A couple of years ago I took my kids to visit some colleges. These were exciting times, and we enjoyed seeing the various campuses while being led by enthusiastic student tour guides. At one particular college we gathered in a central meeting place and before we broke up into smaller groups the friendly tour guides introduced themselves one by one. Each tour guide stepped forward and flashed a radiant smile before cheerfully stating their name, major, what year they were … and their preferred pronouns.
For a brief moment, I felt like I had stepped foot into the Twilight Zone instead of a brilliant academic institution. And I felt like my intelligence had been insulted.
Now, I am fully aware of the recent phenomenon of people declaring their pronouns. I increasingly see pronouns listed in written bio’s or underneath profile pictures on social media. And honestly, it’s something that could maybe be appreciated if the person announcing their pronouns didn’t obviously look like one gender or the other. Most people are polite, and it can feel awkward to interact with someone whose gender you are unsure, as you don’t want to say the wrong thing. In fact, just a few years ago this awkwardness was made light of in a series of Saturday Night Live skits.
Yes, Pat was a popular sketch for awhile and even garnered a movie in 1994.
But unlike Pat in the video above, the gender of each of the student tour guides was easily determined just by looking at them, and none of the tour guides were pretending to be something they were not. So the stating of pronouns seemed so odd. Why did they feel the need to tell us the obvious? Did they think we were stupid? Had they convinced themselves that we live in a world where no one can tell who is male and who is female unless that person blatantly declares it?
I don’t think so. I think the students knew better. The whole thing is a charade, but they play along with it.
But why?
I have my own ideas, but I wanted to know what the young people thought. So I asked some. The answer I got was that stating pronouns is to protect the feelings of someone whose gender is not so obvious. So, if a young woman was struggling with her identity and wanted to be referred to as a man (or vice versa), she would not be the only person declaring her pronouns. And it is very unkind to misgender someone.
I agree, we do not need to be rude. We need to treat people with compassion, empathy and love. If I am interacting with someone who is struggling with their identity, of course I will be kind. If I can convince them that their first and foremost identity is that of a precious child of God, created in His image and who is loved by Jesus Christ, even better. For wouldn’t accepting this truth put a person struggling with identity on a more peaceful path to happiness and self-acceptance, as opposed to being told that they were born into the wrong body and that there is something inherently wrong with them?
But there is a fallacy to the argument that the use of someone’s preferred pronouns is simply to protect feelings, for when is he or she ever used when directly addressing another person? He or she is used when talking about a person, not to a person. So is this really about protecting the feelings of a transgender person with which you are interacting? Or is it a way to change the norms of society by pressuring people into going along with the charade that sex is separate from gender, and gender can be whatever a person declares, not what reality dictates?
My guess is these students were just going along with what they’d been instructed to do by the university. Or perhaps the idea had come from the students themselves, and anyone who thought it was ridiculous had kept their mouths shut for fear of being called transphobic. Perhaps all of the students boldly announced their pronouns because they thought they were being good people and it was the right thing to do. After all, it is true that in the past people who have not ascribed to gender norms have been bullied and mistreated. And in the students’ minds, this could be a way to show support and non-judgment.
Besides, you may ask, what’s the big deal? They’re silly pronouns.
Well, the big deal is that every time someone publicly bows to the pressure to prop up the charade instead of standing for truth, it emboldens people like Artemis Langford.
Artemis Langford is a University of Wyoming student who has a Tinder account that says he’s interested in women. He also wears make-up and women’s clothing and says he identifies as female. He was recently accepted into the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority after Kappa published a guide on how to support their LGBTQIA members that stated they were a “single gender organization comprised of women and individuals who identify as women.” According to a lawsuit that has been filed, the voting rules were altered by the chapter leadership in order to extend Artemis a bid, and since then there are numerous complaints of his inappropriate behavior.
The lawsuit claims he has allegedly said improper and provocative things to some of the women, has stared at them in situations when they were not fully dressed and unaware of his presence, and gotten noticeably aroused at times. In this latest update in The Cowboy State Daily, there has been an increase in the number of women wanting to get out of their housing contracts in anticipation of Artemis moving into the sorority house next year, putting the organization at financial risk.
“Plaintiffs are now required, as a condition of membership,” alleges the suit, “to reside in the same house as a 6’2”, 260-pound man who stares at them, asks about their intimate past, makes notes about their statements and takes photographs of them without their consent, and intimidates them by threatening to publicly label them bigots if they raise concerns.”
As more and more people deny reality in order to be seen as “inclusive” as opposed to being a person who lovingly stands for truth, we will see more of these situations. Back in my day, when you went to college there wasn’t the panic of dorm selections and on-line profiles with roommate matching. You were assigned a dorm and if you didn’t have a roommate one was assigned for you. We didn’t have the luxury of saying we prefer to live with someone who’s clean, or a night owl, or quiet, etc.
However one thing you were guaranteed, is that your roommate would be the same sex as you.
Today, all bets are off. Is that really the world we want to live in?