The most ridiculous demand from TRAs I have heard recently

[TwatticusFinch]

There's a podcast that I like called By the Book. The hosts live by the rules of a different self-help book every couple of weeks. It's usually pretty amusing although the hosts are a bit too woke and will use the term "c*s" when describing women which I find offensive.

In ep 85 the book they were doing (The Body is Not an Apology) required them to appreciate lots of different types of people's bodies. So one of the hosts, Kristen, was in the park describing what she could see in front of her.

Look at that cute little guy walking slowly and deliberately with his tiny little dog. His dog looks just like him actually. And over there, those two runners together, they look really fit, like extremely so, like Olympians. And oh those women I don't know what they're doing it looks like some kind of cross-fit thing but they look very, very, very strong.

So completely inoffensive you would think, but no. In a follow-up episode ep 99 they said this:

Kristen: So a couple of people wrote into me a few weeks after that episode aired and they said they didn't like the scene in the episode where I was observing diverse bodies in the park. I'm not sure if you remember this but...
Jolenta: I do.
Kristen: Yeah I said things like "Look at those strong, fierce women exercising. Look at that older man walking at a fast pace. He walks so much faster than me." I don't know if you remember but I was saying things like that. So a couple people wrote in and said "Kristen, you should never call somebody a woman or a man unless they give you permission to do that. Just because somebody is female-presenting or male-presenting doesn't mean they identify as female or male. And so, please don't ever call somebody a woman or a man again unless they give you permission first." So that's something I've been keeping in my mind. So thank you folks who wrote in."

Ugh. WTF is this? She was talking about anonymous strangers and presumably out of their earshot but she might have misgendered them? She should have gone up to them and asked if they didn't mind her describing them as a "man"/"women" on the audio diary she was recording? And then this is something she's taking seriously and is going to try to do. I am sure that it comes from a place of wanting not to offend anyone and be supportive, but this is madness now. We need to say no to this idiocy.

That’s a shame. As a woman who loves sport I would have found that description of the ‘strong, fierce’ women exercising really inspiring. But maybe I don’t count 🤷‍♀️.

I'd just consider the source. Who is telling me what do do/say? Do I care about their opinion, or think they're worth listening to? Nope. Won't be doing that then.

Even if they did what the complainant wanted I'm sure it wouldn't please everyone. I have heard people complain that using gender-neutral language and "they" instead of him/her for everyone is non-binary erasure confused

That is the problem with catering to megalomaniac toddlers...nothing ever appeases, and just heightens, instead, the insecurity and subsequent quest for domination and control.

But I thought gender was all about stereotypes? Transgender women say they are women because they like dresses, played with dolls as a child etc.

Therefore, we presume people who look stereotypically male/female are men/women.

I do some creative writing. If this trend catches on, my writing will become clumpy and overloaded with adjectives if I cannot reference non-characters as man/woman - or else I'll need to incorporate chapters dedicated to my character requesting what these people prefer to be called.

If we have to 'they' everyone, then the current 'theys' won't like it as they will no longer be special. They'll be the mainstream.

I wonder what this will do for creative writing. I'm just looking at a book I'm currently reading (Philip Pullman's 'The Secret Commonwealth' since you ask) and mentally replacing his (whoops! I haven't asked PP how he likes to be referred to) text with New Speak, all the pronouns, possessive and otherwise, and possessive adjectives replaced by the nonsensical inventions being pressed upon us by the woke ones:

As ze stirred some milk into hir's porridge, L became aware of the person opposite. Ze was called MJ, a pretty dark-haired person ... but good-natured enough to let zieself be teased about it. Hir squirrel-daemon S was clinging to hir hair ... and on. Deadening. Obviously given names must be changed in case they reflect the unmentionable. Then, in these books, we have the problem of any individual's daemon being the opposite sex to the person themselves. I suppose PP could have got round that by each of them identifying as the other sex.

MNHQ - I hope I am allowed to almost quote a short extract without infringing copyright - please delete if it's a problem: I no longer know what is a problem and what isn't.

We can always be mistaken but that doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't use descriptions based on our experiences of what we are seeing.

I was standing behind someone on the tube with grey hair so I inwardly presumed it was an older person but it turned out to be a teenage girl with that grey/silver hair that was popular a few years ago. I was mistaken but it was a reasonable conclusion to draw because most people with grey hair turn out to be old.

You can never win because they will always just make up new things to find fault with.

Oh, I don’t know, maybe when everyone is equally neurotic and every human interaction rancorous, it’ll be job done.