Paul Bedard of the Washington Examiner noted how the University of Tennessee Knoxville encourages students to banish the use of gender-specific pronouns while on campus.
The university is urging in-coming students to replace English gender pronouns “he” and “she” with “ze” and “xe”.
In the boldest endorsement of a growing national trend, the University of Tennessee is urging incoming students and teachers to junk references to “he,” “she,” and “them,” in favor of gender-neutral “ze” and “xe.”
“With the new semester beginning and an influx of new students on campus, it is important to participate in making our campus welcoming and inclusive for all. One way to do that is to use a student’s chosen name and their correct pronouns,” blogged Donna Braquet, director of the school’s Pride Center.” — Washington Examiner
Braquet noted that automatically assuming someone’s gender by their appearance could lead to politically incorrect faux pas.
“Transgender people and people who do not identity within the gender binary may use a different name than their legal name and pronouns of their gender identity, rather than the pronouns of the sex they were assigned at birth,” Braquet wrote.
Braquet reasons that the majority must provide a welcoming environment for transgendered people on campus.
“In the first weeks of classes, instead of calling roll, ask everyone to provide their name and pronouns. This ensures you are not singling out transgender or non-binary students. The name a student uses may not be the one on the official roster, and the roster name may not be the same gender as the one the student now uses,” Braquet said.
The question is this: What if students refuse to accept this logic and choose instead to continue using the English language in its original form? And what about other languages such as “romance languages” that require masculine and feminine assigns to nouns?
