School Tells Teachers To Stop Using “Mother” And “Father”
By Robert Gehl -
As a bedtime story for my five-year-old daughter last night, I read Eric Carle’s Does a Kangaroo Have a Mother, Too?
It’s a cute, nothing little book where every page asks the same answer about different kids of animals: “Yes! A kangaroo has a mother. Just like me and you.”
Sweet, right?
No. Little did I know that I was being bigoted and transphobic by telling my daughter that everybody has a mommy.
Up in Alberta, they’re working to correct this sinful practice of identifying “mothers” by telling teachers to stop using words like “mother,” “father” “Mr.” and “Mrs.” to students. Instead, educators and administrators are to use “non-gendered inclusive language” like “parents,” “families” and “partners.”
These new guidelines are more inclusive, they say – and for the one-in-a-million kids who don’t have a mother or father – will keep them from breaking down in tears. For the rest of the students, they get to sit in stunned silence as the teacher stumbles over phrases like: “Ok, kids, bring this home and show your parental figures or caregivers!”
As Katherine TImpf over at The National Review points out, the document’s authors struggle to even define its own terms:
The entire document is 18 pages long, and so bogged with words and phrases such as “actual or perceived diverse sexual orientations,” and “students and staff who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans , two-spirit, queer, questioning, and/or gender-diverse” that it’s almost impossible to read it without thinking you might be going insane.
The word “trans” in that second example, by the way, has a footnote next to it leading the reader to the following disclaimer:
Some individuals identify with terms such as transgender, transsexual, gender fluid, gender diverse, and agender. We have chosen to use the word trans in these guidelines as an inclusive, continually evolving, umbrella term commonly used to describe individuals whose gender identity and gender expression differ in some way from the sex they were assigned at birth. While we recognize this umbrella term may not fit for everyone, our intention is to be as inclusive as possible.
You know — because the way it was was just not “inclusive” enough to not be potentially perceived as transphobic and was definitely necessary. Yep… all of this is an excellent use of time.
http://www.thefederalistpapers.org/us/school-tells-teachers-to-stop-using-mother-and-father
