HORSEFEATHER’S AWARD FOR DEEP THINKING GOES TO…WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY AND SMITH COLLEGE
Wesleyan University isn’t known as “Diversity University” for nothing. According to “Inside Academe,” a publication of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, Wesleyan will soon begin providing “gender blind” accommodations for “transgender” students, individuals who feel that the male-female choice is too confining. They will be assigned rooms in a floor of their own “not restricted to traditional limitations of the gender binary…ideal for students whose gender identification and/or gender expression varies from the standard paradigm.”
Meanwhile, at Smith, a women’s college, students have voted to eliminate all female pronouns in their constitution on the grounds that “she” and “her” offend those students who identify themselves as transgendered (all of whom are what used to be referred to as female). Smith’s Director of Institutional Diversity (no, we didn’t make this up) says that at Smith “there is a place for all kinds of women,” presumably including those who don’t want to be identified as women. The campus also boasts a psychotherapist hired as a trans-gender specialist, who explains, “There are a lot of students here who…identify in a more gender-ambiguous way. They have come to a campus where that’s very much supported.” Support of a kind is also provided by parents who pay the tuition at Smith, somewhere in the neighborhood of $30,000 a year.
In the modern era sophisticates understand 'sex is between the legs', 'gender is between the ears'! ;)
Posted by: Harv3 on December 5, 2003 10:39 PMI feel liberated by the elimination of she and her as personal pronouns when signifying persons who are having their meat removed, repackaged, or relocated. Now, I can simply call them attention-seeking assholes. Not hate speech. Merely crude.
Posted by: Flexor Longus on December 7, 2003 01:06 PMThis obesssion with nomenclature is amazing. Clearly only non-producers with too much time on their hands could worry about such rubbish. They could be doing something useful like saying the Rosary, or translating Vergil into Gaelic for example. I just don't know what is the matter with such people. But it takes all kind to make a world. The English-speaking people have always had a reputation for being eccentric.
I enjoy writing my name in the traditional fashion for fun (as you can see) but I am not about to ban Munro and all the the anglicized variants (Munroe, Monroe, Manro etc).
If I refused every check written to Monroe and Munroe in my life I would be short many thousands of dollars. Take the money (honestly earned) and run say I especially since it is just chance that Munro is the version stuck on my birth certificate.
When in Rome do as the Romans do. I also used to like to spell my name in Latin
Ricianus Germanicus Magnus Munrovianus.
It made me feel more Roman when I used to make Roman armour out of grocery bags (when I was 9) and wave a cardboard sword.
The difference between me and these poor wee misguided lassies at college is that I know when I am having fun and they seem so deadly serious and humerous. It's only a phase of course. Either they will wake up or die out like the Dodo.
What a waste of intellect and time.
As for me I am going to dedicate my life to useful things like translating and memorizing Gaelic poetry and corresponding in the language of Dermot.
At least in Gaelic nouns remain feminine and masculine and follow certain rules and those few of us who know the old language are very pleased indeed that we know how to say SHE (a lady) and SHE(A feminine noun) and HE (a laddy) and HE (a masculine noun).
Gach fear agus gach bean 'na ghreim.
(Every man and every lass at the holding...that is to say in his or her place...this can also be translated to mean ALL HANDS (MALE AND FEMALE) ON DECK AND IN THEIR CORRECT PLACE.)
I recall the old song:
We were meant to love another,
For man is meant to go two by two,
I'll stand by you and be your lover
We will work to make life anew.
When we met my life was darkened
by despairing clouds of tears and sadness
you were kind and did me befriend
with warm heart and kind caress!
Return to me, my own kind love
Come and kill me my darling Hugh
Return to me my own kind love
Come again and love me true.
The author of this innocent song never imagined any love but heteosexual love. In fact, outside of the Gaelic bible -there is an allusion there of course to homosexuality etc., I cannot every remember reading a poem, an article or hearing a song which had to to with any kind of physical love except the heterosexual kind. There are by contrast many poems and hymns of a spiritual nature. To me that kind of love is infinitely interesting but that is just my opinion and I neither hinder nor harm others in their private lives.
If there is a vocabulary in Gaelic for transgender things I don't know it.
Normally it would never occur to me to even think about such things.
It just never comes up though there is a word for homosexual now that I think of it...CO-SHEORSACH (kohorsac) homosexual..it means literally "sticking to one sort or kind" and Leisbeach (layshbayach) which means from Lesbos.
I am old enough to remember hearing about the Gay Gordons (who were Gay only in the pre 1939 sense) and I note with a smile that that according to my Gaelic dictionary "Gay" translates to "joyous" or "happy".
You have to understand that they only publish a new Gaelic dictionary about once every 100 or 200 years.
There is one advantage to this of course.
Most of the nonsense dies out before it gets published leaving us with the real tried and true gold of tradition:
Is minig a bha ' Donas daicheil
THE DEVIL IS OFTEN A BONNIE FELLOW
Which recalls KING LEAR (from that great Southern poet what's-his-name all those lowland names sound alike)
"The Prince of Darkness is a gentleman." (King Lear III, 4)
Yes, I do not regret reading books in my library far from university circles. Less noise and less nonsense and plenty of hot tea....and the ladies of my realm beul gan lach nach aithris sgeul...mouths without fault who would never utter lies or coarse words... there is much comfort. peace and joy in that.... HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL....
Mise le meas (that's me with respect)
Richard Keith Munro by the state
Ruiseart Mac'hitich M'anrothaiche (by tradition)
Which means the BIG FELLOW OF THE CLAN OF THE WOLF TOTEM AND THE DESCENDANT of the MEN FROM THE ROE (The Saint's or Halo River a place name in Ireland) or just MOOSE for short.
Also
Ricardo Munrodriguez de la vega de Arvin (a humorous mote or nickname...my students also call me MONROY and MEESTER MEESTER I never complain...I know they mean well and after all what's in a name? as long as they pay me on time and in good coin.....
Of course my future name (imposed by the government might be 9109-J ).
I will still remember the people I came from and chose my own name and my own faith and live as I like where I like in a land of my own choosing....or die. Somehow I don't thing Smith College etc. teaches such fortitude. Lucky for them someone else is around to defend them....I for one would never mock the men (or women) who guarded me while I slept....
Posted by: Ruiseart Mac'hitich M'anrothaiche on December 9, 2003 01:18 AM