Hopefully, 71 genders are enough

I’m told that it’s possible to select any one of 71 different gender options for use on Facebook.

These include asexual, polygender and two-spirit person, whatever that denotes.

I don’t know if that’s true, but it’s on the internet so I guess it’s possible.

I do know that the Elementary Teachers Foundation of Ontario, held inclusiveness training for their members to familiarize them with the current language of gender and ensure they are sensitive to contemporary gender issues.

According to the flyer sent out, training would include discussion of LGGBDTTTIQQAAPP concerns.

The acronym stands for Lesbian, Gay, Genderqueer, Bisexual Demisexual, Transgender, Transsexual Twospirit, Intersex, Queer, Questioning, Asexual, Allies, Pansexual and Polyamorous.

I have to assume that the other 58 choices provided for by Facebook will be covered in another training session.

One should remember that this training is meant for elementary teachers.

While it may be possible for a precocious 6-year-old to inform the teacher that, “Yes ma’am, I identify as a demisexual and wish to be treated as such,” it is difficult for me to understand the parent who would inform their 6-year-old that they need to identify as a demisexual.

(At this point I would like to apologize to any reader who is upset that I assumed the teacher in this case identified as a female, they could just as easily have identified as twospirit.)

In a few short years we have gone from male/female and heterosexual/homosexual to whatever you want with whoever you want.

At what point is enough really enough?

In the plethora of sexual and gender preferences where do we say, “71 is the final number?”

You can add more genders to the list, but for everyone you add, you have to delete one of the existing categories.

And when should children be taught that they are something other than their biological gender?

What does the psychiatric community as a whole have to say about the gender issue? The World Health Organization considers transgender identity a mental illness. The Danish parliament became the first country to remove trans people’s classification as mentally ill. This strikes me as the way we are handling all our problems these days.

The Danish parliament has cured a mental illness with the stroke of a pen. I’m wondering what this does to the $300 an hour psychiatrists who now have one less illness to treat.

It may be just a question of time before the rest of the LGGBDTTTIQQAAPP diaspora is also found to be normal.

Rube Render is the Curry County Republican chairman. Contact him at:

[email protected]