Abigail Shrier writes that one of the first acts of the USAâs new House of Representatives could be to cancel mothers:
On Sunday, Speaker Nancy Pelosiâs Democratic majority proposed to eliminate âfather, mother, son, daughter, brother, sisterâ and all other language deemed insufficiently âgender-inclusiveâ from House rules. They would be Âreplaced with terms like âparent, child, sibling, parentâs siblingâ and so on.
âMotherâ â among the most important concepts in human life â would be erased from the lexicon of the US House of Representatives. Itâs important to recognize how radical this is. And no, it isnât akin to updating federal law to replace âpolicemanâ with âpolice officer,â a rational corrective sought by feminists for generations. . .Â
Those changes were to reflect fact that jobs werenât the preserve of one gender. Thatâs very different from trying to eliminate biological reality.
But âmotherâ is a fundamental biological, emotional, familial reality. It captures the irreplaceable bond between a baby and the woman who bore her in her womb. That others can be excellent guardians â a fact no one disputes â canât justify extirpating Mom from our vocabulary. (For that matter, the political erasure of âdadâ is also dehumanizing, because it Âentails the loss of our capacity to describe relationships that define what it means to be fully human.)
House Democrats donât pretend to seek this change merely for the sake of âstreamliningâ congressional language. The explicit point is to advance âinclusion and diversityâ and to âhonor all gender identities.â Pelosi & Co. are desperate to accommodate an Âaggressive gender ideology that Âinsists âmanâ and âwomanâ are fuzzy, subjective categories, rather than biological ones.
This desperation for acceptance and inclusion ironically doesnât include and has no tolerance for those who maintain that there is an important difference between biological sex and what some people might choose for their gender.
Remember the trouble that J.K. Rowling got into when she tweeted ?
âPeople who menstruate.â Iâm sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?Â
She was labeled a TERF (a trans-exclusionary radical feminist); people burned her books and called for her publisher to blacklist her.
And if you think thatâs mad, what about this? (back to Abigail Shrier):
Lest you think this a harmless alteration, consider the ways Californiaâs Democrats have run wild with Newspeak. As Quillette reported last week, Californiaâs insurance commissioner has Âissued a directive to reclassify double mastectomies of healthy breasts from âcosmeticâ procedures to âreconstructive,â necessary to âcorrect or repair the abnormal structures of the body caused by congenital defects.â
You read that right: The âcongenital defectâ is a young womanâs healthy breasts, provided that young woman subjectively identifies as ânonbinaryâ or anything other than âwoman.â
It matters what we call things in the public space: Just ask the Âfemale prisoners now housed with violent biological men in California if our lawmakersâ words matter. This lie â that a girlâs breasts constitute âdevelopmental abnormalitiesâ depending on her subjective state of mind â carries the result that female patients of all ages would suddenly become eligible for insurance coverage for double mastectomies. A small change in language grants doctors the green light to remove the normal, developing breasts of an 11-year old girl. Still just words?
By all means, call people what they prefer. But language in the law, by definition, ushers words into action. Words grant rights or take them away. Words can enhance or diminish status, placing people and concepts beyond the bounds of legal protection. . .
If âmotherâ is now a useless concept under House rules, why shouldnât it pose an equally offensive presence in federal law?
Thatâs where weâre headed, isnât it? Erasing âmothers,â and âwomen,â because the concepts are insufficiently inclusive to gender ideologues. The rights women struggled to win become undone, paradoxically, in the name of Âinclusion.
The female body loses its significance in language and in law: no need for doctors to regard the healthy breasts of young girls as anything more than noxious lumps. The dystopian threat to individuality lies in this: Without mother and father, we all become atomized and fungible, losing our true individuality.
Those pressing for these changes do so precisely because they know there is no more effective means of upending society than by deleting the women and the natural bonds that make society possible. Congressional Democrats move us, by Orwellian fiat, one step closer to a sterile world with sterile words. We shapeless humans â fungible as pennies â are left to await further instruction.
The cancelling of gender specific terms for family members is an extension of the idea that those who have undergone puberty as males can compete equally and fairly in sports with those born female. Or as the proponents of this madness would say, that trans women are women.
In doing so they are blind to biological differences and the fact that whatever drugs and surgery do to change gender, nothing can make someone born a boy a natal woman, regardless of what he, she, or whatever other pronoun is chosen, identifies as and what words are used to denote that identity.
People who want a different gender from the sex assigned to them at birth face many hurdles and often are victims of discrimination. But accepting some people born boys can be trans women and some born girls can be trans men, that this isnât always easy for them and they have rights, doesnât mean we have to disregard biological facts, cancel family labels and undo progress that came from decades of activism to give women equality and safety.
Nor does it mean that those who speak out against this are transphobic.
As J.K. Rowling wrote in defending her tweet:
. . . It isnât enough for women to be trans allies. Women must accept and admit that there is no material difference between trans women and themselves.
But, as many women have said before me, âwomanâ is not a costume. âWomanâ is not an idea in a manâs head. âWomanâ is not a pink brain, a liking for Jimmy Choos or any of the other sexist ideas now somehow touted as progressive. Moreover, the âinclusiveâ language that calls female people âmenstruatorsâ and âpeople with vulvasâ strikes many women as dehumanising and demeaning. I understand why trans activists consider this language to be appropriate and kind, but for those of us whoâve had degrading slurs spat at us by violent men, itâs not neutral, itâs hostile and alienating. . .
I believe the majority of trans-identified people not only pose zero threat to others, but are vulnerable for all the reasons Iâve outlined. Trans people need and deserve protection. Like women, theyâre most likely to be killed by sexual partners. Trans women who work in the sex industry, particularly trans women of colour, are at particular risk. Like every other domestic abuse and sexual assault survivor I know, I feel nothing but empathy and solidarity with trans women whoâve been abused by men.
So I want trans women to be safe. At the same time, I do not want to make natal girls and women less safe. When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels heâs a woman â and, as Iâve said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones â then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside. That is the simple truth. . .Â
I have met only a couple of trans-women and enjoyed the company of both. I accept that some people arenât comfortable with the sex assigned at their births, have the right to change their gender and not face discrimination because of that.
I donât accept changing language to to deny biological reality.
People wanting social change use language to advance their agenda.
That can be sensible, for example changing gendered job titles to those that are gender neutral for occupations done by men and women. It can be good, for example changing offensive labels to ones that arenât.
But it can also be political manipulation – changing the language to in a misguided attempt to change the world.
This linguistic trickery of cancelling family titles and denying biological reality is many radical and dangerous steps too far.
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