STEP TWO
“Stop asking for ‘preferred pronouns‘ . . . who is being helped by this ritual? And who is being harmed?”
Transgender students
Unless the school has been informed that a child is in the process of transitioning, teachers should automatically use the pronoun corresponding to the sex indicated when the child is registered.”
“If a student is in the process of transitioning . . . . the parents can (and should) make that information clear to the school. These families can then work with school administrators to determine . . . how best to support the student in question. . . . Since this information will have been communicated to teachers and school personnel in advance, transgender students don’t need to regularly announce their pronouns to rooms of people, drawing more attention to what might be an awkward and vulnerable time for them.”
But it is not only transgender students who are likely to be harmed by pronoun rituals.
Gender non-conforming students
“A girl who, until recently, would have been considered a ‘tomboy’ does not want to stand up and state her pronouns, just to have people openly wonder if she’d rather be referred to as ‘he/him’.” Nor does an “effeminate” boy want people to wonder if he would rather be referred to as “she/her.” Refer to students by the pronouns that align with how they are registered, male or female.
As journalist Lisa Selin Davis says, “Though many feel the current gender revolution makes room for organically gender non-conforming kids, I’d argue it actually pathologizes them. ” It tells a boy “he’s doing boy wrong, that there’s not room for him in the category he naturally, biologically belongs to” — and likewise for a gender non-conforming girl. It creates “an environment where they “are led to believe that t they were actually born in the wrong body.” They are likely to be harmed, rather than helped, by pronouns rituals.
Neurodivergent students
“For a kid who is prone to obsessive thinking, intrusive thoughts and/or hyper fixating, this constant request for preferred pronouns can lead to obsessing over identity in unnecessary and unhealthy ways.” He may have always taken his pronouns as a given, something he didn’t have to worry about. “For some, it may have been the ONLY thing they didn’t need to analyze to death.” But if they are constantly being asked for their preferred pronouns “a neurodivergent child may become fixated on trying to find the answer . . . and turn to the internet for advice . . . ‘How can I know what gender I am?’ More often than not, the internet will respond, “If you are asking this question, then you are trans.”
To be continued
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