Recently the Stuff website interviewed an Auckland bloke discussing his homelessness and transsexuality. Despite looking and sounding male for the very good reason, despite growing his hair long, that he is a male, the Stuff site referred to him as “she”. This is absurd.
One can and indeed should feel sorry for such people whose problem is a mental, not physical one, and who sincerely believe they’ve been born in the wrong sex body, unaligned with their mental sense of themself. It’s a hell of a handicap. But to play along with their delusion, as in this case, by referring to this chap as she, is an abuse of language.
If someone concluded he’s not human but instead is a werewolf, this a psychiatric disorder known as lycanthropy, and let us say he runs for the mayoralty, would Stuff when discussing the candidates refer to Mr Smith, Mrs Smith and in his case Werewolf Smith, and if not, why not?
The answer of course is notwithstanding the candidate’s belief of his true identity, the undisputable evidence is he’s not a werewolf, thus he’d be described as “Mr”.
So why did Stuff make an exception to this modern phenomenon of individuals identifying with a sex they physically are not? Sympathy perhaps? No; I suspect a much more idiotic explanation, namely fashion. By definition fashion is fickle thus eventually becomes outmoded. The sooner it occurs with this folly, the better we’ll all be.