Former Sen. Ben Sasse Takes Office as UF President and now announces he is retiring

There is complaining, and then there is just stating opinion. I know many on the right make a big deal out of this. Me, personally, I could mostly care less, I just think it is kind of odd and kind of dumb.

 

It both makes things easier and normalizes it, so the people who do have different pronouns than expected don't feel out of place in putting theirs. It's about common courtesy and acceptance. It took all of five seconds for me to put them in my signature, which is added at the end of every email.

 

Honest question, who would have a different pronoun than expected? A transgender person generally takes on the name of that gender and everyone would already know what to call them. So who is that for?

 

Pat?

 

Non-Binary?

 

People who use "they/them" or another uncommon pronoun. A person who has a masculine-sounding name but is a woman or vice versa (think of men named Leslie or women named Charlie). (Hell, there's a woman on the Eleventh Circuit named Frank.) And some people have names that apply to either gender, including some transgender people.

 

All fair, but how many people is that?
The trans community is .6 percent of the population. If 1 in six of those are truly nonbinary and not transgender or some other subset, it’s 1 in a thousand people. And straight people face the same problem with names, yet for centuries we haven’t gone to this trouble for them, and no one has screamed.
It’s just bizarre to me how much effort is being put in for such a tiny population.

Put another purposely (semi) frivolous way, the peanut allergy population is double that of the transgender population (1.2 percent) and maybe ten times that of the nonbinary group. How much attention do they get? And that is literally life and death. Restaurants the country over still cook in peanut oil or use peanuts. But pronouns have taken the country by storm.

 

How much effort? It's almost no effort. It's bizarre to you that people put minimum effort into being courteous to other people? I'd say that's a good thing. But hey, it's change, and some folks don't like change.

Also, there are a lot more nonbinary people than you think. And my job involves interacting with a lot of young people (who are far more likely to be part of the LGBTQ community than the elderly folks).
Over 5 percent of young adults identify as trans or nonbinary, U.S. survey finds

 

It does skew younger, but .6 percent of the population for the larger dataset (nonbinary is generally counted under transgender), that’s an established number. Not a poll where kids can sound cool or empathetic in their answer, but real numbers.

https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/Trans-Adults-US-Aug-2016.pdf

and I am not talking about whether you or I choose to identify in support of them, I am talking about the amount of national energy devoted to the larger issue by both sides. It’s completely disproportionate with the size of the issue (and a large reason why there’s so much blowback by the way), the pronoun thing is just an easy example.
But both sides see political capital in it, so here we are.

 

You're referencing a report from seven years ago that doesn't ask about nonbinary people (as far as I can tell). Nonbinary people are different from transgender folks. Again, you keep talking about time and energy. It takes almost no time and energy to do the "pronoun thing." It actually takes more time and energy to complain about it.

 

Gender nonconforming was one of the acceptable answers under yes. While not a perfect crossover, it was meant to capture that group largely too.
And you would see a higher percentage in your work, because they are more likely to face discrimination. And I would point out again that I am using the pronoun thing as an example of a larger debate.
On my own anecdotal side, I have had lots of gay and lesbian friends over the years, I interact with gay people all the time. Conversely, I have known exactly one openly transgender adult person in my entire life (and yes I will guarantee she would say I treated her how she would have asked to be treated, we were friends), but zero non-binary people. I don’t live in a cloistered or religious world at all either. It’s a debate that makes no sense to a whole lot of America.

 

It strikes me as a silly debate too. If your employer doesn't care and you don't want to put pronouns in your email signature, don't do it. It's that simple. I'm not trying to pass a law to make you. It's the people who complain about those of us who choose to do it that drive me crazy. And obviously, if your employer says to do it, you have the choice of complying or suffering the consequences.

 

While I don’t doubt the results of the survey, I have a hard time really believing that’s the case.

Largest study to date confirms overlap between autism and gender diversity

An example is a disproportionate number identifying as trans are autistic. Autistic people often have underdeveloped social skills (or different some would say) and are less likely to be swayed by social norms. So when an autistic person announces they are trans, I’m not sure what that really means. So are they really trans, or are they just autistic?

In the survey 25% of the people identifying as gender diverse are autistic.

 

There is a pronoun for non-binary ….. “it”. The problem is folks don’t like this word so they feel a need to force others to use some fabrication which has no meaning in the English language.

 

Off topic guys Jesus Christ. Please start your own effing thread

 

‘Calls’ and ‘Meetings': How Ben Sasse Spent His First 7 Weeks as U. of Florida President

The world is watching and waiting, wondering what he is doing.
The hard fact of it is.... the rot runs deep in the current administration.
Change is in fact desperately needed.
I just wish we knew what those changes were going to be.

 

I reiterate this has the makings of a disaster.

 

I may see him friday if he comes to the law school graduation.

 

Excuse me, sir, this is a thread about pronouns.

I can't recall if the UF President came to my law school graduation. I would assume so.

 

Ben Sasse is the one person in this state who has the position to stand up to the anti academic passed by the legislature and he is more of a waterboy on the sidelines then President of the best university in the third biggest state in the country. Is desantis really going to puke all over his boy if he says something he doesn't like. Hell no that would Ronny made a mistake in picking him. Is Sasse french for beebees or bowling balls. That is the question Mr C O Jones would like to have answered.