Police bulletin on pronouns
But wait, there’s more! James Kirkup introduces us to Deputy Chief Constable Julie Cooke of Cheshire Police.
DCC Cooke has rather a big job in Cheshire, where there were more than 30,000 violent crimes in the year to August 2019 and the monthly rate of violent crime is up by more than 50 per cent in the last year.
Fortunately, however, DCC Cooke has still managed to find time to make a video marking International Pronouns Day.
Marking what??!
No, I know what; I had heard of it; it’s just that it’s so idiotic, and so idiotic-squared that anyone is paying attention to it, let alone making police videos about it.
If you’re not familiar with that occasion, the DCC is here to explain that pronouns are very important and we should always take care to use the pronouns – he/she/they/ze/whatever – that other people want us to use for them. This is especially important to “people who identify as transgender and gender non-conforming,” DCC Cooke says.
That it, it’s especially important to people delusional enough to think they can change sex and narcissistic enough to think they can force the entire world to pretend their delusion is true. A somewhat niche market, I’d have thought.
Today marks #pronounsday – seeking to make sharing, educating and respecting personal pronouns commonplace. @pronounsday
How is this any of the police’s business?
“It is so important to understand the pronouns that somebody wishes to be used for them,” the uniformed DCC tells us in her video, filmed in front of a Cheshire Constabulary background – just in case we were in any doubt about whether this is an official police communication.
“Being misgendered can have a huge impact on somebody and their personal wellbeing. It also can be used as a form of abuse for them, and that just isn’t right,” DCC Cooke says.
But, again, what does this have to do with the police? Why are the police trying to micromanage people’s language in such fine detail that they’re issuing instructions on what pronouns to use? None of it makes any sense.
I thought the phrase “grammar police” was supposed to be metaphorical.
My preferred pronoun is “mzgw”. No, I should not have to tell you how to pronounce it. If you don’t pronounce it correctly, you are committing actual violence against me…
I had previously felt it quite unacceptable to refer to people as it but I may reconsider…
I identify as a grumpy old git and it is my sincere and deeply held belief that the English language requires only one pronoun for all uses and that that pronoun should be “fuckface”.
And if fuckface disagrees with me, then fuckface can fuck off.
The police budget extends much more easily to pronoun enforcement than it would to protecting trans-women from street violence. The latter would involve arresting and prosecuting MEN. Much easier to criminalize lesbians for quoting dictionaries.
Arresting and prosecuting men might also point to a reality of violence against trans – a lot of it is inspired by hatred of women.
True. On the other hand, if they confined themselves to that, it might turn out that, in fact, there isn’t all that much actual violence against them–and where would transactivism be without the constant claims of victimization?
Much better to count stickers with dictionary definitions on them as hate crimes. Then if anybody still tries to say, “But trans women AREN’T…” tell them they’re harming the most marginalized group in the world. And then arrest them for hate crime.
Heads we win tails you lose!