OK so first things first, this could and should probably be two posts: one about pronouns and another about disinformation. But they were both related parts of a recent conversation so I am going to use one: the use of pronouns; to talk about another: the spread of disinformation. I'll probably do a full post just on pronouns soon.
We start with pronouns because they are part of a disinformation story. A quick recap: by pronouns we mean people using she/her, he/him or they/them - as well as other options - to represent their own gender identity. To begin with, I don't get what the deal is. It's a simple way to show respect for a person and validate their identity and we already do it in so many other cases it should be easy for us to adapt to gender pronouns. We honor Ms. vs. Mrs., we honor titles like Doctor, religious and military titles, or even former President. People add certificates to their bylines in emails and signatures. Anyway, in an effort to supposedly show how radical or far left the US Left has become, I was told that Canada (which is not the US) - and soon following California - have made it so you can be arrested for misgendering someone.
"I told you that story, to tell you this." someone famous said. The previous statements are untrue. Sure there are some elements that could be exaggerated to get to that idea, but that's the problem with misinformation and the 'telephone game' that happens when new is passed around and people don't check before they share something. As it travels around it slowly morphs into a different story.
Bill C-16 added the words “gender identity or expression” to three places.First: It was added to the Canadian Human Rights Act, joining a list of identifiable groups that are protected from discrimination. These groups include age, race, sex, religion and disability, among others.Second: It was added to a section of the Criminal Code that targets hate speech — defined as advocating genocide and the public incitement of hatred — where it joins other identifiable groups.Third: It was added to a section of the Criminal Code dealing with sentencing for hate crimes. If there’s evidence that an offence is motivated by bias, prejudice or hate, it can be taken into account by the courts during sentencing.
“The misuse of gender pronouns, without more, cannot rise to the level of a crime,” she says. “It cannot rise to the level of advocating genocide, inciting hatred, hate speech or hate crimes … (it) simply cannot meet the threshold.” - Brenda Cossman, law professor at the University of Toronto and director of the Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies. She goes on to say it is not meant for accidental misues, but it might apply to consistent refusal to use a person's chosen pronoun. Further, the Ontario Human Rights Commission says that Ontario's Human Rights Code "prohibits discrimination and harassment against trans people in employment, services (including education, policing, health care, restaurants, shopping malls, etc.), housing, contracts and membership in vocational associations... The Code does not specify the use of any particular pronoun or other terminology. The law recognizes that everyone has the right to self-identify their gender and that “misgendering” is a form of discrimination." Sating an action is a form of discrimination does not immediately make it illegal. Recent court rulings have clarified some things but, no, Canada did not pass law making it illegal to use the wrong pronouns for someone.
As far as California is concerned, their law also focuses on employee discrimination through the consistent and purposeful misgendering of someone. California Civil Rights Department documentation states that:
"All employers are prohibited from harassing any employee, intern, volunteer, or contractor because of their gender identity or gender expression. For example, an employer can be liable if co-workers create a hostile work environment – whether in person or virtual – for an employee who is undergoing a gender transition. Similarly, an employer can be liable when customers or other third parties harass an employee because of their gender identity or expression, such as intentionally referring to a gender-nonconforming employee by the wrong pronouns or name. "
California did not 'criminalize' misgendering someone, but they said it can be considered harassment and a victim can pursue actions against an employer for failing to protect them from this harassment same as any other - and it can indeed rise to the level of harassment. Furthermore, a California court ruled that misgendering is a form of free speech and is protected so much of it was reversed anyway. So, hard no, California has not and is not trying to send people to jail for misgendering another.
The problem is that the person I talked with about the pronoun 'laws' somewhere heard this information and accepted it as true, and now they are telling other people this as if it was truth. Where did they get this information? A problem we face, is that its not just certain media outlets that purposefully - or sure maybe accidentally sometimes - traffic in disinformation. It's not just people that consume these outlets that heard, read, or see this continuing stream of invalid information. People who claim to not follow any main stream media, or consume any news, who are apolitical and don't follow news, still get this info to them. They claim to mistrust major new outlets, that they are (almost) all skewed left or right as propaganda. Whether it be social media posts by others, hearsay or gossip by friends, coworkers, or anyone they communicate with; this misinformation passes along to them, and worse, because of the telephone or whisper effect, it warps even more by the time they hear it by accident or purposefully - by misspeaking, mishearing, confusion, and many other ways. Everyone needs to be encouraged to research on their own any claims made and find out what the truth is before they pass it along.
An example of how something can be misconstrued because of hearing something and translating it wrong because of ignorance of multiple meanings or even simple original meaning is Fmr. President Trump's obsession with Hannibal Lecter. While there isn't proof, it is widely considered that what is going on in his brain relates to the word asylum. He hears that immigrants seek asylum, and not understanding the meaning for this usage, he applies the meaning he understands which is an insane asylum such as where Hannibal Lecter is imprisoned. So he projects asylum seeking immigrants with insane asylums and fabricates a story that he uses almost ever appearance that Central and South American countries are emptying their asylums and sending those people to the US as undocumented immigrants to be let loose on American citizens.
About the propaganda thing: yes, news and media outlets can have bias, but generally many are reputable. Few are propaganda. There are tools to know if the media you consume is biased such as the highly considered ad fontes media bias chart. When you get left or right of the Hyper-Partisan column, you are well into propaganda area. What is more true is that media is biased towards negative stories than positive ones. Just a reminder here, media bias - and public perception of it - became polarized when it was allowed to do so: namely when Reagan Reagan's administration ended the Fairness Doctrine which since 1949, required broadcast media to present both sides' opinions in the rare event they weren't just reporting straight news. Interestingly, note the word broadcast, as it applied to over the air news like that on YTV stations like ABC, CBS, and NBC. FOX News has always been a cable outlet and would have been exempt anyway - which either way would have allowed it to traffic in the same practices that got it to admit in court that it is is entertainment and not a news outlet.
In the current environment of speed of light distribution of messaging, it is ever more important for all of us to make sure we understand something and can speak to it properly when talking about it to someone else. We can't trust that anything we read or hear is entirely truthful, not necessarily because of any malicious intent (but of course that exists) to misreport something, but just because by our very nature it is easy to get something wrong in passage from one to the next - which is amplified when it can quickly pass among dozens, hundreds, or thousands of more people.
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