ADAMS: My Preferred Pronouns

Last year, I received a strange email from Lisa McLeod, a philosophy professor at Guilford College. Her unsolicited missive asked whether it was true that I think “transgender folk” are “mentally ill.” She went on to say that such a view is “an insupportable position” that is “unworthy of a scholar.” She concluded her brief sermon by informing me that her “preferred pronouns” are “she, her, and hers.” I was so inspired by her that I have decided to change my own email signature to reflect my personal pronouns. But first I wish to address the substance of the email. It shouldn’t take long because there wasn’t much there.

Most of us remember a time when it was generally understood that thinking you are something you are not constitutes a mental disorder. In fact, given that the word “disorder” simply means “confusion,” all of the following conclusions were universally accepted until recently:

• A man who imagines he is a poached egg suffers from a mental disorder.
• A man who imagines he is a unicorn suffers from a mental disorder.
• A man who imagines he is a child suffers from a mental disorder.
• A man who imagines he is a woman suffers from a mental disorder.

Nowadays, the first three of these scenarios are still considered to be examples of mental disorder. But the fourth one is now considered to be an expression of sexual diversity. Reviewing the stages in this changing view of the transgendered is instructive. There have been roughly four of them:

1. Treatment. Back when we used to treat “transgendered folk” as suffering from Gender Identity Disorder (GID), the goal was simply keeping them from hurting themselves. That is called compassion. We would no more want a man to have his genitals surgically removed under the guise that he is a woman than we would want them sewn onto his forehead under the guise that he is a unicorn. This was all before the goal of appearing tolerant in front of others replaced the goal of being compassionate towards others.

2. Tolerance. When we removed GID from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) we did so under a false understanding of tolerance. Put simply, tolerance presupposes a moral judgment. But when we abandoned the goal of treatment of those suffering from GID in order to appear “tolerant” by not judging them we essentially embraced cruelty. When people refuse to help other people who are sick and instead allow them to hurt themselves it is the very opposite of compassion.

3. Acceptance. When our cultural elites began to accept the idea that a he can be a she and vice versa, we crossed a pretty serious line. When people actually accept a delusion that means they are also suffering from a delusion. Accepting GID is no different than hearing a man declare that he is a poached egg and then coming to believe that he actually is a poached egg. True acceptance and internalization of craziness is properly dubbed as craziness.

4. Mandatory Acceptance. The idea that a professor with a PhD in philosophy would have the gall to demand that I adopt her delusions in order to be “worthy” to be classified alongside her as a “scholar” shows that the inmates have finally taken over the asylum. It also reveals that intellectual fascism has taken over the academy. This mindset is properly referred to as intellectual coercion.

I believe that such academic fascism must be mocked relentlessly. So in honor of Dr. Lisa McLeod I have altered my email signature to include my own preferred personal pronouns. From now on, those emailing me at my office will be treated to the following signature:

Mike Adams

Professor of Criminology

Author of Letters to a Young Progressive

Contributor to The Daily Wire

Preferred Pronouns = He Who Must Be Obeyed, His Majesty, His Royal Humbleness, I AM, and Your Better in All Things.

Hopefully, people will understand my point that professors who list preferred pronouns are simply narcissists. And those who demand special pronouns must think they are God, which definitely constitutes a mental disorder.

To argue otherwise is to adopt an insupportable position that is unworthy of a scholar.