You’ll soon get the chance if the James Paget Hospital in Norfolk has its way.
Its bosses issued a directive to the staff on “inclusive language DOs and DON’Ts”, which mandates a ban on words with ‘man’ in them, such as ‘postman’, ‘fireman’, ‘policeman’ and presumably ‘mandate’.
Fortunately, ‘mailman’ is an Americanism, for otherwise the medics would have to say ‘personperson’, rather than the more manageable if still less than mellifluous ‘postperson’. Still, a journey from Personchester to Personhattan remains a possibility.
Such persondatory usage is somewhat lacking in novelty appeal. When 50 years ago I got my first job in the West, at NASA in Houston, I ran into trouble with some of my female co-workers for using offensive ‘man’ words.
When I tried to argue, I was told I didn’t understand Western ways but, given time, I’d learn. They were right: I have indeed learned, if not exactly accepted.
However, another part of the directive would have struck even those NASA ladies as incomprehensible. They had no doubt whatsoever that men were born male and women female. Even though the former oppressed the latter by using such deliberately offensive words as ‘manic’, ‘manage’ and ‘mandarin’, there was no doubt who was what and at what point they became what they were.
The Norfolk hospital administrators will have none of that natal determinism. They ordered staff to use the phrase “assigned female/male at birth” since this more “accurately depicts what happens when a child is born”.
Well, you know the problem: trying to be all things to all men (or rather persons, as that misogynist Paul should have written to the Corinthians) is a tall order. You try to please everybody and end up pleasing nobody.
While the directive predictably upsets troglodytes like me, its unashamed binary character will enrage even those who hail the underlying principle.
If a person is assigned ‘gender’ at birth, then surely whoever is authorised to do so must choose from the full list of genders widely recognised as such within the still narrow circle of fanatics. At the last count there were 102, but scientific progress is proceeding apace. Before long the list will be augmented, and those Norfolk medics are duty-bound to keep track of any new additions.
As worded, the directive seems to follow Genesis, which says: “male and female he made them”. This simply won’t do – medical persons should know that it wasn’t God but Darwin who created man, or rather person. And Darwin’s theory presupposes a steady progress in human understanding of everything, including the number of sexes, sorry, I mean genders.
The directive also shows the danger of relying on the Passive Voice. The phrase “assigned female/male at birth” raises the question of who does the assigning. Back in those unsophisticated times, it was the obstetrician who triumphantly announced to the new mother “You’ve got a boy!” or “You’ve got a girl!” Those doctors of yesteryear went by strictly formal characteristics, but I did tell you those times were unsophisticated.
However, assigning ‘gender’ shouldn’t mean changing the assigner. It should still fall on the obstetrician to assume godlike powers and declare in a booming voice: “Aporagender I assign you!” or genderflux, ipsogender, sekhet, whatever is appropriate.
This whole thing appears to me as another attempt to endow physicians with metaphysical powers. In the old days, before Jesus Christ became a superstar, people believed not only that God made people male or female, but also that only God could give or take life.
As I mentioned yesterday, the medical profession is acquiring the arbitrary quasi-divine power to terminate a human life, in either gestation or old age. So why shouldn’t a doctor decide on the newborn’s sex? Before long, that Norfolk hospital will issue a new guidance for the medics to introduce themselves by saying: “I am Nigel Johnson thy Doctor, and thou shalt have no other Doctors before me”.
In this cosmic context it’s almost embarrassing to mention that the directive also instructed staff to use ‘ze’ or ‘zir’ pronouns because they are “gender neutral and preferred by some trans people”. Where’s the pluralism on that?
The Office for National Statistics identifies only 0.55 per cent of Britons as trans. Even discounting the likelihood of ideologically inspired exaggeration, I don’t know how many of the remaining 99.45 per cent detest those stupid games with pronouns, but I’d guess many do. Surely the grammatical rights of such an overwhelming minority should trump those of a minute proportion?
Our progressive modernity isn’t only crossing the line beyond which madness lies. It’s erasing that line, and we are persondated to come along without demurring.
People should remind themselves of late 18th century history, when Paul I reigned in Russia and George III in England. Both monarchs suffered from mental disorders, but with a telling difference.
Every Russian schoolboy knew about the madness of Paul I, but only Britons with a particular interest in history knew about the madness of George III, at least until Alan Bennett’s play and the subsequent film. The difference is that in some places mad kings are allowed to create mad kingdoms, and in some others they aren’t.
Monarchs no longer rule even if they still reign. The hole formed thereby has been filled by a small elite with a particular knack for demagoguery and hardly anything else. They are short on reason but long on powerlust, and that emotion can be served by creating a mad kingdom.
They know that a one-eyed man can become king, but to do so he must first blind everyone else. I refer to the stratagem they use for that purpose as glossocracy, controlling people by controlling their language.
The bosses of that Norfolk hospital provide a caricatured illustration of that mechanism, but an illustration nonetheless. My advice to their staff and really everyone is to fight the power-hungry zealots every step of the way, by force if necessary.
However, I’m not holding my breath in the hope that people will do that. The glossocrats have done too good a job turning the multitudes into docile herds.