Michael Knowles Upset About Just Asking for Pronouns? | An Asian Trans View

Today, I want to talk about Michael Knowles, among other conservatives, being upset about President Biden's new White House website apparently asking for preferred pronouns on its contact form. Let's be clear here. They have very appropriately allowed people not to answer the question. It's just there for people who want it. There's no attack on free speech here. There's no compelled speech of any kind.

I have always been 100% pro free speech, and 100% against punishing people who refuse to use preferred pronouns. Remember, I was one of the minority of trans people who agreed with Jordan Peterson on this issue (about the compelled speech issue in general, not the effects of the Canadian law specifically), when it came out. I was also staunchly against social media banning people for using the wrong pronouns. However, this is not the issue here. Nobody is compelling Michael Knowles, or anybody else, to use anyone's preferred pronouns. Knowles is apparently offended by the question just being there at all! On top of this, he is essentially calling the Biden team divisive just because of this! So Knowles, apparently, doesn't think President Biden has the freedom to do things his own way. This is nothing but hypocrisy.

The movement for free speech must not allow itself to be made a mockery by this kind of hypocrisy. If we are for freedom, we are for freedom for everyone to do their own thing. Not just freedom for conservatives who don't like the idea of preferred pronouns. Freedom for everyone is the Moral Libertarian way, indeed, it's the Enlightenment way. Anything else is not!

And no, this is certainly not so-called 'radical gender theory'. It's just the way some people want to do things now, and they certainly have the right to do so. To call every such thing 'radical gender theory' is just lighting the flames for an us vs them culture war, the last thing people need in 2021. Indeed, this smells just like the anti-gay marriage culture wars some conservatives raised 20 years ago. I guess, just like back then, we need to call out the people who won't live and let live. It's time we make a stand for true liberty, not reactionism.