Tuesday, January 31, 2006

LILEKS (James) Screedblog

James Lileks takes on the PC police who think that using the terms man and woman are too exclusive.
LILEKS (James) Screedblog: "So apparently the “Men” and “Women” sign on lavatory doors will be the new “Whites” and “Coloreds.” It’s a parallel world, these places, but they’re also a preview of coming attractions. Not that Wal-Marts in Oklahoma will have bathrooms next year whose doors say “YOUR CALL.” But somewhere in Oklahoma they will have this same tired argument at some point, and the end result will a setback for gay rights, no matter how it goes, and a setback for those sympathetic to gay-rights issues. Including, if I may be presumptuous, many gays. I suspect that the number of gay people who have a vested interest in exploding the concepts of “men” and “women” into a big happy smear of genderless pod-folk with no discernible gender identity is rather small. There’s gender-blending going on in the G and L communities, of course, but you could say the same thing about heterosexuals; look at any celebrity mags and you find the gamut - girly-girls to strapping Amazons, waif-lads to burly bulked-up heroes. No reason that shouldn’t show up in other sexual orientations. But there’s still a line; there’s still Men and there’s still Women."
I saw a ton of this when I lived in Blacksburg. Yes despite it's being a "farm and football" school VT has it's share of freako PC police. There were tons of wannabe hippies that would run around protesting things like gender specific bathrooms, or churches that actually talked about God. One of the funniest things that I remember from down there were the "Personal Safety Zones" or "Personality Safe Zones" or some mumbo jumbo like that. Basically the hippie resturaunts and coffee shops would hang these stickers on their walls telling the gay people that it was ok to make out in the store.

Lileks makes a good point though. I knew a few gay people when I was working in theatre(gay people in theatre? Who knew?) But they treasured their individuality, they would never want actual genders to be marginalized. So methinks that it's just a small number of squeaky wheel ACLU types who think that genders are cruel labels instead of definitions.

I'm reminded of the movie The Incredibles when they said that if you treat everyone like they are special then you are basically saying that no one is. Killing individuality through PC terminology is a disservice to each and every person. It's no secret that the victim mongering PC police wante to kill of individuality, ambition, and creativity. Three things that make this Country great.