Rantz: School district equity training pushes Ze, Fae, Hu personal pronouns
May 12, 2021, 9:11 PM | Updated: May 13, 2021, 11:07 am
This is part of an ongoing series by the Jason Rantz Show that will explore equity and critical race theory trainings in Washington schools.
The Edmonds School District endorsed the use of radical and nonsensical personal pronouns during a recent, mandatory equity training for all certified staff.
Despite a worksheet described as “A (Very Short) List of Pronouns,” staff were offered eight alternatives to the standard “he” or “she” to describe someone’s gender identity. You’ll never have heard of most of them. It’s part of the language leftist radicals have made up.
Indeed, some of the absurd pronoun alternatives reach parody levels. They included “Hu,” “Fae,” and “E” or Ey.” And that’s just the subject pronouns. The intent here is to get to your kids.
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A very long list of made-up words
The training hosted by the district discussed several issues around equity during the first quarter of the year. The Jason Rantz Show obtained it on KTTH via a public disclosure request.
During breakout sessions, staff members were asked to share their gender identities. The training explained that you may not “always know what someone’s pronouns are by looking at them.”
The training instructed staff to ask the preferred pronouns of those they spoke to. After all, the training explains, it “simply means asking someone what the most respectful way to refer to them is, if you’re not using their name.”
But judging by the supposedly short list of possible pronouns you could be told to use, most people would be caught off-guard. They give a total of eight alternatives to “he” and “she,” broken out by subject pronoun, object pronoun, possessive pronoun, and reflexive pronoun.
The pronoun list includes:
- Ze/hir/hir or hirs/hirself
- Ze/zir/zir or zirs/zirself
- E or Ey/em/eir or eirs/eirself or emself
- Hu/hum/hus or hus/Humself
- Fae/faer/faer or faersfaerself
The worksheet leaves many questions unanswered. What’s the difference between hus and hus? Why is Humself capitalized but not zirself? How does one pronounce half of these words?
Nonsensical, confusing advice
In some ways, the advice the equity training offers is conflicting. In other ways, it isn’t obvious.
Before the training gets to a worksheet explaining different pronouns, it tells staff that “asking and correctly using someone’s pronouns is one of the most basic ways to show your respect for their gender identity.”
But in the next two sentences, staff are warned: “When sharing pronouns, it is that person’s choice to share. Avoid asking questions.”
So should staff ask about someone’s personal pronouns or not? How about this: We shouldn’t ask. And if you have preferred pronouns indicating gender doesn’t exist, you shouldn’t offer them.
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Gender exists and it’s not controversial to acknowledge it
We should show respect to people regardless of their gender or gender identity. We should not, however, pretend gender doesn’t exist.
Some activists falsely insist gender is merely a social construct; it exists on a spectrum and is not binary. They believe one day you can identify as one gender, and others you may not identify as any gender at all. This is not true, even if they want it to be.
Gender exists, and we should not pretend otherwise. There are men and women; there are people who present as men or women. Zu? Hu? E? Fae? These are made-up words that don’t mean anything. I’m not going to play into a fantasy where genders do not exist. People are entitled to their own reality, up to a point, I suppose. They’re not entitled to force other people into going along with it.
And there are clear implications to the rights of other people — the ones who rightly acknowledge gender exists. Though most fair-minded people will acknowledge the unfairness of trans girls competing against biological girls, society is debating the issue.
What are we supposed to do with someone who rejects all genders? What team or locker room does Hu belong to? Whichever one hus wants to join on any given day? Can hum (or is it Hu?) change each week? Is this confusing you yet? It should: It doesn’t make any sense. Let’s stop pretending that it does.
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