Parents Against Pronouns

According to Utah news outlet KSL, parents were calling and emailing, “outraged” that after-school counselors at Farmington Junior High School had placards made indicating their preferred pronouns. The tone of said calls and missives was alarming enough that the local constabulary was called to investigate. Despite the “angry and mean” nature of the communications, the cops did not find any threats. I haven’t been able to find any of the emails, and while some may well have been vitriolic, it is helpful to remember that angry and mean can have rather fluid definitions these days. Ultimately, the signs were removed.

The report from the TV station said that the alarm was raised by Eric Moustsos, who does not live in the Davis Country School District. Moustsos told KSL, “In my opinion, in the state of Utah, we have to be protecting our children first…I just said, ‘Be respectful, be polite, because we can have these conversations. We can disagree with each other and still love each other.” He added that the belief that one can change one’s gender is unscientific and said students should not be propagandized at school.

Related: Metro Atlanta School District Sneakily Includes Gender Propaganda on School-Issued Devices

Genevra Prothero, who is the director of Davis Pride, was disappointed in the outcome and stated, “In all reality, if your child is queer, they don’t want to talk about it anyway. They don’t feel safe and comfortable. So if there is a safe place and you’re not that safe place because you’re afraid, you could be putting your own child in jeopardy.” She also questioned why parents would be afraid of a word, since it would not change what a child is. If one word doesn’t matter, why put it up in the first place? Prothero is mounting a counter-campaign to show appreciation for school staff members.

The reaction may have been severe and maybe even over-the-top in some cases, but parents who don’t want the pronoun protocol as part of their student’s education are being painted as mean while the opposition is full of gratitude and love. Angry calls and emails shut down communication but so does characterizing parents as problems.

Of note, in 2021, the Department of Justice found that the Davis School District was “deliberately indifferent” to race-based student harassment even at the hands of staff members, and violated the rights of black students. The list of offenses is lengthy and the district may be wary of future violations. Utah has been a rather monochromatic state for years, and the changes in the population have indeed brought out the worst in some residents.

Pronouns are nothing new in the Beehive State. Utah governor Spencer Cox let students know what his pronouns were during a virtual student town hall in April of 2022. For that matter, if you are headed to court, you can let everyone know in advance what your preferred pronouns are by filing your Notice of Pronouns.  And don’t worry: if you don’t see your pronoun on the suggested list, there is a space for you to write in your own. I would think that if you are in the midst of litigation or facing trial, you would be more concerned about winning or losing or being found guilty or innocent. But apparently, it is also a big deal to make sure that the court refers to you as he/she/xim/xer/hamster/pineapple/myna bird. And yes, I know that there are people with gender identity issues, and I wish them well. But do all roads really need to lead back to gender? Is that healthy or even smart?

Even if we set aside any moral objections to complicating a child’s life with pronouns, I can personally attest to the decay of basic language arts skills in younger people. I have stared in disbelief at job applications filled out by people who couldn’t even construct a simple sentence. At another job, I worked with a young lady who was still in college. She could tell me all about pronouns and how worried she was about her “privilege,” but her work looked like she had run excerpts of the Martian language through Google Translate. But she got her degree. She couldn’t write, but she got a degree.

At some point, we will have an entire generation of people that are still confused about their gender, some with irreversible changes to their bodies. They will know how to say the socially-acceptable phrases and adapt when the definition of “acceptable” changes. But will they be able to function in the real world?