Tag Archives: pronoun police

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The Pronoun Police Are Patrolling Oregon Schools

The Human Rights Campaign once tweeted that we should all “Begin conversations with “Hi, my pronouns are _____. What are yours?” 

Not so fast, critics have responded.

“Coercing people into publicly stating their pronouns in the name of “inclusion” is a Trojan horse that empowers gender ideology and expands its reach,” said Colin Wright, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute. “It is the thin end of the gender activists’ wedge designed to normalize their worldview. The effort to resist gender ideology is reality’s last stand. We simply can’t ignore fundamental realities of our biology and expect positive outcomes for society. “

The battle is on.

Much of the conflict has arisen in academic settings, including K-12 schools and colleges.

Students at Scripps College in Claremont, CA. have been advised that they can choose which of numerous different pronouns they want professors to use in addressing them.

Pronoun options were:

One student said the options were necessary protection from “institutionalized violence.”

Not to be left behind, the State of Oregon has embraced the same pronoun policies, turning appropriate pronoun usage into compelled speech.

In October 2021, Colt Gill, then Director of the Oregon Department of Education, used his Education Update email message to urge Oregonians to “Celebrate International Pronoun Day with ODE.”

“When we collectively share our names and pronouns, we can share the burden of fighting against injustice,” he wrote. “Pronoun sharing within the workplace and throughout school communities is an important opportunity to build trust and connection with transgender, non-binary, two-spirit colleagues, students, friends, and community members.”

Gill told educators:

  • If you are comfortable, share your pronouns when you’re introducing yourself at the start of a meeting: “I’m (Name) and I use she and they pronouns” 
  • Change your Zoom name to include your pronouns, every time: Name, (she/they), ODE 
  • Include pronouns in your ODE email signature 

In January 2023, ODOE issued Supporting Gender Expansive Students: Guidance for Schools. Included in the guidance is the following:

  • Gender expansive students may choose to change the name assigned to them at birth to an asserted name that affirms their gender identity. Gender expansive students may also ask to be referred to by the pronouns that affirm their gender identity.
  • Even if a student does not update their records, they should be referred to by their asserted name and pronouns Intentional or unintentional continuous misgendering of a student by refusing to use their asserted name and pronouns can potentially create a hostile environment. 
  • Schools should engage in student-led support planning for name and pronoun changes. Once the school and student have decided on a supportive action plan, the school should immediately take action to implement the plan.”

The guidance cautioned about disclosing the decisions students make. “To the extent possible, schools should refrain from revealing information about a student’s gender identity, even to parents, caregivers, or other school administrators, without permission from the student.”

When a local news outlet asked ODOE about the policy providing leeway to keep parents in the dark on official school transitions, ODE said this was for a “safety concern.”

On Oct. 19, 2023, the State Board of Education lent its weight to the pronouns dispute, adopting new health K-12 education standards that include:“Demonstrate ways to treat all people with dignity and respect, including people of all genders, gender expressions and gender identities” starting in the 4th grade. 

The new standards will come into full effect in Oregon public schools by the 2025-26 school year. 

Educators and other Oregonians who are less than enthusiastic about the progressive pronoun push may hope the campaign will abate, but it looks like the beatings will continue until morale improves and educators with the courage to challenge the received wisdom of the education establishment will be at risk.

An ever-growing list of pronouns have now become expressions of one’s self-proclaimed identity, a claim that proponents insist everyone must affirm—or else.

Some critics argue that all this is just capitulating to a politically correct, Orwellian effort to validate social progressive doctrines.

Others argue that the controversy is just a way for ideologues to browbeat people, to claim authority over how people speak and to allow language commissars to monitor incorrect speech in schools, workplaces and life.

 Compelling expansive pronoun usage is a dramatic curtailment of freedom of speech, critics assert. As Graham Hillard, managing editor at the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, put it, “When Big Brother arrives in the 21st century, he will appear not on posters but in grammar handbooks, HR manuals, and social media”

In the meantime, how should you navigate the rocky shoals of the pronoun wars without being chastised, harassed, berated and charged with insensitivity?

‘Tis a puzzlement.

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Watch it!: The pronoun police are on the beat

“Hi, my name is Jason. I’m one of the Orientation advisors and I use he, him, his gender pronouns.”

That’s how Jason Meier, Director of Student Activities, greets new students during orientation at Emerson College in Boston.

Students at an increasing number of colleges are challenging traditional personal pronouns and pushing for new preferred gender pronouns.

A video used as part of student orientation at Emerson suggests that students open up conversations with new people by asking, “Hello. What are your preferred pronouns?”

At the University of Vermont, students can have themselves listed as she, he or ze, on class rosters. The university also offers “neutral” as a gender option for students and lets them use whatever first name they want, even if the one picked hasn’t been legally registered.

Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass permits students to choose their preferred pronoun and advises that the only pronoun that can be used by faculty while writing evaluations is the one displayed in course rosters. The school cautions, however, “Students should give serious consideration to the request to use a preferred name and/or pronoun, as this choice will be permanently reflected in the narrative portions of the academic transcript.”

In February 2015 students at Scripps College in Claremont, CA. were advised that henceforth they could choose which of numerous different pronouns they wanted professors to use in addressing them.

Pronoun choices offered at Scripps

Pronoun choices offered at Scripps

“The pronoun portal feature gives students an opportunity to inform faculty of a pronoun that most closely matches their gendered and lived experiences at Scripps,” an e-mail to all students said. “ It has been made available for students and faculty in an effort to build an inclusive environment.”

Rachel Neuberg, a sophomore at Scripps, told a student publication, The Student Life, she believed the change was a necessary step for the college to make in creating a safer environment for students.

But support for all this is far from universal.

YouTube, for example, has disabled comments on The Emerson College video cited earlier “due to hate speech.”

Some critics argue that colleges, by capitulating to the demands of student pronoun police, are pandering to the perpetually offended. Other say the whole contretemps is just responding to self-obsessed people who think the world revolves around them and a politically correct, Orwellian effort to validate social progressive doctrines.

Critics also charge that academics have failed to do their duty by allowing, and sometimes fomenting, the spread of the pronoun police. . “…the ideology that there is “sexist language” in ordinary words and in the ordinary use of English gender rarely comes under sustained criticism, even in the intellectual arenas where all things are supposed to be open to free inquiry (an ideal asserted with increasingly laughable dishonesty at American universities),” said Diane Ravitch, author of The Language Police.

A commenter on a preferred gender pronouns story in queerty, wrote, “I have a lot of thoughts about gender roles but, frankly, I see this as being almost completely needless…It’s petty and entirely unrelatable to people who aren’t of that overbearingly intellectualized echelon, it’s so self-possessed. Let’s face it, those of us in the LGBTQ are minorities, we don’t need to assimilate everyone else to our sexuality or our gender.”

Another commenter wrote on the website of Allied in Pride, an LGBTQ advocacy organization at George Washington, “People with opinions that differ from your group think have every right to have those opinions. YOU DEMAND TOLERANCE, BUT WANT OBEDIENCE AND DISPLAY THE QUINTESSENTIAL EXAMPLE OF INTOLERANCE (emphasis in original). Pot meet kettle.”

Morton Schapiro, president and professor of economics at Northwestern University, writing about how to deal with free expression controversies on campuses, said, “It might be relevant to remind people that elected student representatives have every right to recommend what they want, just as the administration has every right not to abide by what they suggest…” Perhaps the same principle should apply to the pronouns debate.

What should you do? How do you navigate the rocky shoals of the pronoun wars without being chastised, harassed, berated and charged with insensitivity? ‘Tis a puzzlement.