A spectrum too far

It was all over the internet: the Nebraska school district’s guidelines against gendered language that would prejudice students toward believing they are one sex or another. Much has been made of the suggested alternative language: Instead of girls and boys, ladies and gentlemen, or even “you guys”—is y’all OK?—teachers and other school employees are advised to come up with more creative, inclusive monikers. “Say things like ‘calling all readers’ or ‘hey campers’ or ‘could all of the athletes come here.’ Create classroom names and then ask all of the ‘purple penguins’ to meet at the rug.”

Are we entering a purple penguin era? Probably not. First of all, as Lincoln, Neb., school superintendent Steve Joel hastened to explain, the suggested nomenclature is just that: suggestions. Teachers are still “allowed” to address their students as boys and girls. Good to know, but we might have guessed it anyway. Silliness always reaches its limit, usually at a point where it becomes impossible.

The drive toward gender neutrality is impossible pretty much from the get-go. Imagine yourself as an elementary teacher in Middle America who thought your mission was to teach reading and writing but now you have been gently informed that you’re the point of the spear for revolutionizing basic human nature. Gender Spectrum, an organization dedicated to creating the ultimate inclusive society, has formulated “12 easy steps on the way to gender inclusiveness” to help you re-educate the children. Handouts provided to you from other such advocacy groups (see example below) inform you that there are (at least!) four levels to everyone’s sexual identity, and the physical is the least significant one. The psychological sense of self (gender identity), the communication/perception of self (gender expression), and the romantic/emotional self (sexual orientation) matter much more than one’s anatomy. An individual child may be located anywhere on those four spectrums, or may lightly trip between levels. The combinations and expressions are many, and central to a child’s education is the freedom to explore all or none of them, as he (I mean, “ze” or “se”) chooses.

So in addition to teaching what we used to call “school subjects,” you the classroom teacher should also “provide an opportunity for every student to identify a preferred name or pronoun” and “point out and inquire when you hear others referencing gender in a binary manner” (like “he” or “she”). And “when you find it necessary to reference gender, say, ‘boy, girl, both, or neither.’” Can you see this working in an actual class of sixth-graders?

Like a young sapling, reality can be bent to a certain limit, but there’s a point where reality can’t take it anymore, where bending further would violate its very character and identity. Humanity is created male and female, and for all the flexibility and imagination of the human mind, gender identity is not really open to mutation. All these creative interpretations will come to ruin; the only question is, will it be sooner or later? I may be wrong, but I suspect Gender Spectrum, with its 12 Easy Steps, will quietly shuffle into Nebraska history by next fall.

See Marvin Olasky’s “Good education ends not with a mandate but a suggestion.”