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Guest post: More complex and more ambiguous

Originally a comment by What a Maroon on Use them or else.

Pronouns are like waiters: done right, they’re efficient but unobtrusive, showing up when needed, helping things flow smoothly, rarely drawing attention to themselves. English has a pretty good pronoun system, but with an obvious gap in the second person–the loss of “thou” in most English dialects has led to awkward, attention-grabbing workarounds like “y’all”, “youse”, “yinz”, “you guys”. Those are the waiters that loudly announce their names when they first approach the table, interrupt the flow of conversation, spill the pizza on your lap, and disappear when you most need them (which is to say, typical American waiters)*.

The whole pronoun movement is simultaneously attempting to make … Read the rest

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Guest post: More complex and more ambiguous
By Ophelia Benson, February 24, 2026

Originally a comment by What a Maroon on Use them or else.

Pronouns are like waiters: done right, they’re efficient but unobtrusive, showing up when needed, helping things flow smoothly, rarely drawing attention to themselves. English has a pretty good pronoun system, but with an obvious gap in the second person–the loss of “thou” in most English dialects has led to awkward, attention-grabbing workarounds like “y’all”, “youse”, “yinz”, “you guys”. Those are the waiters that loudly announce their names when they first approach the table, interrupt the flow of conversation, spill the pizza on your lap, and disappear when you most need them (which is to say, typical American waiters)*.

The whole pronoun movement is simultaneously attempting to make … Read the rest

Archives
Bad Moves
Articles
Flashback
In Focus
Latest News
Letters
Notes and Comment Blog

Guest post: More complex and more ambiguous 

Originally a comment by What a Maroon on Use them or else.

Pronouns are like waiters: done right, they’re efficient but unobtrusive, showing up when needed, helping things flow smoothly, rarely drawing attention to themselves. English has a pretty good pronoun system, but with an obvious gap in the second person–the loss of “thou” in most English dialects has led to awkward, attention-grabbing workarounds like “y’all”, “youse”, “yinz”, “you guys”. Those are the waiters that loudly announce their names when they first approach the table, interrupt the flow of conversation, spill the pizza on your lap, and disappear when you most need them (which is to say, typical American waiters)*.

The whole pronoun movement is simultaneously attempting to make … Read the rest

What dignity? 

The grotesquerie is off the charts. Every word of this is drivel.

Transgender women could have their dignity “undermined” and be made to feel “inferior” if a lesbian group is allowed to ban them from events, a court has heard.

That makes no sense. How can men’s “dignity” depend on permission to join lesbian groups? It’s the other way around in fact. It’s grotesquely undignified for men to slap on some lipstick and demand to join lesbian groups.

The Lesbian Action Group (LAG) has been in the Federal Court this week, appealing a decision by the Human Rights Commission (HRC) that ruled the group could not legally exclude transgender women from its public events.

Which amounts to ruling lesbians … Read the rest

Removed or withheld 

I’m sure it’s just random.

Millions of pages of Epstein files have been released to the public, but an NPR investigation reveals a gap: The Justice Department has removed or withheld dozens of pages related to allegations that President Trump sexually abused a minor decades ago. The Justice Department declined to answer NPR’s questions on the record about these specific files, what’s in them, and why they are not published.

Well they would, wouldn’t they. Trump has power over them, and he’s not the principled type who would take great care not to meddle with the Justice Department’s files on him. He’s the opposite of that. He’s the type who would cut all their throats before letting them investigate … Read the rest

Let’s not rush it 

The Daily Mail [sorry]:

More than half of local authorities are still failing to comply with the ‘crystal clear’ Supreme Court ruling on biological sex almost a year after the landmark judgment.

Some 159 of the 317 councils in England are still ‘waiting for guidance’, despite the Equalities Minister saying that the ruling was ‘crystal, crystal clear’.

Well we can’t expect them to give up the chance to make life worse for women overnight, now can we.

Astonishingly, some councils even ‘made it clear they did not agree with the Supreme Court judgment’ and have maintained trans-inclusive policies, it adds.

It comes as Bridget Phillipson said on Sunday that the landmark ruling ‘set out very, very clearly what sex

… Read the rest
Guest post: After everything’s collapsed 

Originally a comment by Artymorty on Use them or else.

I have to wonder if at some level, some of this madness is a symptom of the executives and those in power not caring enough about “the gender thing”, rather than them being utterly preoccupied with it.

The heads of these institutions don’t believe in gender nonsense. Rather, they consider their actions: they do an ad-hoc cost/benefit analysis in their heads, comparing the cost of taking one side over the other. If they side with the gender critics, the actions required to put a stop to gender lunacy signal immediate cost to themselves — unrest and pushback from within the institution; headaches from activists. The appearance of being “anti-LGBTQ”, … Read the rest

Ignore the man behind the curtain 

It seems Trump thinks he can overrule the Supreme Court. One wonders what he thinks “Supreme” means.

Trump on Monday threatened countries around the world to abide by any tariff deals they agreed to, despite the U.S. Supreme Court striking down many of his far-reaching taxes on imports.

Any country that wants to “play games” with the Supreme Court decision, Trump posted, will be met with “a much higher Tariff, and worse, than that which they just recently agreed to.”

So it’s playing games to heed the Supreme Court, but it’s not playing games for Trump to pretend he can ignore the Supreme Court?

He really doesn’t get the separation of powers thing, does he.

Trump has already signed

… Read the rest
Use them or else 

Oh goody, pronouns guidance.

An NHS trust has said the pronouns “Xey/Xem” can be used by staff at work.

King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in south London also urged staff to apologise if they used the “wrong” pronouns for colleagues.

Well don’t stop there. What about Mey/Mem? Zey/Zem? Key/Kem? Is the NHS trust being alphabetically exclusionaryist?

A training document called Pronouns and the LGBTQ+ Community lists several examples of pronouns, including I/me, She/her, He/him, They/them, Ze/Zir, Xey/Xem or It/Its.

The trust said it was “up to each individual to identify what their pronouns are”, stressing it was a great way “to create an inclusive environment and demonstrate inclusion in the workplace”.

But, as I’ve said a billion times, … Read the rest

Speaking of no talent or skills 

Trump is busy micromanaging…uh…Netflix?

Trump on Sunday threatened Netflix, suggesting it would “pay the consequences” if it didn’t “immediately” fire Susan Rice, who served as ambassador to the United Nations under the Obama administration.

I don’t think he’s the president of Netflix. I don’t think government bosses are supposed to order businesses to fire people the government bosses don’t like.

On Sunday, the president posted on Truth Social that Netflix should “fire racist, Trump Deranged Susan Rice, IMMEDIATELY, or pay the consequences.”

  • “She’s got no talent or skills – Purely a political hack! HER POWER IS GONE, AND WILL NEVER BE BACK. How much is she being paid, and for what???” he added.
  • The president’s words came in response
… Read the rest
Basic notions 

The fix is in.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon permanently barred the Justice Department from releasing special counsel Jack Smith’s final report describing President Donald Trump’s stockpiling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago and allegations that he obstructed government efforts to reclaim them.

Of course she did. She’s the underqualified judge who owes her promotion to Trump, so of course she’s going to reward him when she gets the chance.

The Trump-appointed judge said releasing the report now would “contravene basic notions of fairness and justice” and amount to a “manifest injustice” because the case never reached a jury. It could also risk revealing information protected by attorney-client privilege and grand jury secrecy, she said.

Speaking of basic notions of … Read the rest

This is very normal and fine 

A new crazy.

… Read the rest

The hospital boat is in his bathtub 

Greenland to Trump: No thanks.

Greenland has said it does not need medical assistance from other countries, after Donald Trump said he was sending a hospital ship to the autonomous Danish territory he wants to acquire.

The US president said he would dispatch the vessel in a social media post on Saturday, claiming that Greenlanders were not getting the healthcare they needed.

“Working with the fantastic Governor of Louisiana, Jeff Landry, we are going to send a great hospital boat to Greenland to take care of the many people who are sick, and not being taken care of there,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

“It’s on the way!!!” he added.

That’s so funny because here lots of … Read the rest

Department of living comfortably and fully in their truths 

Hmm. An article in the Nation assumes matters not in evidence.

Rather than do something, anything, about the abysmal state of healthcare in the United States, the Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services has doubled down on its attacks against trans youth, their families, and the web of providers who work to ensure young people can live comfortably and fully in their truths.

Their whats? What does “in their truths” mean?

Aw come on, we know what it means. It means their fantasies about themselves. It seems to me that people’s fantasies about themselves are not something anyone else has to do anything at all to assist or affirm or publicize. They’re personal and individual; they’re the opposite… Read the rest

Public or political speech can too so be punished 

Daaaamn this is nuts. I can’t look away.

I’m visiting to read the full statement. It’s stark raving mad.

Commissioner welcomes decision protecting LGBTQ people from hate speech

For the millionth time: what on earth are LGBTQ people? There are no such people, because it’s not possible to be both a lesbian and a gay man, let alone be lesbian and gay and bi and trans and whatever … Read the rest

Either way, send cash 

Jolyon still grifting.

What does that even mean, “they don’t want to”? How does he know? Who are “they”? Is he claiming that every single woman in the Women’s Institute longs to have men in flouncy dresses take it over? What business is it of his anyway?… Read the rest

The worker who was born a man 

The underwear question.

A ruling that an NHS manager discriminated against a transgender employee by asking if they took off their underwear in a women’s changing room has “deeply worrying” implications, an MP has said.

The worker, who was born a man, successfully sued Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust for gender reassignment discrimination in July. Employment judges heard that a manager had questioned the employee after concerns were raised that they had been naked from the waist down in the women’s changing room.

HE! That HE had been naked from the waist down. Don’t pander to this shit in the very act of reporting on it.

Sarah-Jane Davies, the tribunal judge, said in the ruling: “This was a

… Read the rest
Face 

Big Brudda has arrived.

A large banner featuring Donald Trump’s face was hung on the exterior of Justice Department headquarters on Thursday in a physical display of the Republican president’s efforts to exert power over the law enforcement agency that once investigated him.

While Trump banners have been hung outside other agencies across Washington, the decision to place one on the storied Justice Department building amounted to a striking symbol of the erosion of the department’s tradition of independence from White House control.

It’s not erosion, it’s seizure.

Trump officials have rejected accusations that they have weaponized the Justice Department for political purposes, saying the Biden administration was the one that politicized law enforcement with two federal criminal cases

… Read the rest
How sharper than a serpent’s tooth 

Huh. Denmark airlifted a US sailor from a US submarine because he needed medical care, and Trump responded with the usual.

It is not on the way. Trump knows it’s not on the way. … Read the rest

Netflix should 

This is all very completely normal.

Yes certainly, we always have presidents who tell media companies which people to fire because said people annoy him. That’s definitely part of his job and not in any way a violation of norms and laws and boundaries.

The Financial Times gives us some background:

Trump has called on Netflix to sack former Democratic national security official Susan Rice from its board or “pay the consequences”, as the streamer battles to buy Warner Bros Discovery.

The

… Read the rest
A different tune 

Trump is pitching a fit.

At this time last year, President Trump warmly shook hands with Chief Justice John Roberts at the State of the Union address, thanking him for the opinion he authored granting Trump and other presidents in the future expansive immunity from prosecution for their official acts after leaving office. But on Friday, after the Supreme Court invalidated Trump’s tariffs, the president was singing a decidedly different tune.

At a hastily called press conference, an agitated Trump railed against the conservative Roberts and two of the courts other conservatives, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, both Trump appointees.

“They’re just being fools and lapdogs for the RINOs and the radical left Democrats,” Trump said.

… Read the rest
“I can do anything I want to do to them” 

Trump and the Supreme Court have broken up.

… Read the rest