Over the past several years, our culture has become obsessed with pronouns. From social media to corporate offices to college campuses to the U.S. military, a growing number of people have become convinced that their pronouns are just as important as their names. “She/Her,” “He/Him,” “They/Them,” and even ridiculous options like “Ze/Hir,” “Fae/Faer,” and “Bun/Bunself” litter email signatures and social media profiles, serving as both an identifier and as a warning. This is how I identify, the pronouns say, and you best not misgender me.
The pronouns themselves aren’t important—it’s the ideology they represent that matters to the gender activists and leftists who have adopted them. They signal the embrace of “gender identity,” or the idea that a person can identify as something other than her sex. More importantly, the use of “preferred pronouns” proves that the user is accepting and tolerant—not to mention subservient to woke-ism. It also signifies fear. Fear of being canceled, bullied, or left out by the powers that be.
The Left has even convinced the public that this display of conformity is something worth celebrating. Every year, the third Wednesday of October is considered International Pronouns Day, which, according to the holiday’s website, “seeks to make respecting, sharing, and educating about personal pronouns commonplace.”
“Referring to people by the pronouns they determine for themselves is basic to human dignity,” the website reads. “Being referred to by the wrong pronouns particularly affects transgender and gender nonconforming people. Together, we can transform society to celebrate people’s multiple, intersecting identities.”
The problem is that gender activists rarely afford others the same respect they demand. They’ve worked with Big Tech to censor and deplatform users for “misgendering” people, such as deputy secretary of Health and Human Services Rachel Levine, a male who identifies as a woman and the father of three children. Multiple teachers and professors who have refused to use students’ preferred pronouns have been punished and, in some cases, even fired. Two middle school students in Wisconsin were even subjected to a Title IX complaint for failing to use a peer’s preferred pronouns correctly. And in the United Kingdom, British police warned citizens that they could find themselves at the center of a criminal investigation for misgendering someone.
In other words, gender ideologues don’t want respect—they want submission.
We must not give it to them.
The exchange and display of pronouns might seem innocuous, but the ideology it serves is wreaking havoc on our society. Gender ideology denies science and objective truth, replacing basic facts about reality with subjective whims and delusions.
Because of gender ideology, young collegiate women were forced to compete against a man in the NCAA women’s swimming championships last year. Because of gender ideology, a woman taking shelter in an Ontario, Canada women’s shelter this month was raped by a man who had identified as transgender to gain access to the facility. Because of gender ideology, children as young as 10 years old are being subjected to experimental and irreversible treatments, such as puberty blockers, that will devastate their physical health for the rest of their lives.
So, no, we must not give gender ideologues even an inch of ground, because they will take it and use it to set on fire what little grasp on reality we have left. Remember that this International Pronouns Day, and vow to never acknowledge or use preferred pronouns again.