Why I quit using my students’ preferred pronounsBy Daniel Buck
June 9, 2023
I used to use my middle-school students’ preferred pronouns.
It seemed polite.
The largest teachers union in the nation encourages it.
What harm could it do?
I recall only a few years ago, a student informed me she had switched genders.
Reading roll call that day, I had to decide.
Do I call her by a new name, refer to her as “him” and begin a charade, pretending she’s a boy?
I used her new name.
What harm could it do?
I can no longer abide by such a lie.
I have had students with anorexia who despite their gaunt frame believed they were fat.
I had one student who heard voices and wrote letters to “imaginary friends” who instructed her to hurt herself.
Would it be caring, loving or humanitarian to indulge such delusions?
No, it would only facilitate a deterioration of mental well-being.
It’s cruelty masquerading as kindness.
It is cruel to encourage gender transition without question — a process with permanent consequences ranging from infertility to bodily mutilation — when 80% of children with gender dysphoria grow out of it.
It is cruel — after Title IX mainstreamed girls’ sports and normalized fathers attending their daughters’ games with the same concern as they did their sons’ — to allow men dressed as women to dominate these sports.
It is cruel to shirk the responsibility we have as the adults in a child’s life to help kids learn what it means to be a strong man or woman — embracing and thriving in their masculinity and femininity — rather than leaving them listless in some identity choose-your-own-adventure.
It is cruel to offer anxious, depressed and distraught teenagers the prospects of transition as an easy solution — a metaphorical pill with permanent side effects — when they really need far more holistic care.
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An eighth-grade student this year affirmatively declared during class, “Trans women are women.“
And I politely replied, “No, they are not.“
Would we not correct any other errors in student thinking?
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Source:
https://nypost.com/2023/06/09/why-i-quit-using-my-students-preferred-pronouns/
