Rita Panahi: Why we must push back against absurd ideas

If you think the lunatic fringe of the identity politics movement exists only on the crazier recesses of Twitter then you haven’t been paying attention.

The Victorian government has revised its inclusive language guide. Picture: Hollie Adams.

Isn’t it comforting to learn some of the state’s well-paid public servants, whose salaries remained intact throughout Victoria’s economy-destroying lockdown, were busying themselves coming up with imaginative ways to be offended on behalf of the LGBTTQQIAAP+ community?

How helpful for the state government to revise its LGBTIQ+ Inclusive Language Guide for public servants to ensure harmful terms such as “Mr and Mrs”, “he and she’’ and — brace yourself — “husband and wife’’, are replaced with non-gendered, often grammatically incoherent but always politically correct terms such as “they/them”.

The guide advises public servants to never assume a person’s gender or pronouns, to “practise’’ their PC language and to apologise immediately if they inadvertently misgender a member of the “QTIPOC (Queer, Trans, Intersex, Persons of Colour)” communities.

There are no fewer than 17 references to “intersex” and “intersexism’’ in the 11-page document that claims this newspeak is needed to acknowledge the “diversity of bodies, genders and relationships”.

Victorian public servants are advised every job applicant should be asked what pronoun they use when invited for an interview.

But the guide also warns to “avoid asking people what terms they ‘prefer’. Having a ‘preference’ can sound as if it’s a choice and most people do not feel as if they have a choice in these matters”.

So, asking what pronouns a person uses is inclusive, asking what terms they prefer is hurtful and marginalising.

On one hand it’s tempting to dismiss this nonsense as a steaming pile of bollocks but there is an ideology behind this movement that is organised, influential and has gained a powerful foothold not only in public institutions but increasingly in the private sector.

Deakin University has a lengthy but, they stress, not exhaustive list of pronouns including ze/hir, they/them, co/cos, xe/xem/xyr, hy/hym/hys and no pronoun where you must use the individual’s name.

So, instead of saying John enjoyed his time at Deakin you would say John enjoyed John’s time at Deakin. So inclusive.

If you think the lunatic fringe of the identity politics movement exists only on university campuses and on the crazier recesses of Twitter then you haven’t been paying attention.

Ideas that start as absurd, because they plainly are absurd, are adopted in academia, normalised by popular culture and before long are in high schools and work places and those who don’t submit are rebuked as transphobes, racists, misogynists and a range of other slurs used to silence dissenting voices, even if those voices are mainstream and represent the majority view.

After singer Sam Smith announced his pronouns were no longer he/him but they/them, newspapers across the globe dutifully mangled the English language to not offend the pop star and the powerful trans lobby.

It didn’t take long for Merriam-Webster dictionary to amend the definition of “they” to include a non-binary pronoun.

Ceding linguistic territory to the radical left is not only foolish but divisive and destructive. The trans activist agenda has had enormous success in silencing critics by attacking anyone who questions or corrects falsehoods as dangerous bigots. Prominent individuals from feminist Germaine Greer, to comedian Barry Humphries to author JK Rowling have been maligned as transphobic and unworthy of the honours and acclaim they previously enjoyed, all for commentary the overwhelming majority of the population would deem perfectly acceptable. Every day there are absurd new terms for absurd new offences that do not exist in the minds of the sane majority.

In the name of “inclusion’’ we are asked to submit to a toxic, unforgiving woke ideology.

Even the term women has been deemed as non-inclusive thus giving birth, excuse the pun, to a slew of new terms including womxn, vulva owners, menstruators and other terms that reduce womanhood to a bodily part or function.

The trans-inclusive language used to describe women can sound decidedly misogynistic. It’s little wonder the trans lobby has caused a fracture in the feminist movement.

If you don’t push back against this madness then don’t complain when it becomes the norm and we are all expected to list our pronouns on our CVs, Twitter and workplace profiles or be deemed trans-exclusionary bigots.

And, it doesn’t stop at just pronouns and gender identity. We are seeing athletes called racist for refusing to take a knee for BLM, a group founded by Marxist feminists that is explicitly anti-capitalist, anti-nuclear family and advocates for the defunding of the police and the payment of reparations for slavery.

If you’re not on-board with all that and stand during the anthem then you’re in the firing line of the activist media class.

That’s what happens when you let the radical left set the agenda.

IN SHORT

At the weekend The Age deleted and apologised for a column by a parent whose child was transitioning because of a backlash from trans activists. The parent had “consented to testosterone treatment” but wrote about the pressure to give consent. So a thoughtful piece written by a parent with lived experience disappeared because of the mob.