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.
In a picture os all the family you see me, a father, my wife, a mother, parents of our male son, our two daughters, our son and daughter-in law, our grandsons and granddaughters, and a small male dog!
See NSTA, you can take your advice and file it in your empty head in your return from whatever planet you came from!
More of Turley’s pot-stirring of the culture wars that ReTrumplicans are using for political purposes. And, from the responses of the disciples, it’s working! Turley, your credibility is degrading so fast that you’re not far behind Tucker.
Yet you don’t refute anything that he wrote. You just don’t like it, or something.
Anyway you cut it, this is an attempt to force people to speak in ways that agree with your own belief-system. I.e., it is poorly-disguised authoritarianism. There needs to be a fairly harsh uprising so that we can get past these decades of insanity.
As a lifelong Catholic, I have a lot of trouble thinking of Mary as woman with ovaries.
They would be a “person with ovaries”. Be cognizant of your micro-aggressions.
I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve been transported to an alternate universe.
The NSTA suggests that this can be a fun exercise in schools. I agree. Here’s my contribution, class:
No matter how you slice the biological differences among humans, it will sound like baloney to someone. Solution: Treat the whole species terminologically as one package of Oscar Meyer Sliced Bologna, and refer only to “XY Apex Primates” and “XX Apex Primates.”
Problem solved.
Happy XY Primate Day!
The best eay to react is with mockery ams ridicule.
It is so much better than reacting with anger.
The NSTA suggests that this can be a fun exercise…
No matter how you slice the biological distinctions among humans, it’s all baloney. Solution: Treat our species terminologically as one package of Oscar Meyer sliced bologna, and only refer to everyone, no matter what their intra-species differences in gender identity or DNA, as either an “XY APEX PRIMATE” or an “XX APEX PRIMATE.”
Problem solved. Happy XX Apex Primate Day!
This is insane.
this takes progressive navel gazing to new heights
The premise of students being curious about gender, is maybe pertinent to the LGBT community, but most students could care less. To force this curriculum on students and call being incurious about gender a micro-aggression is insane. Fine, you want to stop bullying, but don’t force curiosity about an irrelevant topic on all students. This stupidity will not lead to human flourishing.
Please stop with the feeble pretend-objections.Stop
Human beings don’t have “genders”. People have “sexes”.
There are two “sexes” — male and female. (An extraordinarily tiny number of people are so chromosomally abnormal that which sex they are cannot be determined,
but they’re not of some other kind of “sex”.)
There are three “genders” — masculine, feminine, and neuter — which are, depending upon the language, applied to various words and other things that are
male-like, or female-like, or neutral. Gender is for WORDS and things — not people or most multi-celled members of the animal kingdom.
Pronouns (“he” and “she”) refer to “sex” when we are referring to people, and to an artificial or arbitrary “gender” (“masculine”, “feminine”, or “neither”) when
we are referring to various things being described. In the English language, e.g., a rock is an “it”, but a ship may be referred to as a “she”. In other languages
the gender conventions differ, and also, e.g. Spanish, Latin, etc., extend beyond genderizing pronouns.
Living beings that are sex-differentiated do not have “genders”. They have sexes.And they all are referred to, when we are using pronouns, by the genderized pronoun that matches that sex. It is non-living things that variously may be assigned a pronoun that artificially “sexualizes” them as having traits of a living being of one or the other sex.
Please stop falling for the deliberately-contrived confusion (why it’s now about “transgenderism” not “transsexualism”) we will keep losing ground on this issue to
the insanity. “Gender” isn’t a synonym for “sex” no matter how often it’s used that way. It means something very different. The wokester propagandists know this, which is why they originally invented make-believe words like “cis-gender” (gender does not match sex.)
People don’t have “genders”. A “masculine woman” is still a “she”. A “feminine man” is still a “he”. The pronoun — which is “gendered” — refers back to biological sex.
So you canNOT “recognize” any person’s “gender”. PERIOD.
Now if someone wants to invent another language, they are perfectly free to do so. But they do not get the right to force others to speak it.
JT said “I happen to believe that teachers can and should address gender identities in relevant courses”. In addition, Gorsuch in the 2020 Bostock decision said that the prohibition of “sex” discrimination in employment includes gender identity and sexual orientation. Let’s try to discuss and work towards a consensus on gender identity related issues and circumstances with what these two well known and respected conservative scholars had to say in those two particular situations.
Transgender Indulgence Syndrome (TIS) is a progressive condition (PC) in people… persons who adopt the Pro-Choice “ethical” religion, and a common defect of Progressive Churches, corporations, clinics, associations, etc.
QUOTE: ” . . . mothers are now referred to as “persons with ovaries . . . ” /QUOTE
But what happened to “chest-feeding” persons? And/or “birthing persons?”
I guess we now must say “persons with ovaries-chest-feeding-birthing” parent instead of “mother” or “mom.”
And for fathers, it’s now “persons with testes-non-chest-feeding-non-birthing parent” instead of “father” or “dad.”
But what we do with a “person with ovaries-chestfeeding-birthing” person who self-identifies as a “person with testes-non-chest-feeding-non-birthing” “father” or “dad?”
It’s early in the day . . . but where’s the whisky?
I love these sorts of stories. Each one is another nail in the coffin of the Democrats who are scared to object to the woke mob.
It’s all about mind control, whether it is a mask, a pronoun or “non-animal meat”. Having to get societal permission to use your language is just the beginning of circumscribing your life. If We the People are not smart enough to see what is going on, nor brave enough to stop it, then we get the life we deserve for our cowardice.
The U.S. ranks 38th in math, 24th in science worldwide because these crazies are more concerned that your child doesn’t use the term Father but maybe someone who has “Rocky Mountain Oysters”. How much longer will the nation stand for this BS?
The guideline and the trend to get rid of pronouns is absurd. It takes our humanity away. The whole group of transgender people is what 0.03%. Why does that take priority over anything else? The ‘inclusive’ pronouns/names are also inaccurate. A parent, father. mother is far more than XX or XY or a person with ovaries or testes. A parent is the person raising a child which has a social context much more than a purely biological.
Turning humans into robots, one pronoun at a time.