I detest political correctness, which should really be called social correctness. It's a form of benign tyranny formulated by people who think they are masters of right speech and behavior, and want us to emulate them.
It was created in 1807, when siblings Thomas and Henrietta Bowdler published The Family Shakspeare [sic]. Bowdler wrote, “nothing is added to the original text; but those words and expressions are omitted which cannot with propriety be read aloud in a family.”
In the 20th century its first use, as "political," appears to have been in Russia following the 1917 revolution, describing speech that followed the Communist Party line.
In our time the first notable appearance of socially correct language came in 1971 with Gloria Steinem's Ms. magazine, which engendered the "Ms" honorific for women regardless of marital status.
Now, 50 years after Ms. hit the newsstands, its homonymous honorific is used almost exclusively in the United States. No language other than English has a construction remotely like it.
Lately the group of personal honorifics has been expanded again with the introduction of Mx. for people who don't want to reveal their gender. I can see it for people with a unisex name, but if you're tagged with something gender specific like Arabella or Oscar, not so much.
But wait--there are some people who claim to have no gender. That's where I start having trouble with social correctness run amok.
I doubt any other generational cohorts have been so obsessive about self labeling: GenX, GenY (aka Millennials) and now GenZ. What's next? The Greek alphabet?
Much of this labeling zaniness extends to sexual identity.
Millennials naturally have different ways and ideas from their predecessors. Having been raised in an always positive "there are no losers" atmosphere by helicopter parents, many of them believe they can do whatever they want in the world and the world will accommodate them.
That includes identifying as any gender they feel like.
The terminology of gender identity has been expanded beyond reason, and certainly beyond science. Some Millennials identify as "cisgender," which simply means identifying as their birth gender--perhaps they feel a need for label equality with transgender people. Then there are the "non-binaries" who feel they don't belong to either gender, and others with other labels who claim to have no gender, or have multiple genders, or have a fluid, or changeable, gender. Really?
The s.c. folks would have us learn a whole new system of honorifics and personal pronouns to accommodate those who want to be different.¹
We're born with some things we can't choose: our race, our
parents, our gender, the shape of our ears, genetic traits, our sex, and many other things. Yes, both gender and sex are on that list, and only one, sex, can be changed.
A host of terms surround sex change surgery, which is frequently referred to as sexual "reassignment" or "confirmation" surgery. I find the use of those terms humorous. Who initiated the incorrect assignment? God, maybe?
I suggest these terms are part of the Millennial language shift in which all things must have a positive spin.
Here's the fact: sex is mutable, gender is not.
Surgery and drugs can change outward appearance. Primary and secondary sexual characteristics can be added, removed, and reversed. Gender goes much deeper. One's gender is tied to the psyche, to memories, and infuses us right down to the DNA. It cannot, with current medical technology, be changed.
No matter the sex you might change into, you are always, down in that core DNA, the male or female you were born. The Y chromosome can be neither deleted nor added.
God doesn't make mistakes, science doesn't lie, and there are only two genders.
Lest anyone think me biased, bigoted, or prejudiced, let me say for the record that I concur with the Roman playwright Publius Terentius Afer (c. 190-158 B.C.), who said, "I am a man, and consider nothing human to be alien to me."
--- Diogenes, 4/29/2021
¹ Here are two links that go to informational material published
independently by two separate American universities. Both concern the
use of respectful and socially correct (according to the publishing
organization) pronouns and forms of address.
University of South Carolina at Aiken: https://www.usca.edu/diversity-initiatives/training-resources/guide-to-inclusive-language/inclusive-language-guide/file
University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee: https://uwm.edu/lgbtrc/support/gender-pronouns/