MS society removes 90 year old for breaching diversity and inclusion policy

[SamW98]

https://wpde.com/amp/news/nation-world/ms-society-asked-90-year-old-volunteer-to-step-away-for-violating-inclusion-policy-fran-itkoff-national-multiple-sclerosis-society-libs-of-tiktok-interview-emma-hamilton-60-years-husband-died-inclusion-diversity-equity

Seriously WTF??

Being a volunteer manager can be a thankless task.

I remember having to report a volunteer to ours for racist comments. Of course it was a volunteer who had been involved with the charity since it's founding and was massively popular with all the other volunteers.

The comments were likely normal for his social circle but absolutely beyond the pale for a professional environment and there were multiple witnesses.

It caused total uproar as basically the whole volunteer body felt he had been badly mistreated and all the staff were upset by the racism and wanted him to go.

With very long term volunteers they can feel some sort of ownership of the organization but of course over decades, everything changes.

That said, if this elderly lady simply asked why pronouns were now interesting, it's a massive over reaction by the charity. I think the PP who suggested there was more too it and the charity wanted to get rid anyway has probably nailed it.

I see in their response statement that they plan to speak to the lady concerned. In other words, she'll be 're-educated' by ideologues about 70 years younger than her. This is clearly one of those moments when the MS Society should stop and think 'are we the baddies here?', but I doubt they will.

The irony that MS is more a female than male disease is probably wasted on some.

I suspect the current erasing of sex in medical research is setting any treatment back a couple of decades.

Is this there statement in response or is there another one?
https://www.nationalmssociety.org/About-the-Society/News/A-Statement-from-the-National-MS-Society

If it is then is it shocking. Whose inclusion are they prioritising.

Doesn't matter is she is 19 or 90, inclusion should mean being able to accept that some (probably all) believe that women are biological females.

@SamW98, the OP on the other thread on this reported it to ask MNHQ to change the title so that it was clear it was the US society, not the UK one. Can you do the same?

Today is so full of stupid <waves hand at John Lewis, Lorraine Kelly etc> wtf is going on

I've reported it and asked MN to clarify it's not the UK MS Society.

If the UK MS Society is anything like other charities, no doubt they will be issuing their own statement soon to say they would have sacked the 90 year old volunteer too.

The apology

https://www.nationalmssociety.org/About-the-Society/News/Statement-from-National-Multiple-Sclerosis-Society

That reads: "We were wrong not to try to brow beat her into submission, before we decided to sack her."

I agree. Plus the guff about them not discriminating.

If she returns to the fold, will she still be required to declare her pronouns? Seems they’ve doubled down on their commitment to the pronoun scene with this statement. It reads to me as “we should have educated Fran before we took this decision”. So if they’d educated her on the importance of EDI, yet she’d reiterated her view that declaring pronouns made no sense to her, would she still be welcomed back with open arms? I doubt it.

While they may now genuinely regret upsetting their dedicated volunteer of six decades, this apology has only come about after receiving a massive backlash from outraged members of the public. A cynical view is they fear losing out on donations, hence the hasty olive branch.

Imagine the outcry if they were doing all of this without having cured MS ?

Perhaps I'm misremembering, but wasn't there something about women who have wrong sex hormones apparently having an elevated risk of MS? I think Stephen Whittle is a sufferer. It's not something I would wish on my worst enemy.

The apology, is a proper one at least. But not the slightest acknowledgement that not believing in GI is viable in the organisation. She just needs to be educated more. I'm seeing a vision of painted on smiles.

Perhaps I'm misremembering, but wasn't there something about women who have wrong sex hormones apparently having an elevated risk of MS?

MS affects females twice as much as males. Although I believe Madeup university have started research on some exciting pronoun research into the issue.

I think the risk is over and above the normal for a natal female, but it was a while ago and there's so much junk in this area. When Madeup University discovers that changing your pronouns doesn't identify you out of the risk will they still publish?

They will double down and blame the readers for not understanding. History tells us this.

A quick Google seems to suggest that it's m2f transitioners that have the increased risk compared to... other males (eek! transphobia). Although you have to check, some institutions may be so captured that man/woman or even male/female might mean the exact opposite.

I'm sure it'll be money well spent.

There are some interesting things about MS.

If you are born in the tropics and live there until puberty, then your chances of developing MS are much lower than if you are born - or move - to a temperate zone before puberty.

Children born to people from tropical areas in the UK have as much a chance of getting MS as someone born to people born here.

There are tantalizing links to sunlight, vitamin D etc etc, but I suspect ultimately it will be a multifacted puzzle.

But none of that matters a jot if peoples pronouns are muddled. Let's sort the serious things first.