The unidentified male student is suing his school, Catholic Exeter High School, after he was punished for telling a female student there are only two genders, male and female, while they were riding the school bus. They also later argued in text messages.
According to The New York Post, the school bus debate began when a student mentioned the difficulty of adhering to plural pronouns in the Spanish language, since it uses masculine and feminine plurals. A female student, likely the one who turned in the male student, overheard the conversation and stated there are more than two genders.
“No, there isn’t,” the male student told her. “There’s only two genders.”
After the second student shared their text message argument with school officials, the male student was suspended from playing in a football game on the basis he had violated a school policy that requires students to respect gender identity and pronoun usage.
Reacting to the student’s suspension, Laurie Higgins of the Illinois Family Institute says the issue to her is a faith-based defense of personal beliefs.
"As a Christian, we know our Christian faith should the core of who we are,” she tells American Family News. “And you're telling us that we have to relinquish those? We have to go against our own beliefs in order to show these people respect."
American Family News has pointed out in previous, related stories that this re-invented language has moved far beyond calling a male classmate “Andrea” instead of “Andy." There are now “neo-pronouns” with made-up words “Ze” and “Zir” instead of “He” and “Her,” for example. According to the website myprouns.org, some fellow students and co-workers now demand the plural usage “they” instead of "her" or "him." The reasons for "they" vary: Some students choose "they" instead of "him" or her" because they don't want to be identified by a gender. Or people call someone "they" if unsure of a person's preferred gender, because getting called the wrong gender can be harmful. Sometimes, however, "they" is used because a person wants their gender to be private, the website unhelpfully explains.
Regardless of why "they" is used, the student's punishment at Exeter High is the latest example that these made-up language rules demand obedience and there is swift punishment for violating them.
According to the lawsuit, which was filed Nov. 4, the male student told the court he is defying the school’s policy and “will never refer to any individual personal pronouns such as ‘they,’ using contrived pronouns such as ‘ze,’ or with any similar terminology that reflects values which (the student) does not share.”
Reacting to lawsuit, radio host Todd Starnes asked his audience what happens if Exeter High students demand to be called “Turd Face” by other students, too. That crude description, he said, would be called ridiculous because that is not a real description for a person.
“Yeah,” Starnes concluded, “well there’s also no such thing as a pronoun named ‘Ze’ or ‘Zir’ but they still use them. They just made them up.”
On a more serious note, citing the lawsuit, Starnes said the student pointed out his own beliefs about male and female follow the teachings of the Catholic Church.
