I heard someone complaining about conservative Christians who cause certain teens and preteens to commit suicide by refusing to call them by their preferred (atypical) pronouns. They were saying it’s unloving, and that the loving thing to do is to honor the confused person’s request to call them what they wish to be called.
So let me stop right here before I make my main point, so as to demonstrate at least one reasonable limit to propriety in calling people what they want to be called. Suppose that Billy at work were to insist that everyone call him Lord God Almighty. Would it be the “loving” thing for us to do, to comply with his wish? Or suppose that Freddy wanted to be called by the boss’ names—first and last. Or that Larry insisted on being called President of the United States. Or suppose that Tommy wanted to be called by some particularly-foul curse word or words—something of the sort that is frequently represented by characters such as #$@%&. Would it be the loving thing to do to call these people what they want to be called?
In all these cases, to comply with these people’s wishes would be to violate our own convictions—some of them, religious convictions, some practical and common-sensical, and some moral. But is this the loving thing to do? Should we yield our own sense of right and wrong in order to cater to such demands from individuals?
If so, then it’s quite impressive, the power that Billy has over us all by merely wishing a certain name that we are expected, as “loving” people, to honor, even against our convictions. No individual has ever had such powers as far as my memory goes, yet today, millions of kids supposedly “deserve” to have us change our habits in how we refer to them? Are we now subordinate to the whims of kids in all matters?
I think I have demonstrated successfully that there are some limits—some rational, some practical, some moral, some religious—to what we ought to call people. Indeed, are there not certain words even to this day that are verboten for use in referring to certain people? Why should it be fair for large segments of our society to prohibit the N-word based on their own convictions, for example, but not fair for an individual American to refuse to call a boy “she” if they believe it to be a false name? Why is it the natural right of a multitude to shun a word, but not the right of an individual to refuse to use a word?
I would love to hear somebody explain that to me. But I don’t think anybody’s ever been able to devise an explanation, such that it does not give special privileges to some, while denying them to others.
Back to the Suicide
But let me get back to my main point. The speaker I was hearing (on a Bible-related podcast) was saying that the “loving” thing to do with the confused adolescent is to call him or her what he or she want to be called—and that the trauma caused by not calling them that has caused some to commit suicide. This, however, has to be, at best, a massive overstatement.
When I’m at Walmart and somebody says, “Hey, John!” (my name is Jack), do I go home and commit suicide? How about you? Is this a normal response to having someone call you by the wrong name? I don’t think it is normal. If it were, surely I would have been responsible for the suicides of many friends and acquaintances in the span of my 57 years, for I have frequently mistaken people’s names! And if this were a well-known fact that doing so is the direct cause of suicide, then it would only require the tiniest leap to accuse me of murder—or at least of manslaughter or wanton negligence!
So, really? Calling a girl “she” instead of “they” is the direct cause of her suicide?
I could see it being a contributing factor in some cases—the straw that broke the camel’s back, even. But the direct cause? Absolutely not. Indeed, isn’t the direct cause of suicide the decision of the victim to carry out the deed?
My question is this: Who taught this adolescent that the world revolves around him or her, and that whatever they imagine, they not only have a right to believe, but to bind upon everyone else as the new undeniable reality? Does that person have any share in the blame for the suicide that ensues?
Who taught the adolescent to explore alternative “identities” to the natural one into which he or she was born—as if there were some deep personal fulfillment to be found in choosing an unnatural identity? Indeed! Who taught the individual this notion of having an “identity” that differs from the reality of what we are actually like? Who taught them that this is not make-believe, but is instead, their manifest destiny to choose whatever they would like to be?
And who taught the adolescent that if others don’t play along with their identity make-believe, that this is an overt display of hatred, aimed directly and visciously toward them?
And who taught the adolescence that the proper response to being so “hated” by others is to kill oneself?
Surely, such suicides were exceedingly rare a century ago. So how is it that the nature of humankind has changed, such that they are tragically frequent today? What’s going on now that wasn’t going on then? If it’s not some natural phenomenon, then what’s behind it? And I should tell you: I don’t suspect a what so much as a who.
I think that it’s just another one of the sinister manipulations being played out against the citizens of the world by the uber-rich who want to change the nature of civilization for their own wicked purposes. These are people who do not respect the Rule of Law and the authority of the people to govern themselves (through federal representation as we supposedly do in the United States). If they wanted to work within the limits of the Constitution to change things to their advantage, they’d only have one vote, just like everybody else—and they’d lose every time they go against the sensibilities of the majority. So they cheat. They go around the law. They hire those in government to cheat—either bribing them or strong-arming them to get their way. And they buy the media to have them do their bidding—to greatly amplify such ideas in the minds of the public, as if they were far more prevalent than they actually are, until they actually become far more prevalent than they actually were.
It is evil to the core. Sinister. Wicked. Vile.
If you want to blame someone for the confused adolescent’s suicide, why not blame these people primarily, and secondarily, the millions of adults, parents, and teachers who are taken in unwittingly by their twisted philosophy, and who go around enabling the delusions of today’s adolescents—such as did the podcaster I heard telling us all that we’re sinning if we don’t enable that troubled soul by catering to his or her identity label wishes?
There are more things wrong with our society than I can rehearse in a single post—even more than I have the wisdom to perceive! But I’m pretty sure about this: A great many things had to go wrong for that confused adolescent to commit suicide. If running up against the truth that he is a boy, or that she is a girl, pushes the person over the edge into suicide, how is it that we get to blame the person who didn’t call him or her by his or her preferred pronoun? By what logic does that become the obvious cause of the suicide? By what logic do we ignore the many other deficits and traumas in the confused adolescent’s life, and focus in on the noncompliance of whatever “unloving” person called him “him” or her “her”?
This is cherry-picking if I’ve ever seen it! Indeed, why not blame it on the fact that Aunt Sally bought him a shirt for Christmas, and that shirt was not the color he wanted? Or the fact that the teacher didn’t listen when he asked a question in class that one time? Or the fact that there was no more chocolate milk left in the refrigerator last night? Indeed, we could pick out any of these things and blame them for the suicide if we wanted.
But what was the podcaster going after? She was going after the people who don’t play along. She was coming after the people who don’t think it’s “loving” to join in the make-believe. She was shaming us. And even though she repeatedly labeled these adolescents as “confused”, she never once pointed a finger at anybody else than those who don’t play along with the pronoun make-believe.
And she, like millions of others, likely, thinks she is wise in this matter. Funny, though, that she did not go after the source of that “confusion”. Apparently, that’s a problem she’s willing to tolerate. But I do suspect that she doesn’t really think it’s confusion at all, but rather, that it’s the natural (if difficult) process of discovering their true non-binary identities. But I wonder this: if they can discover that they are really something other than what their anatomy says they are, and if we must all play along, then what does it tell us when the same kid, five years later, no longer holds to the same identity they adopted anew five years before? Had they got it wrong?
Well, if so, then how are we to blame for thinking they’re wrong right from the start of their re-identification process?
Whoever has taught them to be so fragile as not to be able to handle disagreement among humans—I believe these people will have to answer to God for their deeds, whether they are the evil wizards behind the curtain who have fabricated and profusely promoted this whole scheme, or whether they are the “true believers” in the schemes, who facilitate them enthusiastically, and think they’re doing good.
