Just Don’t Call Me Late To Dinner

Last week a Kentucky federal judge struck down the Biden administration’s effort to extend Title IX protections to transgender students. The issue driving the ruling was the expectation that teachers and administrators use a student’s preferred pronouns.

Republican backlash over the proposed protections was centered on the 1st Amendment, with critics insisting that no person should be compelled to say anything they don’t want to say. It is, apparently, a excruciating experience for some adults to say “they,” “them,” “he,” “she,” “him,” “her,” “their, “his,” “hers,” or any grammatical variation thereof. Oh, the agony!

The most offensively ironic aspect of the ruling and its celebration by conservatives is that they claimed that the Biden proposal would threaten other provisions of Title IX. This sudden and profound concern for the rights of women and girls follows the Dobbs decision and the incoming administration’s many advocates for male supremacy and the re-kitchenization of American women. Concern for women and girls is not top of mind for Trump et al.

There are more issues to unbundle with the judge’s decision and its aftermath than space allows, but I’ll give it a partial try. The dialogue is awash in red herrings.

In recent Congressional testimony, the Commissioner of the NCAA estimated that there are about 500,000 NCAA athletes. When pressed, he acknowledged that he was aware of about 10 transgender athletes. The fetid flood of conservative angst over locker room use or unfair advantage given to hormone-riddled coeds is utter nonsense. The NCAA, or a sanctimonious conservative bigot, could build a separate field house for each of the 10 if they are so deeply concerned about an inadvertent glimpse of unexpected genitalia.

And the idea that young folks are undergoing transition therapy or surgery in droves is entirely conservative propaganda. What is happening in “droves” are school shootings, which neither party has the balls (or ovaries) to do a damn thing about. But those trans kids running into poor, innocent girls soccer teams!!  Scour the internet (not fact-free and feckless social media) and find me one – 1 – uno case of a trans kid hurting another athlete.

As to “free speech” under threat, one can innumerate endless daily compulsion of speech in schools. Start with the Pledge of Allegiance. Yes, I know it is theoretically possible to opt out, but show me a kid in Texas, for example, with the cojones to stick her hands in his pockets and zip up their lips while the other more patriotic kids mouth the words “to witches stand” with their hands dutifully over her heart. Catch the pronoun use? It caused me no anguish whatsoever to cover all the identity bases in one fell swoop.

What about the compulsion to use various honorifics despite the abundant evidence that they are undeserved. “Yes, sir!” “Yes Ma’am!”

Or the Hitler Youth level of prescribed chanting required by students and teachers in some of America’s charter schools.

In response to the NYT article about the judge’s ruling, the supposedly “liberal” members of the Times’s readership weighed in heavily in favor of the overdue rejection of wokeness. The volume of insistence on biological binary was deafening. A few charitable cluck-clucks were offered to the poor misguided transgender misfits but, by God, nobody should have to honor another person’s chosen pronouns.

For decades -still in some primitive quarters –  homosexuality was a “choice,” “lifestyle,” or “preference.” Given the historic hostility to gay folks, it always seemed an odd choice or preference. For millions around the world, living this reality has been frightening and dangerous. Now it’s gender identity characterized as a perverse “choice” or “preference.” For the trans folks I know, the only thing harder than this “choice” was living in the wrong identity.

The biological, social and cultural dynamics of gender identity are undoubtedly complex. Even on the athletic level there are sincere concerns about fair competition, especially since hormones and various substances can confer an unfair advantage, completely aside from gender identity. But, as mentioned above, the number of controversial cases is vanishingly near zero. The political and cultural hullabaloo is about bigotry, not biology.

At the center of the legal case, and the issue generally, is a fundamental lack of kindness. I find it nearly incomprehensible that anyone would experience discomfort by extending courtesy to another human by referring to them by the name or pronoun of choice.

When I served as head of a school, the expectation of simple kindness was the operative ethical principle. It is so easy to extend a moment of generosity, especially to a child who might most need it.

I suggest that teachers who find discomfort in honoring a student’s or colleague’s pronouns find another profession.