Forbes magazine: U.S. Appeals Court Nixes Gender Neutral Pronouns

[GrinitchSpinach]

A federal appeals court summoned a “parade of horribles” Wednesday when it refused a transgender prisoner’s request to be addressed with the pronoun that reflects her female gender identity.

The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, based in New Orleans, said no authority permits a court to require litigants, judges, court personnel or anyone else to refer to “gender-dysphoric litigants with pronouns matching their subjective gender identity.

www.forbes.com/sites/patriciagbarnes/2020/01/15/xemself-eirself-and-verself---us-appeals-court-wont-go-there/#743f0ced3711

A good decision by the court.

The panel reprinted “Pronouns – A How to Guide,” a publication of the LGBTQ+ Resource Center at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee that contains 45 different pronouns for LGBTQ+, including ae/aer/aers and fae/faer/faers.

“Deploying such neologisms could hinder communication among the parties and the court,” wrote the panel. “And presumably the court’s order, if disobeyed, would be enforceable through its contempt power.”

The request was made by Norman Varner, a federal prisoner who appealed a lower court’s refusal to change the name on the court document ordering Varner’s confinement to “Kathrine Nicole Jett.” Varner plead guilty in 2012 to attempted receipt of child pornography and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Varner earlier was convicted on a state charge of possession of child pornography and failure to register as a sex offender.

Slightly off-topic, but "Varner plead guilty in 2012 to attempted receipt of child pornography and was sentenced to 15 years in prison"

And in the UK the police and courts have stopped pursuing this crime.

Agreed. No woman should be forced, as Maria Maclachlan was, to refer to her male attacker as “she.”

I may go and live in New Orleans.

Every sympathy with gender dysphoric individuals, but the line is at requiring others to conform to their subjective choices.

I may go and live in New Orleans.

It sounds like a very healthy place what with taking the consumption of CSA extremely seriously and not requiring people to lie under oath.

The Fifth Circuit sits in New Orleans but it is the federal appeals court covering all of Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, so the decision is wide-reaching.

Only the US Supreme Court can overturn a decision by a federal appeals court like this one. I can’t see the Roberts court doing so.

I love New Orleans! Good decision.

Awaiting the shrieks of outrage on Twitter with great anticipation!

New Orleans is great, btw, would totally recommend visiting. Just not during Mardi Gras unless you enjoy being crammed in with a gazillion other (mostly drunk) people. Food is amazing.

I eagerly await what the ACLU says. They've switched to backing misgendering laws after having spent their history being so pro-freedom of speech they defended Nazis in court. More policy capture.

Varner earlier was convicted on a state charge of possession of child pornography and failure to register as a sex offender.

This may be naive and stupid of me but do sex offenders actually have to register themselves and it's up to them to do so? I assumed that once convicted the police/courts sorted that out.

If you move states, do you not have to make the authorities aware of you?

hold on a tick before you move out to New Orleans - this is the state where they recently made abortion illegal as soon as a fetal heart beat is detectable (can be less than 10 days after a missed period) - hardly a beacon of women's rights and freedoms.

Yes, in the states, sex offenders have to register, and they have to notify the registry every time they change address.

The registry is public and can be searched by any citizen to discover what sex offenders reside nearby.

I am glad a decision has been made by the court.
Too many people have already been improperly disciplined for failure to obey the demands of perps putting on male dominance displays.

Agree!

Plus — legal records should be accurate. Future historians consult them (just as they do census data.)