I love being a Unitarian Universalist by faith and I appreciate the fact that there's no dogma being rammed down my throat and that I am free to explore my own spirituality and ideas of what I believe. However, one of the things that really needles me is the idea of trying to use language that pleases everyone to where it almost feels as if we are not allowed to say anything that might offend. Now there's a big push toward using as much gender neutral language as possible because there are a number of people in the UU Church who have issues of gender identity. They may inhabit the body of one gender but identify their sexual identity with the opposite gender, so they consider themselves neither men nor women, but....."persons". Songs that have any terminology in them like "man", "woman", "brother", "sister" are to be shunned as too gender specific, which seems a little silly if all we can call each other is "persons", or as I heard this morning in church, we are to refer to each other as "cousin" or "neighbor" because it's gender neutral language that will offend no one. Well, my take on this is, baloney. People will find some way to be offended by almost everything someone says, so why mangle the language and refuse to use anything that indicates a gender just because there are a small number of people who attend church who have gender identity issues? I am neither "cousin", nor "neighbor" to anyone. My "cousins" are my blood relatives. My "neighbors" are those to whom I live proximate. Someone who lives in another county or another city is hardly my "neighbor", although I remember my teachers admonishing us not to copy off of our "neighbor's" tests and such. OK, that's an acceptable use of that word. The individual is sitting proximate to you, therefore they are your "neighbor", so to speak. But to have to refer to your fellow church goers as your "cousins" and/or "neighbors"? Um, no.
If you inhabit the body of a woman, but you do not identify yourself as a woman but rather dress and identify as a man but have a woman's name or vice versa, I'll carefully sidestep any mention of gender when speaking to you. However, why should everyone have to conform to this odd new language just to satisfy a small minority of people who do not consider themselves as having any specific gender whatsoever? Maybe some new word needs to be invented to identify "gender
neutral".......um........"persons", or something. I don't know, I just grow weary of all the political correctness being rammed down our throats by a few people who choose to take offense at the English language's definitions of things. It's absolutely ridiculous and I am tired of it. If you want to be offended, fine, but don't force the rest of us to adopt your sensibilities just because you've got some issue about your gender identity. If someone calls you a man but you are a man who identifies, dresses and refers to himself as a woman or vice versa, then all you need do is to correct that individual and be done with it if you choose to be offended that someone can't tell what gender you are. Geez, people, let's have a little respect for the English language, shall we? It's time for this politically correct speech to rein itself in just a little bit before so many words offend so many people that we can't say anything for fear of someone getting their hackles up. Some terms need to be retired, yes, but others are just flat out over the top PC speech that only affects a small handful of people who have made it their personal mission to take offense at just about everything they can find to take offense over.
Do these same people take offense at going into public place and seeing a restroom for "Men" or "Women"? Do they seek out the "Unisex" restroom if there is one because it is "Gender Neutral"? What if there is no "Unisex" restroom and they are a woman who considers herself a man? Which restroom do you use if there's no "Gender Neutral" designated restroom? You see what I mean? It can all become so ridiculous that even having to choose a restroom depending on your gender identity as opposed to your biological gender could cause some folks to take offense, and I wonder what percentage of our population has these gender identity issues that are forcing us to abandon gender specific language so as not to offend them. Anyway, why can't we just all get along and stop worrying about one small segment of the population demanding that we abandon gender identity in language and find some neutral term that won't raise hackles? I vote for "person" myself, if a gender identity is your problem. But don't force the rest of us to use it to describe everyone else. I am a woman, thank you. And I am proud of the gender into which I was born and raised and am growing into menopausal middle age. But for heaven's sakes,
don't make me refer to myself as "chair
person" of the Social Justice Committee at Church. You could refer to me as "chair
woman", but I won't raise my hackles if you just want to simply refer to me as the "chair
man" of the committee. Frankly, I don't care about the idea that we have to neuter the English language and stop using gender terminology wherever possible. That's just a pile of PC horsehockey if you ask me.
1 comment:
Well said. Enjoyed your posts.
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