The Absolute Right to Choose Your Own Pronouns

I believe both in the right of individuals to express their personal pronoun preferences, and in the right of other individuals to ignore them. It’s the same right in each case, the right of freedom of expression. And it’s a right I hold dear.

I understand that some folks in the trans movement would like to tell other people which words they can and can’t use. I don’t approve of that, because I really do believe in freedom of expression: the same freedom that lets a guy put on a dress and say “I’m a woman” lets me chuckle and say, “yeah, no. But let’s agree to disagree.”

Live and let live. I know there are some men who like to dress up like women. There always have been. And I know there are people who are deeply confused about who and what they are. That’s too bad, but hardly new: troubled people have always been with us.

What is new, and what I can’t abide, is this insistence that I go along with their fantasy. Everywhere else we disagree in this wonderful country, we stop short of telling other people to use our words, to profess our beliefs. We let people think differently, and we tolerate their expression of their ideas, of their differences, even if we find them odd, off-putting, or offensive.

I believe that people are born either male or female and stay that way their whole lives, regardless of what they wear or what treatments they get. I think the trans movement is a silly, often destructive fad, and a way for people to avoid the stress of living up to their sex in a confused and sometimes challenging cultural climate.

But, as I said, I respect the right, if not necessarily the choices, of people to express themselves as they wish — while retaining my own right to choose the pronouns I’ll use when referring to them.

We don’t have to agree. We can just tolerate each other. I’m okay with that.