Canadian Politicians Pass Law Criminalizing Use of 'Misgendered' Pronouns

P. Gardner Goldsmith | June 20, 2017
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Infinite Gender Pronoun Insanity

Don’t say you weren’t warned, Canadians. And, Americans? Don’t say, “It couldn’t happen here."

In Canada, something about which heroic University of Toronto professor Jordan Peterson warned months ago has come to pass. The all-seeing, all-knowing Canadian government just passed C-16. And no, it's not a form of radioactive carbon dating, but rather a bill that, if signed by the governor general, will punish people for addressing others by the wrong pronoun.

This is not a joke.

In fact, it is one of the most significant and disastrous political developments in the history of modern man, and is a logical outgrowth of a regulatory state and oppressive, anti-privacy mindset that has been growing in Canada and in the U.S. for decades.

C-16 is a revision to the Canadian Human Rights Act and Criminal Code that would license and compel the state to prosecute for “discrimination” (and possibly a hate crime) any person who does not address someone by the pronoun of their choosing. The law applies to all those working for the Canadian government, working for a business subsidized by the government, or working for or owning any business “regulated” by the government.

So, pretty much every business endeavor in the whole dang country.

As Rob Shimshock, writing for The Daily Caller, observed:

Critics say that Canadians who do not subscribe to progressive gender theory could be accused of hate crimes, jailed, fined, and made to take anti-bias training.

And those critics are absolutely right.

C-16 has been lauded by “social justice warriors” as the next step in what could be called “inclusiveness evolution” – the process by which society grows to embrace lifestyles or groups that are not necessarily large enough to be considered a majority, or even a part of a plurality, of the population. This includes the “differently gendered,” who feel hurt and “discriminated against” if another person “intentionally” addresses them with the “wrong” pronoun.

But there are a lot of problems with this view.

First, compelling people to comply with a government statute is about as far from “social evolution” as theft is from a voluntary donation.

Second, many critics say that this law is incredibly unpractical. As it stands right now, Facebook lists 71 pronouns that “differently gendered” people might prefer, and, as Scottish commentator Count Dankula has noted, since “gender” is now being considered by the government to be “subjective” rather than based on how human genetics works in approximately 99.9% of the population, the list is potentially infinite.

Here are just a few of the “genders” Dankula found by doing a quick search of Tumblr:

“Abimigender: A gender that is profound, deep, and infinite; meant to resemble when one mirror is reflecting into another mirror, creating an infinite paradox.”

“Adamasgender: A gender that refuses to be categorized.”

Got it.

And, of course, “Affectugender: A gender that is effected by mood swings.”

"Arrest this business owner! He didn’t conform to my ‘mood-based pronoun!’”

It’s the beginning of an infinitely expanding problem, and this is just the start of the list.

But the quagmire runs much deeper, and is much more insidiously poisonous, than even the insane impracticality of it might imply.

The essence of C-16 is like the bad portion of an otherwise well-liked law in the U.S., the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the "public accommodations" section of which turned private property that is "open to the public" into de jure "public property" and which mistakenly redefined what "public property" was and still is.

But businesses are still private, and should be "open to the public" on the terms the owner decides. Heck, if someone says he or she is on the dating market, he or she should not be dictated to by politicians about whom to date, or made to date everyone.

Incredibly, some people see it as problematic to leave one’s neighbor alone to run their business. They believe that without statutes to threaten state punishment for “discrimination,” minorities would not be served. But George Mason University economist Walter Williams has noted that this fear is historically inaccurate. Markets and the incentive to profit actually erode discriminatory barriers. And to dictate to others how property is used – be it a bathroom at a private business, or how people speak in the shop - is a form of enslavement that leads to all kinds of unintended consequences.

One of them being that the mandates push racism or bigotry under the rug, taking away the customers' chance to decide if they want to frequent a business that might actually be run by a racist. 

Likewise, if a non-racist, or non-sexist etc., property owner in a 99.999% non-racist, non-sexist area discovers that the single racist skinhead in the town is demanding service at his business, the concept of "non-discrimination" ordained by government dictates that the business person must give the skinhead his business, and allow him in.

When government creates statutory "public" places out of private businesses, as the U.S. and Canadian government have done, it's a big problem, threatening free thought and speech, and politicizing matters that should be left up to individual choice.

Watch the courts in Canada in the coming years to see just how immense this problem is going to become.

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