In academia, there have been growing controversies over language guides and usages, including the use of pronouns that some object to as matters of religion or grammar. Now the largest association of science teachers in the world has issued a guide for “anti-oppression” terminology for science teachers. In the guide, titled “Gender-Inclusive Biology: A framework in action,” the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) has called for “gender-inclusive biology,” which includes the abandonment of terms like “parent,” “men,” “women,” “mother,” and “father.”
Under the guide, mothers are now referred to as “persons with ovaries” in reference to reproduction cycles while fathers are now “persons with testes.” Additionally, the association declares the move of various states toward “Sex verification in sports” as an example of oppression.
The use of such a guide by a state school would raise serious First Amendment issues. We have already seen successful litigation challenging mandatory pronoun usage, including the recent litigation involving a teacher in Loudoun County, Virginia. Yet we have also seen new cases, including the charging of three high school students for not using preferred pronouns.
Under the new guidelines, teachers are encouraged to drop terms like “male” in favor of “XY individuals.”
The NSTA suggests that this can be a fun exercise like having students come up with an entirely new name for the word “parents,” such as “gene-givers” or “biological life transmitters.” This is not likely to be viewed as a fun exercise by some teachers or students, including those with opposing deeply religious views.
I happen to believe that teachers can and should address different gender identities in relevant courses. However, this type of sweeping guide, if made mandatory or enforced through “microaggression” policies, could contravene constitutional protections.
It is important to keep this guide in its proper context. The guide does not call for mandatory rules in schools barring the use of these terms. The guide is not calling for Father’s Day cards to be converted into “Happy Person with Testes Day.” However, we have seen such guides cited as the basis for sanctions, including allegations of hostile classroom environment or micro aggressive speech.
Welcome to Brave New World. Huxley was prescient. This language restructuring is consistent with moving toward his model of factory produced humans..
I happen to believe that teachers can and should address different gender identities in relevant courses.
Sure you do, and will. Right up to the day a person with testes self-identifies as a constitutional law professor taking over your classes. Then all of a sudden you’ll realize why it’s insane to expect crazy people to function within reasonable limits.
Meanwhile, in other science, Biden is stirring terror about monkey pox. Get ready for another jacked election.
That was my first reaction, but I do think the patience and willingness to give the benefit of the doubt among the general middle class public has reached its limit at this point and this new plandemic will be viewed with a skeptical eye.
Alma, I’m just worried about the spread of “mule pox.”
I resent the animal phobic slur on our fellow creatures.
What was it that Churchill said? He liked pigs because dogs look up to us and cats look down on us, but pigs consider us equals. 😉
Again, all this can be resolved by scientific nomenclature. Instead of woman, say “XX,” and instead of man, say “XY.” Who can dispute that? It’s science. We can put this on every restroom door and settle the whole thing.
Finally, we should reserve “YY” for the groomers who started all this. We can place that on the door to the prison shower.
I wish I had a serious suggestion, but the whole thing is insanely idiotic.
Read “Millenarian Mobs” by Angelo Codevilla, in the Summer 2020 issue of The Claremont Review of Books. There is a history of movements like “wokeism” and it is not pretty. They often ended in bloodshed that lasted for decades.
“[T]he National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) has called . . . the abandonment of terms like ‘parent’ . . .”
So much for Mendel.
This guide is an insanity. It suggests we are retuning to the Middle Ages when Alchemy sought to turn lead and other mundane metals into gold. Einstein would be so proud, This is proof that the universe is indeed curved so we can now see that we have gone nearly full circle and returned to a far more primitive time when alchemy is now the gold standard.
We also had a saying when I was in college. Our corollary to “those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach” was, “What was the definition of a phD”, Answer- “Anyone who could not get into Medical or Law School”. Alas, even this present alchemy has leached into Medicine with virtually no supporting literature or proof.They run blissfully into this new “world” with no regard to the long term detriment of these guidelines in teaching and medical treatments to these children. This is like a group psychosis.
A slight ray of light. Major Medical centers in Sweden and England have suspended or stopped the treatment of children for these trans maladies because of the lack of supporting literature and concerns of the distant side effects. Hope is still there.
Bill Maher, not exactly a conservative, has given one of the most succinct and rational criticisms of this psychosis, in his very funny but serious manner.
Medicine may destroy itself over this because some centers have truly thrown caution, search, discovery and truth to the wind. I am certainly happy that I will not be paying malpractice premiums when it all starts to crash. My advice to attorneys in this audience. Watch medical malpractice because it is likely to become very lucrative on the plaintiff side.
Teacher organizations-Well they seem to be hell bent on committing public Seppuku.
More than medicine will destroy itself. This really is generational, it is what happens when people were raised in the most peaceful and prosperous time the world had ever seen, without any discipline, or engendering real understanding, creativity, or any critical thought.
History is repeating itself, and the individuals in question will whine the loudest when they no longer get what they need, and resist the most strongly those who are introducing the aforementioned traits they should have developed in childhood into their lives for the very first time since their births. Legitimate cooperation is a foreign concept to them such is their entitlement, and it WAS instilled from birth.
The globalists are another story, but the 40 and under make perfect sense, and nearly every missive and edict such as this comes directly from them. They have such a fundamental misunderstanding of so much, I don’t know how we fix it. They may simply be considered idiots in the truest sense of the word in a more temperate future, and this has zero to do with earning potential. Many of the parents of the last few decades really, really blew it.
“This is like a group psychosis.”
I would strike the word “like,” and recommend this book:
_Madness and Modernism: Insanity in the Light of Modern Art, Literature, and Thought_, by clinical psychologist Louis Sass.
“It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. Of course the great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but there are hundreds of nouns that can be got rid of as well. It isn’t only the synonyms; there are also the antonyms. After all, what justification is there for a word which is simply the opposite of some other words? A word contains its opposite in itself. Take ‘good,’ for instance. If you have a word like ‘good,’ what need is there for a word like ‘bad’? ‘Ungood’ will do just as well–better, because it’s an exact opposite, which the other is not. Or again, if you want a stronger version of ‘good,’ what sense is there in having a whole string of vague useless words like ‘excellent’ and ‘splendid’ and all the rest of them? ‘Plusgood’ covers the meaning, or ‘doubleplusgood’ if you want something stronger still…In the end the whole notion of goodness and badness will be covered by only six words–in reality, only one word. Don’t you see the beauty of that, Winston?”
George Orwell, 1984
So what else is new? These NTSA guidelines are part of the global attack on humanity. By eliminating the language that accurately describes who we are we become mere ciphers; automatons without a true sense of our identities and our connection to God.
The government of the UK has instructed its bureaucrats to stop their bizarre “gender inclusive” terminology in legislation, regulations and other official documents. Boris Johnson and members of his cabinet have also spoken out against biological men competing in women’s sports. Apparently, the rest of the Anglosphere is slower and dumber (including Canada, my country) and will need more time to grapple with the malignant fantasies of wokeness.
When I was little, I thought I had the best person with ovaries and person with testes as gene givers in the whole world. I felt sorry for other kids who had different life transmitters. Oh yeah, this terminology is definitely an improvement. 😉
“kids”
I think you mean “gene-recipients” or “biological life receivers.”
C’mon. Get with the program!
Yeah, and I said ‘little girl’ and not ‘little person with ovaries’! 😩
Yeah, and I said . . .”
You’re forgiven. This time. But if it happens again — pack your toothbrush for the re-education camp.
Only one word needs to be (re)introduced to the language. ‘No’. That’s the only appropriate response. These people are ridiculous. Say it with dollars if need be.
If only more stiff-spined republicans thought like that.
Hasn’t it occurred to any of these idiots that the actual teaching of information will be slowed considerably by the employment of so many additional syllables in a teacher’s speech? Aren’t our poor kids at enough of a disadvantage in our benighted public school system, compared with students elsewhere, without curtailing knowledge in favor of such nonsense?
Men, women, boys, girls, mothers, fathers, parents, daughters, sons, neices, nephews. These are perfectly good, useful words. I will continue to use them as appropriate. Also breastfeeding mothers.
Turley points out:
“The guide does not call for mandatory rules in schools barring the use of these terms.”
It’s a guide; it’s not a commandment.
Unfortunately, these days guides usually become commandments.
Yet.
This will end up backfiring on them. People are just going to say stop.
Also, curious how many people in the governing board of the NSTA are persons with testes?
It gives one pause to ponder who or what concocted the recipe for the current primordial soup the educational establishment is being drawn from. What is the honey that is attracting these bears to that hive? Much has changed in the past half century. I’m reminded of a quote uttered by a faculty in the Department of Education of a college I attended: “Those who can, do.” “Those who can’t, teach”‘. “Those who can’t teach, teach teachers!” To these we entrust the futures of our children, the freshest from the hands of God? Once again the lantern has been hung in the tower of the Old North Church, We had best heed its warning. They are coming for us..
Bears?
Metaphors: How do they work?
Let’s have a challenge and come up with new names for lefties.
People with no brains? Gender neutral.
Fascists? Succinct and also gender neutral.
Retards? Perhaps most accurate.
Monumentcolorado calls Leftists:
“Fascists … Retards”
“Yet, we have had a few people who simply want to foul the cyber footpath with personal name-calling, insults, and threatening or violent language.”
https://jonathanturley.org/civility-rule/
Be more like Turley.
Yeah, calling those people retards is an insult to capacity-challenged humans everywhere. Fascists seems to get close. Not an insult if true. Where’s the violence or threats?
You just don’t get it, do you?
The people who cannot define “woman” are saying I just don’t get it? LOL!
mis-educated spoiled brats.
Monument, I liked it better when they just used “Jacque” or “comrade.”
Amen Mespo….and the horse they rode In on!
The Leftist Movement worldwide is a dangerous thing….and is just the remnants of a failed Ideology that needs eradicating……Communism.
Ralph says:
“The Leftist Movement worldwide is a dangerous thing…”
To the contrary, Turley, the Liberal, admits:
“I happen to believe that teachers can and should address different gender identities in relevant courses.”
Ralph says:
“and is just the remnants of a failed Ideology that needs eradicating……Communism.”
But Turley cautions Trumpists:
“It is important to keep this guide in its proper context.”
Which means that it is NOT Communism!
National Science Preaching Association.
I’m gonna tell my mom. My dad is gonna stop paying them. Grandpa is gonna send them a turd.
Those who demand these so called guided are nazis. Sieg hiel.
Now they are telling us what to say. The only civilized and appropriate response if F’em.
No wonder you are no longer a guest blogger here.
Is this Jeff Silberman trying to be macho with Mespo? Jeff has a bad case of undescended testicles.
S. Meyer:
I never read him. What baffoonery did he come up with this time?
The jerk was dissing you just above. Jeff says nothing and knows nothing, but he blindly attacks. I think he is trying to act like a man, but his package isn’t yet complete.