UT-Knoxville To Encourage Gender Neutral Pronouns On Campus, Have Officially Lost Their Damn Minds

Dillon Cheverere10 years ago

Image via WATE

In an article that reads like it comes from The Onion — and I’m still not 100% convinced it’s not satire — we have learned that the University of Tennessee, Knoxville is urging its students and faculty to scrap traditional gender specific pronouns, such as “he” and “she,” and switch to gender neutral ones. Replacing “he” and “she” is “ze,” and replacing “him” and “her” is “hir” (pronounced like here). “Ze, hir, hirs, xe, xem, xyr” are all the replacement pronouns they’d like to be used on campus. See the above guide to figure the hell out which means what. Really. REALLY.

Apparently these are real English words?

The University of Tennessee Office for Diversity and Inclusion would like to promote a more inclusive campus, because calling someone with a penis “he,” and someone with a vagina “she,” could possibly offend them — if they choose to identify as the opposite gender from which they were born.

From WATE:

“We should not assume someone’s gender by their appearance, nor by what is listed on a roster or in student information systems,” Donna Braquet, the Director of the University of Tennessee’s Pride Center said. “Transgender people and people who do not identify 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.”

For the first week of classes, Braquet is also asking teachers to ask everyone to provide their name and pronoun instead of calling roll. “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,” ze said.

How about this local ABC affiliate just casually dropping a gender neutral pronoun in their article about UT-Knoxville using gender neutral pronouns like we’re already accustomed to it?

It’s not satire. I swear.

2015 will go down as the year America lost its balls, which is oddly fitting in this case. We’re not happy unless we’re offended, and we’re not complacent unless we’re fighting for something totally asinine. This is one of the worst cases of “Oh you’ve got to be fucking kidding me” I’ve seen yet. And at Tennessee, no less. UT-Knoxville has officially lost zirs damn minds..

P.S. This is not going to go over well with the students there. Just saying.

[via WATE]