environment “safer”.
It is true that this normalizes a process, but it’s not a process that should be normalized or taken lightly, especially for minor children. It makes the environment more dangerous. When people “use their pronouns” they have been duped into thinking that they are merely “supporting” people who are different from them. In fact, they are promoting an aggressive and triumphalist cult ideology, normalizing the abnormal, and gaslighting the easily influenced young, leading them down a path of irreparable harm.
At the height of the anorexia epidemic, adults did not announce our “allyship” by including our weight in our email signatures. Encouraging a social contagion makes it worse and it is worse still when trusted adult authorities endorse it. It hurts vulnerable young people like my daughter, who became trans-identified at school, where teachers kept us in the dark then disregarded our concerns. In the epidemic of Trans Ideology, misguided allyship puts kids on a path that leads to unnecessary medical procedures resulting in sterility and regret.
New religions never say they are a religion—what they say is that they have discovered The Truth. And, once the mind and heart are won over, adherents will do anything to their bodies in the name of the True Faith. This must stop.
These are the words of a new cult religion’s catechism, not of science:
“They”: when applied to one person
“Deadname”: the name given, with love, by the people who gave you life
“Cisgender”: to describe someone who is not confused about his/her sex. Don’t refer to yourself as “cis-gender.” That’s another made-up term. Another lie. Simply using it reinforces the Big Lie of gender theory. You are a woman or a man, female or male, period. If someone else refers to you as cis-gender, take offense. “Don’t slap your label on me.”
”Transgender”: a euphemism now used to describe a tragically confused person who thinks he or she is trapped in “the wrong body”. This now includes a large number of young people. Let’s reject this term and return to the descriptive term “transsexual” for someone who has struggled with a serious psychological problem and surgeries, and deserves our compassion, but not our indulgence. Our society might reasonably be accepting of some people eventually undergoing medical “transitions” after their brains are fully developed—possibly the best of bad options for some of the truly dysphoric mentally ill. But, we all know brains are not fully developed before age 26.
There are societal consequences to agreeing and going along with euphemisms, new-speak, and pronouns:
That US Assistant Health Secretary Richard (“Rachel”) Levine is our nation’s First Female Four Star Admiral
That we should hire confused people to work in positions of authority in our county, state, and national health systems
That Wil(Lia)m Thomas is a girl swimmer
That schools should deliberately lie to parents about their gender programs, and that an underaged girl should secretly be called “he” in school, then quickly proceed to cross sex hormones and double mastectomies—paid for by insurance—without parental consent or even knowledge if she is 16.
When you play along with an evil game, what happens to you?
“When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control.” Theodore Dalrymple
I’m not sorry to say that the basic message of this article and all the ad hoc logic built poorly on top of it, demonstrates cis privilege and a misunderstanding of what being trans means. It’s not hard to grasp that our job as people who never have had to check our understanding is to do just that. So please note that while I am not an expert, neither is the writer of this article. Why? Because we’re not trans. So? Listen to trans people who know better than us. With that, let’s dismantle the key points here.
Firstly, everyone uses pronouns. Even cis men and women you call normal use he/him, she/her. Even if your response to this is to just start using nameself pronouns, which requires you to change the way you talk anyway, pronouns are not just gendered words. It/Its/Itself, We/Our/Ourselves, You/Your, and My/Mine are pronouns. We use them all the time, so using “pronouns” to refer to trans related topics thereabout is indicative of your lack of understanding. And yes, it costs nothing to tell people our pronouns, and very little to ask others for theirs and listen without rejecting their answer. If you don’t understand that, it’s not on trans and GNC people, period.
Then with the second paragraph, it’s impossible for me to know what this is about here because it’s not actually addressing anything. It’s just vague, buzzword filled and hollow tree bark.
As far as the anorexia analogy, weight is based in objective reality while gender, as has long been established and corroborated, is based in the brain. Comparing it to pretending to be an animal, being poor and identifying as rich, and identifying as a different race are all just baseless analogies that miss the mark by a mile.
The claim that trans is a social contagion is also based on blatant bias. If it was, all of the discrimination trans people have faced would have stopped it. If being trans was as negative as that statement implies as well, why should we care if we have no control? And of course… it’s not harmful. Just let people be. Is that so hard? Oh, you think they’ll get surgery too young? Well, that’s already been debunked to death as well. First of all, equally invasive surgeries with higher regret rates are way more common. Second, minors who are close to 18 rarely receive trans related surgery at all. Otherwise they will most likely if anything recieve puberty blockers and/or hormones . Even by then, the chance that “normal” puberty is right for them is known to be way too slim to justify the way our discomfort reinforces systematic transphobia. Stop confusing private parts with gender- They’re private, hence the name.
And I have to wonder who is known to quote the Bible ad nauseum to justify bigotry. Hmmmm… Could it be possible that you’re projecting your repeated use of religion onto gender equality? Yes, that is exactly true. Claims about indoctrination and ideology also amount to the same thing. We are just acknowledging the existence of queer people, but you people are preaching against accepting them.
As far as being forced to remain silent, if this is the battle you picked, you have perfectly illustrated a complete lack of regard about the marginalized people who have continually been silenced and told by us to shut up and get jobs when hiring discrimination exists and makes it difficult for them. If you can’t find some empathy for that, it shows that you are the one in denial. Full stop.
That half of the world buys into this heinous lie just blows my mind. We've personally been living this nightmare for 5 years and everyday more "authorities" push this agenda making it nearly impossible to gain any ground. I find my hope in groups like PITT where I see more and more parents in this unfortunate position who are starting to raise the alarm. I am grateful for you all.