In Meriwether v Hartop, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of a professor who refused to call a student by his preferred (feminine) pronouns (see Law & Crime for the backstory to the case). The 3-panel court ruled that this violated both his free speech and religious rights. This is a big win for those advocating for both common sense and free speech in regards to preferred gender pronouns.
Language is sexed. Pronouns are meant to match one’s biological sex, not their personal sense of gender identity. If a biological boy thinks of himself as a girl, that’s fine, but he remains a biological male nonetheless, and as such, according to the English rules of grammar, should be referred to with male pronouns. In the same way the boy has a right to think of himself as a girl, we have a right to use language the way we see fit – which, in this case, accords with both biological reality and the rules of English grammar. No one should be compelled to use certain speech or deny biological reality.
The very notion of preferred gender pronouns is an exercise in hubris. The pronouns in question are third person pronouns: he/him/his and she/her/hers. You don’t use third person pronouns when addressing someone directly. You refer to them by name or by using the second person pronoun “you.” Typically, you would only use third person pronouns when referring to someone in their absence. As such, the person who demands that you use certain pronouns with reference to them is not demanding that you speak to them in a certain way, but that you speak of them in a certain way. They would never even hear us say the pronouns they demand we use! They are not asking us to be considerate of them in their presence, but to acquiesce to their worldview in their absence. This is not a matter of politeness, but of control. It’s a way of forcing others to comply with their ideological preferences. I say “no.”
Thinking to Believe 
March 30, 2021 at 4:48 am
I fully agree. Great analysis of the issue.
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March 30, 2021 at 8:00 am
There’s a certain weird thrill in puzzling out how to legitimize being discourteous to people. Love (1 Corinthians 13, Romans 12) asks us to puzzle out ways to be courteous to people within our convictions. There are readily available ways here.
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March 30, 2021 at 8:06 am
@stanrock
Courtesy does not dictate dishonesty. I am not going to call a man a women for precisely the same reason that I would not call a man a peacock. If he identifies as a peacock, that’s his business, but he has no right to compel me to call him one. And feeding somebody’s delusion isn’t “courteous.” The person in question needs medical attention, not encouragement.
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March 30, 2021 at 8:19 am
@Scalia: You haven’t even bothered attempting the second puzzle. I didn’t say you had to call such a person anything, so why are you throwing up a defense as if I had? There are other options. Stop, use your noodle, treat it like a puzzle. How might you be both courteous and hospitable while staying true to your views? Think of a way. It is not impossible. “That’s impossible!” is lazy pretense and negligent.
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March 30, 2021 at 9:11 am
@stanrock
Do you find the word “impossible” in Post 3? Not only is that word missing, it’s not implied either.
I interpreted your post in light of the OP. Compelled speech is dictatorial and should be resisted even at the expense of courtesy. That notwithstanding, if a person isn’t demanding that I vocalize something untrue, I will endeavor to be polite as best as I can by using you, your and yourself when addressing said person, and referring to him or her while speaking with others (within said person’s earshot) by using a name instead of a pronoun (e.g. “That’s Stan’s pencil,” instead of “That’s his pencil).
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March 30, 2021 at 9:23 am
@Scalia
Yes! That’s exactly what I was getting at.
If using certain language goes against your convictions, you should avoid that language. While you do so, you should do so using language that makes it as elegant as possible (rather than, for example, using strange language in order to emphasize what you’re doing and be a bother). For us Christians, the calling is to weave between the vices of causing stumbling and that of showing discourtesy and hostility. “Do not cause anyone to stumble… even as I try to please everyone in every way.” “Be careful to do what is right in others’ eyes.”
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March 31, 2021 at 2:14 pm
“This is not a matter of politeness, but of control. It’s a way of forcing others to comply with their ideological preferences. I say “no.””
While I agree no one should be forced to use a particular pronoun for someone, this is not at all about control. Every trans person I’ve met felt like they were trapped in the wrong body and simply wants to be their physical/social sex to match their psychological sex. It’s not about how YOU feel, it’s about how THEY feel. After all, how would you feel if you looked very feminine and people always regarded and treated you as a woman? I suspect you wouldn’t enjoy it. So why not refer to someone the way they identify psychologically? It doesn’t hurt you and it helps someone feel more like themselves. Courtesy is better than divisiveness.
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April 1, 2021 at 9:02 am
What I find delusional, besides Scalia’s characterization by ignorance: “feeding somebody’s delusion isn’t “courteous.”.
Gender identity is not a psychological phenomenon without its attendant facilities. That characterization reminds me of the proverb 26:2: “the curse causeless does not come”. and that reflection does not mean that nature’s apparent mismatch is a curse. To the person with the apparent mismatch it is perfectly normal to them because they were born that way. For the religiously ignorant they are limited by their absolute certainty belief, and that is delusional.
Religion’s delusional teaching tells others that belief; i.e., their “faith”, is the treasure but it is not, never was and never can be. Belief is what you don’t know; it’s darkness before the light of knowledge is turned on. Religion requires the convert to forsake common sense for the speculative conspiracy theory of fake and fantasy that it is.
Of course, repetition being the companion of religion that it is, eventually the weak minded succumb to the folly of belief that sticks to it..
Now here is the knowledge that should supplant belief but in the stiff-necked adherence to the chains of darkness, believers reject knowledge.
The simplicity of the LGBTQ community is that the physical gender appearance of the individual does not match the essence of the brain where gender is ultimately dominant, To turn a phrase “it’s not between your legs my dear, it’s between your ears” wherein lies the determinate factor of who you are, “on the inside” not what you appear to be to others “on the outside”. Religious bigots cannot accept DNA chromosomal abnormalities for gender mis-identity.
Examples of chromosomal abnormalities that they do accept include Down syndrome, Trisomy 18, Trisomy 13, Klinefelter syndrome, XYY syndrome, Turner syndrome and triple X syndrome. But when it comes to sex they are stuck in the Garden of Eden and the Deuteronomy be all end all of sexual sins.
To use a Gerald Massey quote: ‘They must find it difficult, those who have taken authority as truth, rather than truth as authority.’
There are women-apparent that have the brain gender of a men and there are men-apparent who have the brain identity of a women. When Jesus told his disciples about the LGBTQ community Matt 19:12, of them he said “For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother’s womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.” When he spoke those words “made of men” he was speaking in the context of marriage when he referred to those castrated which interferes with their growth and he referred to the vows of celibacy in the religious community as a purification against the contaminant “sex”, the original sin, and about those born that way from the womb that originate through the heterosexual community by chromosonal or DNA mutation. When scientists find the DNA anomaly in humans they will be able use CRISPR CAS9 for the somatic cells affecting only individuals or gamete cells that affect the hereditary life line which is where the more common, ethical debate about hereditary factors about whether you want to make your babies glow.
Now as to pronoun calling referring to someone or somebody by their gender-apparent as others see or the brain-apparent which others cannot see, I agree with stanrock that discretionary insight “is the better part of valor.”
The court’s ruling in favor of free speech in the same sentence as religious rights is the bizarre opinion of religion still with its bigotry toes stuck in the door to keep it from closing forever on religious tradition that still causes murderous ethnic cleansing and racial intolerance because of the stone-chiseled absolute certainty of religions….ALL RELIGIONS,
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April 1, 2021 at 10:02 am
Leona Last writes,
As opposed to your “stone-chiseled absolute certainty”? You sound pretty convinced of the righteousness of your views, so it is rather curious that you wag your finger at others who are equally as certain as you. Direct your fire at what you consider fallacious reasoning, not certainty. For if certainty is the culprit, your boat is sunk.
Now, your disdain for my comments notwithstanding, this is a free speech issue. Compelled speech is tyrannical, so regardless where one sits on the courtesy platform, all political persuasions should applaud a ruling that finds compelled speech unconstitutional.
Have you ever heard of Body Integrity Identity Disorder? People with that affliction genuinely believe that dismemberment is preferable to wholeness (thinking the reverse on what it is to be whole). It is immaterial whether their mentality matches their biology. Responsible persons will do what they can to prevent such persons from maiming themselves because the end result of their wishes is harmful regardless their opinion.
And what about the case of Joseph Norman?
This story highlights the logical conundrum liberals face when they attempt to assert rest/shower/locker room access for transgender persons. Joseph Roman claims to be a boy, even though he’s a biological adult. If society accepts his minor-status claim, authorities will have to justify charging a boy as an adult in order to impose stiffer penalties for his assaults. Moreover, though minors cannot legally consent to sex, they are not sent to juvenile hall for “consensual” sex. What should happen if this “boy” has “consensual” sex with a girl? Consistency dictates that we treat him no differently than biological boys.
Recall that there are few, if any, government-level standards requiring proof that one is genuinely transgender. In other words, all a person has to do is merely claim to be male or female. There are no time, dress, or medical requirements. A person may enter an opposite biological sex facility whether s/he looks like Marilyn Monroe or John Wayne. The Left insists that biology should not determine access, and they equally insist that everybody accede to that claim by using the pronouns corresponding to the same. Lacking biological or medical standards, the door is open for everybody.
Back to the Joseph Romans of the world. If a man must be accepted as a woman on his claim that he is a she, and if we cannot appeal to biology, time or lifestyle, on what basis can we reject Roman’s claim? If he claims to be a boy, why shouldn’t we accept it? Why would biology be decisive in his case and not a transgender person’s?
The obvious answer is that Roman’s claim should be rejected precisely because he is a biological adult. If psychologists certify that Roman is convinced he’s a child, then Roman clearly has a mental defect and needs to be kept away from children. Roman’s feelings are subordinate to public order and safety. Similarly, if a man is merely pretending to be a woman in order to get free looks in the locker room, he should be arrested. However, on what basis do we legally decide who’s pretending? A person with whom I was debating said that “ogling” should be a crime, but he would not define what that means. And if a man genuinely thinks he’s a woman, he has a mental defect that needs treatment. We don’t need to violate everybody’s privacy rights to assuage mentally defective persons, especially since they comprise an extreme minority. In other words, it’s a solution in search of a problem.
Separate rest/locker/shower rooms were created to preserve privacy—something liberals used to believe in. The privacy rights of the vast majority should not be trashed to satisfy a policy that exposes women to every pervert in the land.
And a man may believe that he’s a peacock for the same reasons that another believes that he’s a female. That doesn’t authorize the Leona Lasts of the world to force everybody to call a man a bird. You call such a condition an “apparent mismatch.” Well, it’s not “apparent” because the basis of that observation is not rooted in what a person feels; it’s rooted in biology. If a bird cannot fly, we know that something is wrong, even if a bird “feels” normal for having never flown. If an eye doesn’t see, we know that something is wrong, even if a person is born blind and being blind feels normal because an eye is supposed to see. And if a woman feels like a man, something is wrong, regardless her feelings on the matter.
Now, if you were paying attention to the posts instead of looking for an opportunity to skewer fundamentalists (which seems to be your modus operandi), you would have seen that my remarks are in the context of compelled speech. I nowhere stated that anybody should be intentionally discourteous. Rather, courtesy does not dictate dishonesty, and society has no warrant to force me or anybody else to say ANYTHING, let alone something that they believe is untrue. I even offered a way to be courteous without compromising my beliefs, but that’s apparently not good enough for swamp-fevered leftists.
By the way, you never answered my question in the other thread. How do you know all the things about Jesus that you were posting about? That thread is still recent, so please reply in that thread at your convenience.
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May 11, 2021 at 8:14 pm
Derek, I understand why trans people want us to call them by their preferred pronoun (unless it’s “them” or “xe,” in which case it makes no sense at all). I’m not saying it’s controlling for them to ask others to use their preferred pronouns. It is, however, a matter of control when they force others to do the same. And often, it’s not trans people doing the enforcing, but “cis-gender” trans advocates. They should be free to make the request, but I should also be free to politely decline. And you and I both know that people are not being allowed to politely decline. They are yelled at, bullied, name-called, and even being fired from jobs.
As for it not hurting me, I beg to differ. To use feminine pronouns when referring to a biological male is to lie with language. Lying does affect me. And I don’t see it as being courteous to affirm someone’s delusion. If someone identifies as a lizard (and there is at least one guy who does), I am not going to pretend he is a lizard. Doing so would not be loving.
And you say “it helps someone feel more like themselves.” If they really were the opposite sex, they probably wouldn’t need any help to feel that way. It would be just as natural as my feeling like a male. Secondly, I don’t want to help them feel like the opposite sex. That’s just helping them think their delusion is true. Helping them would be to affirm that their true gender matches their biological sex, and to help them match their self-perception to their body. As I’ve noted elsewhere, something is clearly wrong if one’s body is male but one’s mind perceives themselves as a female. If there is nothing wrong with the body, then the problem must lie in the mind. If we truly want to help people who struggle with this disorder, we should be honest about which element needs correcting. Telling them their mind is fine but their body needs to be changed is dishonest. Studies show that surgery often gives them short-term relief, but the unhappiness re-emerges again later. Why? Because they attempted to fix what wasn’t broken, while allowing that which was broken to remain unfixed. And why are they doing that? Because “loving” people are telling them so. It’s a tragedy.
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May 21, 2021 at 4:53 pm
“it’s controlling for them to ask others to use their preferred pronouns. It is, however, a matter of control when they force others to do the same.”
I would certainly agree with that. I’m aware of that one case in Canada where a father was supposedly arrested for referring to his transgender son as “she,” as reported here: https://www.christianheadlines.com/contributors/michael-foust/father-jailed-after-calling-transgender-child-his-daughter-and-using-wrong-pronouns.html. But that’s misleading because the main reason he was arrested was for speaking about the case in public, not the use of the wrong pronouns.
There’s also a bill in CA that conservative media has been claiming would make it illegal to call someone by the wrong pronouns…but that too is misleading since it would have to rise to the level of “risk of death or serious physical harm” in order to be illegal: https://www.politifact.com/article/2017/sep/26/claims-mislead-about-california-bill-forcing-jail-/
“They should be free to make the request, but I should also be free to politely decline. And you and I both know that people are not being allowed to politely decline. They are yelled at, bullied, name-called, and even being fired from jobs.”
Yeah, just like conservatives often do the same to LGBTQ persons just for being who they are. I don’t advocate anyone attacking anyone else for disagreements, but the two sides are not morally equivalent. One side is angry at people for being disrespectful to a disenfranchised minority, while the other is angry at people for simply existing.
“As for it not hurting me, I beg to differ. To use feminine pronouns when referring to a biological male is to lie with language. Lying does affect me. And I don’t see it as being courteous to affirm someone’s delusion.”
The evidence indicates it is not a delusion. Some people are simply born with brains that identify as something other than cisgender. We know this in part because we see it some 1,500 species, not just humans: https://www.news-medical.net/news/2006/10/23/1500-animal-species-practice-homosexuality.aspx and https://phys.org/news/2019-05-scientists-explore-evolution-animal-homosexuality.html. And there are good potential evolutionary reasons for this to occur, such as the female maternal relatives of gay men having greater reproductive success than female maternal relatives of non-gay men: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15539346/. The lesson is that just because something may SEEM unnatural to you, there may actually be an important reason why it exists.
And it’s not lying to use pronouns to fit one’s mental gender. If someone identifies as something different from their physical sex, simply don’t use the pronouns to match their physical sex but instead use the pronouns to match their mental sex. And what about those who go through gender reassignment surgery? Then their physical sex matches their mental gender…so are you going to say that what really matters is whether or not they have a Y chromosome?
It seems to me the only reason to not accommodate one’s gender identification is to be rude. After all, if someone is named “Jason” but prefers to go by “Theosophical Ruminator,” for example, is there any reason to not accommodate that name change other than rudeness? Is it a lie to call someone by their nickname? If not, then how is the use of someone’s preferred pronouns any different?
“And you say “it helps someone feel more like themselves.” If they really were the opposite sex, they probably wouldn’t need any help to feel that way.”
Put yourself in their shoes. I presume you’re a cisgender male. How would you feel if everyone referred to you as “she” and “her” just because you happened to look a little feminine? Wouldn’t you request that they refer to you as “he” and “him”? And wouldn’t you consider it rude if they refused to? It’s a lot like that. This isn’t about attacking you, it’s about wanting to be treated with respect, that’s all.
“As I’ve noted elsewhere, something is clearly wrong if one’s body is male but one’s mind perceives themselves as a female. If there is nothing wrong with the body, then the problem must lie in the mind. If we truly want to help people who struggle with this disorder, we should be honest about which element needs correcting. Telling them their mind is fine but their body needs to be changed is dishonest.”
First, you can’t make the claim that something is “wrong,” for the reasons I mention above. Second, even if a person’s mind develops as the opposite sex because of a birth defect or genetic error, is the solution to deny that person the courtesy of referring to them as the sex they identify with? What good will that do? We don’t have the technology to rewrite their gender identification, but we do have the technology to change their bodies to match that gender identification. If someone chooses to do that…why stop them? I would agree that such people should be adults capable of making their own decisions (a good friend of mine had gender dysphoria as a young teen, but that changed as she aged), but what’s the point in disenfranchising someone for changing their sex? It really doesn’t hurt you unless you WANT it to.
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