Teacher Boldly Declares He'll No Longer Use Students' Preferred Pronouns, Gives Incredible Argument
An exceptionally insightful opinion piece in the New York Post written by a teacher and senior visiting fellow at the Fordham Institute, Daniel Buck, explains why he stopped using his students’ preferred pronouns.
“I used to use my middle-school students’ preferred pronouns,” Buck wrote. “It seemed polite. The largest teachers union in the nation encourages it. What harm could it do?”
“I can no longer abide by such a lie.”
Buck went on to explain the internal reasoning that led him to change his mind about using a child’s preferred pronouns.
One by one, Buck shredded the leftist arguments we have heard over and over as justification for expecting teachers to comply.
For example, leftists argue that referring to a child by his or her preferred pronoun is the kind and loving thing to do.
To which Buck responded, “I have had students with anorexia who, despite their gaunt frame, believed they were fat. I had one student who heard voices and wrote letters to ‘imaginary friends’ who instructed her to hurt herself. Would it be caring, loving or humanitarian to indulge such delusions?”
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The answer is clearly no.
Children have active imaginations, and most will, at some point or the other, invent an imaginary friend or a fantasy life where they can be whatever they dream — a princess or a cowboy, or a prehistoric dinosaur. But the role of the adult is to help children differentiate between imaginary play, which is beneficial, and reality. This means they can run around the house in their green pajamas roaring like a T-Rex during playtime, but they still need to eat their veggies at dinner, and if they bite grandpa, there will be a time out.
Allowing children to slip permanently into their imaginary identity would, as Buck called it, “facilitate a deterioration of mental wellbeing.”
Buck said he realized that facilitating these delusions is actually cruelty masquerading as kindness.
He pointed out the cruelty of mutilating young bodies when “80% of children with gender dysphoria grow out of it.”
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He pointed out the cruelty of allowing men dressed as women to dominate in women’s sports.
He pointed out the cruelty of offering “anxious, depressed and distraught teenagers the prospects of transition as an easy solution — a metaphorical pill with permanent side effects.”
“Do our beliefs determine reality?” he asked. “Do our emotions dictate right and wrong?”
Again, the answer is a resounding no.
Emotions are unreliable — a convoluted interplay of chemicals and hormones, environmental factors, personal experiences, cognitive processes, and social contexts. They are intense and transient, susceptible to manipulation or exploitation, and often trigger irrational reactions.
Making decisions based on immediate emotions without considering long-term consequences can result in regrettable outcomes, even in adults.
The prefrontal cortex, the area responsible for rational thinking, impulse control, and decision-making, is one of the last brain regions to fully develop. Decisions based on feelings alone are a landmine even for adults, let alone children who have neither the life experience nor the mental development to have any idea what the long-term consequences of their actions could be.
Buck said he was reprimanded by his superiors at his school.
I’m guessing there will probably be more repercussions to his decision not to use preferred pronouns. But I applaud him for his bravery.
Every good parent knows the right choice is not always the easy choice. Nor does it always make your child happy.
As adults, it is not our duty to give the kids in our care whatever they want.
It is, instead, our duty to ensure that the choices we make for these kids ensure their long-term well-being and their ability to get to the point where their brains are developed enough to make good choices for themselves, even if it makes them unhappy in the short term.
That is the loving thing to do.
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