Society

Stop Complaining About Pronouns

It makes you sound like an old man complaining about women wearing pants.

Photo by Ross Findon on Unsplash

You know something’s here to stay when the government changes its forms.

In order to obtain court-appointed counsel, criminal defendants need to fill out a form to determine whether they’re indigent and thus qualify for a free attorney.

That form looks like this:

Source: Office of the Ohio Public Defender

You’ll notice the box at the top which asks for “Applicant’s Legal Name”, followed by another box (which I just noticed last week), “Applicant’s Preferred Name and Pronoun”.

The form was revised in July 2021. None of our clients have filled in the second box yet. But eventually, they will. Things like pronouns are still a little bit of a luxury when you’re more worried about where your next meal is coming from or if you’re going to get shot by a cop.

I don’t say a lot of good things about my boss, but I will give him credit for exactly one thing.