Rantz: AG’s office demands staff ‘change your thinking’ on gendered pronouns

Washington’s Senior Assistant Attorney General Chief scolded Labor and Industry (L&I Seattle) staff to “work to change your thinking” around using “proper pronouns.”

Lionel Greaves IV (pronouns he/him) sent the email on Sept. 8 to approximately 70 staffers in LNI’s Seattle division. He told staffers that it has “come to my attention that we have work to do on using proper pronouns.” It linked to a Human Rights Foundation memo titled “Talking About Pronouns in the Workplace,” which contended using someone’s chosen name and pronouns expresses mutual respect and courtesy.

“Here in Seattle, we have the honor of serving a vibrant and diverse community,” Greaves wrote in the email obtained by The Jason Rantz Show on KTTH. “There are a range of pronouns among our colleagues, our counterparts, and the public at large. It is vital to me, as I know it is to you, to show respect for all.”

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‘Work to change your thinking’

While Greaves said the team “is pretty good on the issue,” he demanded, “we can and we must be better than pretty good when it comes to basic courtesy.” Arguing that even one or two mistakes can add up, he said his goal was to prevent “feelings of discomfort, anxiety and dysphoria.”

Consequently, he told staff to confront coworkers who mis-gender coworkers and told them the “correct” way to speak of someone who is transgender or pretends to not have a gender. The demands irked some staff who received the email.

The Attorney General’s Office indicated to The Jason Rantz Show on KTTH the impetus for the lengthy email was accusations some staff would not use colleague’s preferred pronouns. It’s unclear if the staff intended to be rude and dismissive or had sincere beliefs around the politicized issue. The email did note one legal definition of harassment is the “deliberate misuse of an individual’s preferred … gender-related pronoun.”

Greaves linked to an article he wanted staff to use to “change your thinking.” Ironically, the article by Julie Ross of Parenting Horizons discussed an incident where a coworker said they were more upset than the trans person they mis-gendered and wanted advice on how to stop mis-gendering people in error.

The article advised people to “practice non-binary thoughts. Let’s say you see a person holding a baby. Don’t ask if it’s a boy or a girl. Say, ‘What a cute baby!’ It’s likely the person will tell you what they think the gender is.” Ross also said to start internally thinking about people as agender, changing pronouns to “they/them” in your head.

Another example of inserting politics into the workplace

Greaves is in no more a position to demand someone change the way they think than I am to demand he adopt a less fringe worldview. How dare he.

But the arrogance that said the prevailing belief system in a small group of extremists is someone the “right” way to think is precisely why the gender identity movement is failing so spectacularly. It’s not shocking that it’s the environment Attorney General Bob Ferguson created: The Radical Left always demands you subscribe to their beliefs or shut up entirely.

Gender identity is part of a left-wing political movement that pretends gender is fluid because someone chooses to identify as a gender they are not. It’s certainly reasonable to expect courtesy, but not force someone to accept a political worldview on gender.

It’s clearly inappropriate for someone to purposefully mis-gender someone when you can avoid any gendered pronouns altogether. It’s the courteous and respectful action to take. If in this circumstance someone demands you adapt to a preferred pronoun, including noises like “ze/zir” or “ve/ver” that are demanded by narcissists, that’s their problem.

That Greaves has the audacity to even warn against honest mistakes tells you how far into the fringes the AG’s office has gone to signal their wokeness. Even the most well-intentioned progressive can become easily confused around this issue. In those circumstances, the onus is on the recipient of the offensive pronoun to speak up and if they can’t accept honest mistakes, they should stop pretending gender is fluid.

Listen to The Jason Rantz Show on weekday afternoons from 3:00 p.m.-7:00 p.m. on KTTH 770 AM (HD Radio 97.3 FM HD-Channel 3). He is the author of the book “What’s Killing America: Inside the Radical Left’s Tragic Destruction of Our Cities.” Subscribe to the podcast. Follow @JasonRantz on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Check back frequently for more news and analysis.

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