In Tallahassee, Florida, parents protested after middle school students viewed Michelangelo’s David, as a conservative school claimed they don’t use pronouns.
The Tallahassee Controversy
In 2023, in Tallahassee, Florida, eighth-grade students viewed Michelangelo’s David sculpture during an art history class. Parents objected, claiming that showing nude male images to children in school was inappropriate. The school director defended the school as a “good, conservative educational institution” that doesn’t use pronouns.
The War on Pronouns
For parts of the political right, the word “pronouns” doesn’t refer to parts of speech but to progressive “eccentricities” that must be fought, even at the cost of basic logic. American politician Lavern Spicer claimed: “I never used a pronoun in my life,” “There are no pronouns in the Bible,” and “There are no pronouns in the Constitution.”
The Real Target: Transgender Rights
This isn’t actually an ideological campaign against English grammar. It’s a campaign against transgender and non-binary people, or rather, against treating them with respect or allowing them to live normally. Donald Trump and Republicans have long incited against transgender people, and the Polish right eagerly copies their approach.
Polish Politicians on Trans Issues
Mikołaj Pawlak, Children’s Ombudsman under PiS, claimed that sex educators in schools “target neglected children” and without parental knowledge “give them pharmaceuticals to change their gender.” Krzysztof Bosak called transgenderism “a threat to youth,” while referring to gender reassignment surgery as “self-harm.” Konrad Berkowicz mocked videos where people state their pronouns, and Paulina Matysiak criticized the left for focusing too much on pronouns.
Facts and Fantasies
The article discusses moral panic around pronouns, which is actually about non-binary and transgender identities. It explores whether this is a fantasy of the elite left or if transgender children are also being born in Subcarpathia, not just on Mokotów. It asks if politics can reconcile fire and water and address more than one issue at a time, and who pays more attention to transgender issues – the right or the left.
The Reality of Pronoun Use
The article discusses how transgender and non-binary people decide to use their chosen pronouns, how often (or rarely) using forms other than those assigned at birth is an experiment or phase they grow out of, and what non-binary forms look like in Polish. It also provides historical examples of specific people who were likely transgender or non-binary long before we had appropriate concepts to discuss it.
