West Virginia University (WVU) has told its 29,000 students that they are breaking federal law if don’t agree to use the pronouns — including ‘he’ or ‘she,’ ‘zir’ or ‘hir’ etc. — preferred by each person who claims to be transgender.
That policy means if a biological man — for example, famous transgender athlete Bruce Jenner — says he “identifies” his gender as female, then all other students must refer to the man as a “she,” or else be treated as a law-breaker.
WVU says using the wrong pronouns is a crime because the United States departments of justice and of education insist that transgender people are protected by decades-old sexual discrimination law.
The new claim is imposed in a university statement that defines the rights of the relatively few students who are confused about their gender. Because it is a list of “rights,” it doubles as as a list of diversity commandments for all normal students;
- You have the right to be treated according to the gender you identify with. Your school cannot require you to provide legal or medical evidence in order to have your gender respected.
- You have the right to be called by the name and pronouns consistent with your gender identity.
- You have the right not to be bullie d [sic]or harassed because you are transgender or gender non-conforming. If you are bullied or harassed contact your Title IX Coordinator, James Goins, Jr. at 304.293.5600 or James.Goins@mail.wvu.edu. You may also file a complaint online at titleix.wvu.edu
- You have the right to equal educational opportunities regardless of your gender, including your gender identity or expression, or your race, nationality, or disability. This includes not being punished or excluded from school activities or events because you are transgender or gender non-conforming.
- You have the right to dress and present yourself in a way that is consistent with your gender identity, so long as you follow rules for how to dress that apply to all students. This includes how you dress at school every day as well as for dances, graduation, and other school events.
- You have the right to use restrooms, locker rooms, and other facilities that are consistent with your gender identity, and can’t be forced to use separate facilities. There are several WVU Gender Inclusive Restrooms on campus.
- You have the right to privacy concerning your transgender status and gender transition. Any such information kept in school records must be kept private and not shared without your permission unless the school has a legitimate reason that it not based on gender bias.
- You have the right not to be harassed or discriminated against based gender stereotypes, including stereotypes about sexual orientation.
- You have the right to join or start a Gay-Straight Alliance or Pride Alliance, and to have your group treated like other student groups. WVU Spectrum is West Virginia University’s student-run organization dedicated to providing a social space for LGBTQ people and their allies in north central West Virginia.
As the Daily Caller notes, WVU “offers a handy guide on ‘Proper pronoun usage’ that explains how to swap out pronouns such as he, him and his for … pronouns such as ‘ve,’ ‘ver’ and ‘vis.'”
According to the “guide,” a recommended way of introducing oneself to another individual at WVU is: “My name is Tou and my pronouns are he and him. What about you?”
“Try making pronouns an optional part of introductions or check-ins at meetings or in class,” urges WVU, with the warning, “Remember that people may change their pronouns without changing their name, appearance, or gender identity.”
In the case of a faux pas – i.e., a fellow student or professor uses the wrong pronoun – WVU suggests dealing with the error in this way:
Most people appreciate a quick apology and correction at the time of the mistake.
Try:
“Her books are—I’m sorry, he r [sic] books are over there.” By correcting yourself, you’re modeling respectful pronoun use for others in the conversation. If you only realize the mistake later, a brief apology can help.
“I’m sorry I used th e [sic] wrong pronoun earlier. I’ll be more careful next time.”
WVU provides a chart of novel pronouns to help students understand the variety of new pronouns they are expected to use.
According to one study of the 2010 census, the population of transgender people amounts to one in every 2,400 Americans, or 0.03 percent of the adult population.
The ideological goal of imposing many new pronouns is to blur, stigmatize and outlaw the public’s long-standing social and legal distinctions between men and women. Progressives and transgender activists sneer at those distinctions as the “gender binary.”
President Barack Obama has spent a great deal of his last year in office promoting gender fluidity, particularly through directives about transgender bathrooms. On Friday, the president’s deputies inserted a rule into the Federal Register that prohibits all federal properties and facilities from operating single-sex bathrooms. Multiple polls show that Obama’s transgender policy is very unpopular.
Recently in Washington state, new health and physical education standards say children in kindergarten need to “understand there are many ways to express gender.”
The standards name “self-identity” as a topic of the “core idea” of the K-12 curriculum, and define gender as a “social construct based on emotional, behavioral, and cultural characteristics attached to a person’s assigned biological sex.”
Washington state’s superintendent’s office says the state utilized the National Sexuality Education Standards, K-12 (NSES) as a resource for the new standards.
Advisory members of the NSES include Robert McGarry, Ed.D., director of training and curriculum development of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN); Monica Rodriguez, MS, president of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS); Jennifer Heitel Yakush, public policy director of SIECUS; and Leslie M. Kantor, MPH, director of national education initiatives of Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
In Fairfax County, Virginia, the school board rammed through a policy change that makes children open to expulsion from school for expressing criticism of transgender ideology.
The new regulation states: “No student in FCPS shall … on the basis of gender identity … be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity.”
As Breitbart News reported, school board member Elizabeth Schultz, who opposed the regulation, said “discrimination” language means that a student who speaks out against the “gender identity” ideology can be disciplined, and presumably suspended and even expelled.
Opposition to the Obama-promoted gender fluidity narrative has taken hold, however.
A federal judge in Texas has ruled against Obama’s decree that public schools must allow students and teachers to decide which of the two sexes’ private bathrooms they desire to use at any given moment.
Led by Texas, 13 states sued the U.S. Departments of Education, Justice, Labor, and other federal agencies in U.S. District court, arguing that both Title IX and Title VII (which refers to employers) refers only to biological sex.
Judge Reed O’Connor said that, in issuing the directive, the Obama administration did not “follow the proper legal procedure,” and further stressed that “the Constitution assigns these policy choices to the appropriate elected and appointed officials.”
In June, more than 60 leaders concerned about the mental health of American children signed onto an open letter that asserts the Obama administration’s transgender bathroom decree for schools is “putting the nation’s children at risk.”
“This controversial and reckless government overreach increases the risk for our children’s safety and privacy in deference to an un-tethered notion of rights,” the signers wrote. “This policy rejects the scientific reality of every person’s biological sex. To force all Americans to comply with such an extreme and faulty premise – that every person’s sex is ‘assigned’ to them, rather than simply identified at birth – is beyond the pale.”
Additionally, a new report by renowned psychiatrists Dr. Paul McHugh and Dr. Lawrence S. Mayer reveals that most children and teens who say they are transgendered change their minds and grow up according to their biological sex.
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