The Era Of The Fragile Flower Continues
Do we all really need to be verbally included in every single possible way to feel okay with ourselves?
For years, they've made announcements on the New York City subway, "Ladies and gentleman..."
I think this is nice -- if optimistic...which is to say I've seen people biting their toenails, and worse, on the subway, and not just once.
Anyway, I managed to get to work on the subway -- emotionally intact -- despite how they didn't single me out in announcements about, say, a slowdown at 34th Street, with:
Ladies, Gentleman, and redheaded Jew-turned-atheists who need to pick up some tampons before work and would really like to find a boyfriend already...
Well, at HuffPo, Alanna Vagianos writes that New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority is retiring its use of "ladies and gentlemen" in favor of what she calls "some awesome gender-neutral terminology."
According to local news outlet PIX11, MTA subway conductors and bus drivers will address commuters as "passengers," "riders" and "everyone." Pre-recorded messages will be updated to comply with the new policy.
Now, I'm all for personally calling people what they want to be called, because it's kind and respectful. There's a person who lives by me who used to be...let's call him "Mike." He was Mike for probably 40 or 45 years, and I knew him for about 15 of those years. And then, all of a sudden, he started wearing skating skirts and a neon bob and going by, let's say, "Delilah."
I now call this person Delilah, and do my best to say "she" and "her," but occasionally slip.
Do I think we should start having 26 ways of referring to people before the train can leave the station or treat "ladies and gentleman" as some form of discrimination? No.
In fact, I think it's probably damaging to start forcing this sort of verbal contortion in public announcements and the like -- per how being elastic of "gender" is suddenly a thing...much like my sister's freshman lesbianism, which I believe lasted several days to a week and involved no actual lesbian-on-neo"lesbian" action.
At Quillette, Lisa Marchiano writes about "gender dysphoria" being spread by social contagion:
In the past decade, however, a new presentation of gender dysphoria has suddenly become widespread, in which teens or tweens come to identify as transgender "out of the blue," without any childhood history of feeling uncomfortable with their sex. Experts have dubbed this presentation rapid onset gender dysphoria, and are beginning to study it."We think this is an entirely distinct phenomenon from childhood-onset gender dysphoria," says Michael Bailey, PhD a leading researcher on sexuality and gender, and a psychology professor at Northwestern University. "Indeed, we think it didn't exist until recently. It is a socially contagious phenomenon, reminiscent of the multiple personality disorder epidemic of the 1990s."
Although not much is known at this time about ROGD, it appears likely that it may be a kind of social contagion in which young people - often teen girls - come to believe that they are transgender. Preliminary research indicates that young people who identify as trans "out of the blue" may have been influenced by social media sites that valorize being trans. In addition, researchers have observed a pattern of clusters of friends coming out together.
...While many in the research community are gaining a growing awareness of rapid onset gender dysphoria and its contagious nature, clinical practice guidelines have not caught up with this newer understanding. Moreover, in recent years, advocacy on behalf of the transgender community has seen medical gatekeeping reduced so that, in many places in the US, young people like Molly can access medical transition without any diagnostic or assessment process.
Yes, have some of this nice testosterone soup and we'll figure out whether it gives you a goiter, a tumor, and a second head a couple of decades later.
So, yes, I'm serious when I say this push to remake speech can be damaging. And for anyone who can't make it onto the train, in light of the old horrible, "Ladies and gentlemen," well, I hope you find a nice psychiatrist who can help you rejoin society again.
If you haven't seen it, Janice Turner at the Times UK has written two articles. The site is paywalled but with an email address you can read two articles a week for free.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/55c47fd6-c64e-11e7-9914-a38dcc178fcd
Children sacrificed to appease trans lobby
janice turner
...
In a decade we may wonder if this was progress or child abuse.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/meet-alex-bertie-the-transgender-poster-boy-z88hgh8b8
More girls are changing their gender from female to male than ever before. What’s behind the surge in numbers? Janice Turner investigates
The latter article discusses two girls with gender dysphoria, one who transitioned to male and one who didn't.
jerry at November 14, 2017 11:28 PM
Well, given that feminist ideology dictates that women are exactly like men, it's not hard to believe that some women now want to BECOME men to prove that to themselves.
mpetrie98 at November 15, 2017 4:52 AM
Heck, I've got a friend who went by Danny for three decades. Now he wants to be called Dan. Thinks it sounds more adult and mature. I try to comply but most of the time I still call him Danny. Habits are hard to break.
Ben at November 15, 2017 5:36 AM
"...given that feminist ideology dictates that women are exactly like men,..."
Of course, the thing they don't explain is, if women and men are exactly alike, how can such a thing as gender dysphoria exist?
Cousin Dave at November 15, 2017 6:19 AM
Oh, I suppose "attention, passengers" is probably a lot easier than "attention, ladies and gentlemen and everyone in-between," but maybe less memorable.
As far as SOGD goes, shouldn't there be something or other that triggers the sudden onset? You know, to make the onset "sudden?"
Old RPM Daddy (OldRPMDaddy at GMail dot com) at November 15, 2017 7:21 AM
Well, it's public transit, so "Listen up cattle!" would be factually appropriate. Perhaps too much so.
Conan the Grammarian at November 15, 2017 7:56 AM
Most all of us are strangers to each other most of the time. We can only go on what we see unless we know someone personally. There is no way to be able to use more than two sets of pronouns/titles (Mr, Ms) in general public discourse.
"Ladies and Gentlemen" aspires to a higher standard of civility than "passengers"
There are indeed fads of behavior such as suicide copycats, goth fads, hippie fads (even the Greeks had them), asceticism, etc. Why not trans? For a lonely maladjusted kid it seems to solve a lot of problems (seems to).
cc at November 15, 2017 12:35 PM
“We’re fundamentally changing the way we talk with riders to give them better and clearer information,” MTA spokesperson Jon Weinstein told PIX11 on Friday.
I've little opinion on "ladies and gentlemen" vs. "everyone," but I fail to see how one or the other provides "better and clearer information."
"Better and clearer information" would include "Doors open on the right at 34th Street; be mindful of the annoying buskers" and "The air conditioning is off at the next station and people are broiling."
Kevin at November 15, 2017 12:46 PM
often teen girls - come to believe that they are transgender. Preliminary research indicates that young people who identify as trans "out of the blue" may have been influenced by social media sites that valorize being trans.
So in other words this is just another iteration of plain old ordinary female driven hysteria, such as what brought us the witch trials of the 1700s, the Satanist child abuse hysteria if the 1980s, and hundreds of other examples
lujlp at November 15, 2017 1:35 PM
Comrades
tmitsss at November 15, 2017 2:00 PM
IMHO, gender isn't fluid, but gender stereotypes and expectations are. When I was growing up in the 60's and 70's, it was unfeminine to wear pants or like science. Now those things are perfectly fine for girls. So at least some of this transgender stuff is conflated with changing gender norms and has nothing to do with actual gender disphoria.
Karen at November 15, 2017 4:23 PM
I suspect you're right, Karen.
Amy Alkon at November 15, 2017 6:51 PM
For years, they've made announcements on the New York City subway, "Ladies and gentleman..."
There are people who can actually make out what is being said in announcements on subway systems?
Or, for that matter, other mass transit systems. Here in Seattle, on our light rail system (called "Link"; not as cool of a name as Portland's "Max"), announcements are impossible to understand. They're always garbled. The other day we were stopped at the Sodo (for "South of the Dome", named back when the Kingdome still existed) station and a typical garbled announcement came on in our car. When it ended, a guy quipped, "I sure hope that wasn't important." and everyone around cracked up.
JD at November 18, 2017 11:16 AM
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