Nonbinary and Nonsensical?: Gender Identity Should Not Shape Public Policy or the Law

How people perceive identity has shifted in recent years. Sex, gender, and social roles used to be debated in terms of biology, behavior, or politics. These days, it has become more prevalent to define identity in terms of internal feelings, truths only known to the self, getting to the point where some demand external recognition of that identity. This shift in how identity is perceived is clearest in the concept known as "nonbinary." How I understand the concept of nonbinary is as a gender identity that is characterized by a rejection of, or identification outside of, the binary framework of man and woman, which can encompass diverse gender experiences. Nonbinary resists the classification of man and woman not through visible and external nonconformity, but rather a personal and internal sense of disconnect.

Yesterday, I was reading an article from U.K. media outlet Spiked Online titled The dark truth behind the 'nonbinary' identity. It is criticizing how an individual identifying as nonbinary is trying to get the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to legally recognize nonbinary as a category, even as the United Kingdom has rejected this individual's claim. It got me thinking about the whole concept of nonbinary.

 

What is logically wrong with nonbinary? I will start off by saying this is not a critique of individuals that identify as nonbinary, nor is it a dismissal of their personal experiences. As we will see later, the critique is how the concept of nonbinary identity, and the concept of gender identity more broadly, is being used to shape legal categories.

For much of history, the debate about identity essentialism was based on biological sex. Now it is based on the subjective experience of something along the lines of "I am nonbinary because I have always felt this way, and that feeling is the truth of who I am." Here is where the idea logically runs into a problem. If someone says they are not a man or a woman, but then does not define those categories or says "I reject all gender roles," what in the world does it mean to be nonbinary?  It is akin to saying something is neither red nor blue without saying what red or blue are. If you cannot describe the thing you are not, how can you meaningfully claim to not be it? 

There is no coherent way to socially define nonbinary identity because it has become more of a catch-all term rather than a clear concept.  How an individual feels discomfort with a certain set of gender stereotypes does not negate their biological sex. Nonbinary only makes sense when adhering to an overly rigid societal and stereotypical definition of what a man or a woman are supposed to be. There are very few, if any, people who perfectly embody these gender stereotypes. In this respect, nonbinary identification is less about embracing a coherent identity and more about avoiding the discomfort that comes from not fitting neatly into traditional gender expectations or roles. But this discomfort does not constitute a new identity, and should not require one. 

I can anticipate someone bringing up other identities, such as sexual orientation or religion, in which self-identification is claimed to be the basis for that identity. But that is not the case. Same-sex attraction is observable in behavior, whether sexual or romantic. While religion has a component of belief, religion can be observed through such behaviors as prayer, attending a house of worship, observing dietary laws, or celebrating holidays. While identity does not necessarily require material observability, having some definable or external features helps give it shape. Without conceptual clarity or internal coherence, an identity cannot meaningfully function as a societally recognizable or analytically useful category. It is on this front that the nonbinary identity conceptually and intellectually falls flat.

What is wrong with the concept of gender identity? This gets into where I take issue with gender identity generally. I will start with what I wrote in June about gender identity with regards to the U.S. Supreme Court case on gender-affirming "care": 

The concept of gender identity is incoherent. It is claimed to be based on objective truth, but it can be changed on one's subjective whim. Gender identity is supposed to be a societal construct, but somehow is simultaneously biological and internal. Gender identity is identified as independent of biological sex but is also identified in reference to biological sex. It is designated based on self-expression but also as a product of socialization.

This incoherence comes from the fact that if something has "X" quality, it cannot simultaneously have "non-X" quality. It is how gender identity proponents define a woman using the circular logic of "A woman is someone who identifies as a woman." Similar to nonbinary, the way it is being defined (or not defined, as the case may be) is intellectually unstable because it relies on internal contradictions, not to mention being unverifiable and unfalsifiable. As I detailed in April after the U.K. Supreme Court ruled that only biological women are actually women, I explained how simply because you feel like something or identify as something does not automatically make you that identity, as is the case with race, age, or species. In spite of how one feels about their biological sex, it ultimately does not change their biological sex or the fact that they cannot change their biological sex. 

How Gender Identity Adversely Affects Society and Erodes Rights. Gender identity relies on an internal experience without external reference. If an identity is purely self-defined with no stable criteria, it becomes incoherent for public understanding or policy. As I brought up in June, "human rights and legal protections cannot be based on something as unintelligible, muddled, and disjointed as gender identity." It is de facto impossible to build social, legal, or medical policy based on such ambiguity, as we will see shortly. 

There are certain instances where gender identity causes harm. Here are some examples, first in a medical policy context. One big one is gender-affirming care, which has been shown to cause patients harm. This is why I am against the practice for minors and only support the practice for adults if there is informed consent, even in spite of known harms. There are more general medical implications, as well. By diagnosing on gender identity instead of biological sex, patients can miss life-saving screenings or being treated with protocols misaligned with their biology. Then there is the undermining of sex-based data collection which can determine sex-based disparities in such areas as crime, health, or education, thereby eroding our ability to identify and address such problems. 

Policies that mandate pronoun usage or compel pronoun usage, a practice that  I criticized in 2022, has a chilling effect on freedom of speech in terms of forcing pronouns, as well as putting stress on parents and teachers in an education setting. It also affects speech in terms of changing such terms as "mother" and "female" to "birthing parent" and "assigned female at birth," which either depersonalize biological realities or erode the cultural and political significance of women. 

Speaking of the significance of women, feminism and women's rights are rooted in material conditions tied to female biology. Women's sex-based rights depend on a stable, material definition of what a woman is. Without that tie, protections for women are undermined, such as is the case with Title IX in the United States. It is how biological men playing in women's sports has become such a contentious topic. Similarly, biological men have been allowed into women-only shelters or prisons based on self-reported identities that cannot be tested or disproved, which can put the lives of women at risk. 

A similar argument could be made for the erosion of gay rights. As I have argued before, when discussing how refusing to date a trans person is not transphobic, "being gay has meant rejecting a strict definition of gender norms while still claiming biological distinction vis-à-vis same-sex attraction." Same-sex attraction depends on the premise that sex is real, binary, and materially grounded. A gay man is attracted to other men. A lesbian is attracted to other women. For gay people, the biological categories of "man" and "woman" are not fluid or interchangeable. They are necessary anchors for same-sex relations to work. Those anchors are based in biological sex, not gender identity. To demand that [gay] people date or have sex with those who are not of the same biological sex (including trans people) undermines the concept of sexual orientation. Since gender identity detaches "man" and "woman" from biological sex, it becomes a form of gay erasure because being gay loses meaning. 

By prioritizing logical consistency and material categories, we can preserve the credibility and coherence of legal rights. As we see, gender identity undermines the very foundations upon which women's rights and gay rights were built. Sexual orientation and sex-specific protections are based on meaningful and stable categories. Disability benefits require medical diagnosis and documentation. Even mental illness requires a DSM-based diagnosis by a professional. In contrast, gender identity is subjective and exempt from scrutiny or verification. If subjective identity is the sole criterion for legal rights or classification, where does that principle end? What about identifying as a different species, race, or age? If it is wholly subjective, then there is no limiting principle in the law. As I brought up in April, we cannot protect human rights if we cannot do so on the basic of reality or what humans are. To quote political commentator Ben Shapiro, "Facts don't care about your feelings."

Postscript. On a personal level, subjective identity is fine. I do not care on a personal level because it does not hurt anyone, which is in line with the libertarian concept of the nonaggression axiom. People should be free to live and express themselves as they choose, regardless of how much it corresponds to reality. After all, people live their lives viewing and conceptualizing things contrary to reality all the time. My concern is not with personal identification per se, but with how these identities are being formalized into legal and institutional frameworks without clear definitions or limiting principles. Legal rights, access to services, and social categories all require shared and observable standards. Other legal categories have objective criteria by which identity can be determined. Gender identity generally, and the nonbinary identity in particular, lacks that verifiable structure that makes it disastrous in philosophical, logical, legal, and practical terms. At a minimum, how are you supposed to create a legal classification for a demographic that refuses to define itself?

When all is said and done, rights that depend on shared reality cannot be sustained by individual perception alone. When legal and social frameworks abandon objectivity in favor of subjective identity, they risk becoming unworkable, incoherent, and ultimately unjust. Critiquing how an identity is defined and used in law is not the same as attacking the dignity of individuals. People deserve respect and dignity, but so do the legal and material foundations on which our rights depend. Upholding clear, observable, and materially grounded standards is not an act of exclusion. It is a foundation for fairness and justice. If we want to protect the rights that so many have worked hard for, then we need to defend those categories to ensure that those rights stay intact, which means not legally recognizing gender identity as a category.  

Exercise and Fitness Are Not Fascism or Right-Wing Extremism, No Matter What Left-Leaning Pundits Think

Last July, the news satire website Babylon Bee released a satirical piece entitled Obese Man Explains to Doctor He's Just Fighting Far-Right Extremism. If only such a view were limited to the world of satire. This is one of the things I enjoy about Babylon Bee -- it is so spot-on that the satire mimics reality. Or rather, that might be the case because we live in such topsy-turvy times that the world is turning into one big inadvertent parody. 

Take a look at the article that The Guardian posted earlier this month: Getting fit is great -- but it could turn you into a rightwing jerk. This article from writer Zoe Williams is one of the latest examples of how a once-reputable media outlet has since devolved into passing off baseless psychobabble as news. The Guardian is sadly not the only ones publishing this liberal dribble. Time Magazine claimed exercise is based in white supremacy. MSNBC believes that exercise and hypermasculinity go hand in hand with right-wing extremism to the point where they linked it to Hitler. 

Let us forget for a moment that there have been plenty of fascists and right-wing extremists who have not gone to the gym. What is driving this nonsensical view? I had to go back to a piece I wrote in 2022 about how those on the Left are, on average, less happy than everyone else. One of the factors I discovered about happiness is the correlation between conservatives and fitness. The thing is that these Left-leaning commentators have the causality backwards.

It is not that going the gym turns you into being more right-winged. As I pointed out, conservatives are more likely to accept personal responsibility, which includes taking care of one's health (Chan, 2019). Conservatives value conscientiousness (Schlenker et al., 2012), which entails such features as impulse control, self discipline, and being task-focused. It is the values that drive the actions, not the other way around. 

It makes me wonder why Zoe Williams at the Guardian ripped on fitness as a form of self-actualization. After all, self-actualization is the highest stage on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Reaching a sense of self-actualization is a good thing. I figure that Williams is using such lines "the more self-actualized you become, the higher you are on self-righteousness" possibly as a form of projection, but certainly as a defense mechanism. 

It has sadly become all too common for those on the Far Left to go ad hominem on things they find disagreeable, whether it is anti-capitalist views or calling almost everything racist. The reality is that obesity is an unhealthy lifestyle. Physical fitness should not be a political statement, but simply as a part of a healthy and happy life. Yet the response of many on the Far Left has been to embrace fat acceptance and fat positivity. From this viewpoint, it is not an individual's fault if they are fat. They argue that sugar is addictive and advertising of fast foods is too strong for people to overcome the temptation. It is their unfortunate circumstances that make people obese and there is nothing that can be done to surpass it.

In Jack Canfield's The Success Principles, the first chapter is about how you take 100 percent responsibility for everything. To quote Mark Manson, "Just because something is not your fault does not mean it is not your responsibility." The premise behind this notion of radical responsibility is that it does not matter if it is your fault; you take ownership for the situation and make the best of it regardless. As I brought up in 2022 when discussing obesity: 

Life has always been a struggle...It takes time and effort to go and exercise. It takes discipline to follow a diet or exercise regiment. It takes impulse control to not eat compulsively, smoke, or drink too much alcohol. The whole premise behind personal development is that you are not fine just the way you are and there is always room for self-improvement. It should not matter if there is more processed food or if more people sit at a desk for eight hours at work. Anything worthwhile in life takes time, patience, effort, and discipline. Health habits, discipline, self-control, and prudence used to be considered values, but not in a country where self-gratification is more important than self-improvement. 

I see a similar antagonistic, hateful reaction from the Far Left when it comes to Israel. Zionism is a repudiation of centuries of Jews being oppressed and marginalized and it is beyond the pale for the Woke World that the marginalized would want to and succeed at overcoming victim status. Those who decide to exercise are taking an increased amount of responsibility in their personal lives. Those who go to the gym and become fit are invalidating the "you are fine just the way you are" mentality. In addition to shedding the fat or the pounds, people who go to the gym and become fitter shed the excuses and the victimhood mentality. 

Exercise is a pathway to that self-actualization. Personal responsibility, self-control, and discipline are characteristics that increase likelihood of success, health, and happiness. While these sound like positive attributes, it would explain why the woke Left gets angry and calls exercise "extreme right-winged behavior." Numerous examples of people overcoming obesity to become their healthiest selves refutes the victim-worship that has become so prominent in U.S. society, particularly on the Far Left. 

I think the values that going to the gym inculcate is even more than threatening political power of the political Left or the clout the Woke have in U.S. culture. The reason why these commentators are on the offensive is because their strategy of reducing people to their circumstances is at odds with reality. The cognitive dissonance results in them attacking what is an otherwise non-political activity that has been proven to improve life outcomes. As someone who believes in personal responsibility, their inability to cope with these realities is not my problem; it is theirs. I am going to take my personal responsibility to continue to exercise and find ways to be my healthiest and happiest self.

Mandated Gender-Neutral Toy Aisles Is Another Instance of California's Woke Virtue-Signaling

California started off the New Year with a mandate for retail stores selling toys or childcare items to have gender-neutral aisles. This mandate stems from a 2021 California law stating that any retailer with a physical presence in California and 500 employees is to maintain "a gender-neutral section or area to be labeled at the discretion of the retailer." Retail stores that fail to comply pay $250 for the first infraction and $500 for subsequent infractions. The idea behind this law is to allow children to express themselves without being hindered by traditional gender norms. That might sound congenial, but here are some issues:

• Retail stores are attuned to the supply and demand of its customers. Retail stores not need such a mandate to tell them that California is a Left-of-center state in which there has been an increased demand for gender-neutral consumer goods. Target dropped its gender-specific sections in 2015, and other such stores as Toys 'R Us followed suit. Even toymaker Hasbro removed the "Mr." from its Potato Head line. 
• You would think California has bigger problems to contend with, such as crime (including shoplifting in retail stores), homelessness, preventing dangerous wildfires, a population exodus, or its budget deficit. 
• To properly enforce this law, the State of California would need to hire someone to regularly inspect toy stores to make sure they are compliant with this law. If the law is unenforceable, it ends up being superfluous virtue-signaling at best. At worst, enforcement is a waste of taxpayer dollars that needlessly punishes retailers. 
• Why does the government feel the need to mandate how businesses display and market their merchandise? Such decisions should be left to business owners. 

As I already brought up, there are more pressing matters in the world than gender-neutral toy aisles. I wrote a piece seven years ago as to whether toys should be gender-specific or gender-neutral.  If parents want to buy gender-neutral toys for their children, they should be allowed to do so. The same goes for those who want to buy gender-specific toys for their children. It is partially the absurdity of the law that prompted me to write this blog entry on a solution in search of a problem. After all, satire website Babylon Bee called it before California legislators proposed the bill. What concerns me is not the overall influence this bill will have on the lives of Californians. It is setting an eery precedent and a tone that signals to woke lawmakers that they can feel entitled to manage every aspect of private commerce to their liking. I do not want to live in a world that encroaches on private businesses in such a fashion. Legislators should think twice before imposing their values onto customers and businesses in such a fashion.

The Argument that "Colorblindness Is Racism" Is Woke Doublespeak

On August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered an iconic speech. Sixty years ago to the day, this preacher and activist told us he had a dream. In his famous "I Have a Dream" speech, MLK said that "I have a dream deeply rooted in the American dream...I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." This speech symbolized the idea of a post-racial America, one in which race did not ultimately determine what kind of person one ended up being.

I would wager that if MLK gave that speech today, the woke crowd would have called MLK a race-baiter, a Right-winged nut job, an Uncle Tom, or worse. Color-blindness was once considered a progressive viewpoint (progressive in the literal sense, not the regressive ideology permeating on the Left today). 

The first call for a colorblind society came in 1865 from the President of the Anti-Slavery Society, Wendell Phillips. He ended up being nicknamed "Abolition's golden trumpet," not to mention an advocate for Native Americans. According to George Lewis Ruffin, who was the first African-American judge in the United States, Phillips was "wholly colorblind and free from prejudice." Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, who was the first African-American Supreme Court Justice, opined "that the Constitution is colorblind is our dedicated belief." Colorblindness was also the first argument that the NAACP made in their appellate brief of the Brown v. Board of Education case. These are far from being racist moments in history. On the contrary, they paved the way for the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.

It takes a fair amount of historic amnesia to argue that colorblindness is racist or the work of the Far Right. Until recently, it would have been considered the ideal to aspire towards, the one in which we could put the ideals of the Declaration of Independence fully into practice. The shift against colorblindness is more indicative of how the political Left has changed than anything (more on that later). For those on the woke Left, the idea of color blindness is racist, denies the lived experience of other people, and acts as a form of gaslighting. To succinctly quote an argument from Psychology Today that encapsulates this line of thinking, "Colorblindness creates a society that denies their negative racial experiences, rejects their cultural heritage, and invalidates their unique perspectives."

This is not to say that there has never been racism in this country or that race does not have the potential to be a factor in one's story because both would be false. Conversely, to say that race is the primary or sole factor that determines one's life is equally false. This leads to another issue, which is that a major problem with the arguments against colorblindness is a fundamental misunderstanding of the concept: 

To interpret 'color-blind' so literally is to misunderstand it, perhaps intentionally. 'Color-blind' is an expression like 'warm-hearted': it uses a physical metaphor to encapsulate an abstract idea. To describe a person as warm-hearted is not to say something about the temperature of that person's heart, but about the kindness of his or her spirit. Similarly, to advocate for color-blindness is not to pretend you don't notice color. It is to endorse a principle: we should strive to treat people without regard to race, in our public policy and our private lives. 

This principle is not about "I don't see color," but rather that I do not assume that everyone has the same personality, values, or life story simply because they have a similar or identical skin color. To quote Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch from the recent affirmative action case:

The category of 'Black or African American' covers everyone from a descendant of enslaved persons who grew up poor in the rural South, to a first-generation child of wealthy Nigerian immigrants, to a Black-identifying applicant with multiracial ancestry whose family lives in a a typical American suburb.

I view people as individuals as complex people in which race can be one of many factors that account for the tapestry of their life story. Racial minorities can have a diversity of experiences, opinions, and values, which is why it does not make sense to paint any racial group, regardless of skin color, with such broad strokes. When I say "I do not see color," I do not mean that I have a deficiency with my eyesight or that I am oblivious to history or what happens in society. Colorblindness means that I do not believe that the color of one's skin has any bearing on one's merit or character.  

One of the definitions of racism in Oxford Dictionary is "the belief that some races are better than others, or a general belief about a group based only on their race (own emphasis added)." This definition is lost on much of the political Left in the United States. If you look at an individual and make assumptions about them solely or primarily on the color of their skin, is that not racism? 

As I brought up three years ago, the woke Left has a habit of making such broad generalizations about white people and the nonexistent notion of "white culture" that those generalizations end up being racist. Under this anti-racist mindset, they do not take issue with it because white people are "supposedly" the oppressors and it is thus permissible because "they are not the minority."

Racism is about determining the worth of a person based on their skin color. Colorblindness is about saying that race does not factor into one's character, values, or moral rectitude. If you do not want to be racist, then colorblindness is precisely what you should be aiming for. 

The doublespeak comes in when saying that "striving to treat people without regard to race" is racism, yet obsessing over race like the anti-racism crowd does is not racist, even though it very much is. As we have seen with research on diversity training, focusing on race does not mitigate racism, but often reinforces and strengthens it. That makes sense considering that your thoughts shape your reality, or in this case, focusing on race is only going to make you live in a race-obsessed world in which almost everything is racist. If you think the previous sentence was hyperbolic, you can read my piece from last May. It goes over why disparity does not automatically mean racism, but it covers a list of things individuals on the woke Left have called racist, including exercise, homework, white babies, cycling, politeness, and logic.   

Anti-racism activist Ibram X. Kendi believes that the only solution to racial discrimination is more discrimination, which implies that much of the woke Left is more interested in perpetuating racism than it is mitigating it. As Dennis Prager brings up, "the Left's insistence that color is important is one of the most racist and anti-human doctrines of our time. It was precisely when America was most racist that people's color was deemed most important. Why would we want to return to that time?" Why, indeed?

Let's jump back to the recent Supreme Court affirmative action case. If there were such a strong correlation between race and socioeconomic status, the political Left would not have gotten so upset over the recent affirmative action ruling from the Supreme Court. Why? Because college admissions offices could have simply used socioeconomic status and be done with it. Speaking for someone who conducts education policy work as part of his job, I can tell you that the correlation isn't so strong. Deep down, the political Left knows it. It is why the affirmative action ruling was upsetting: because admissions offices cannot de jure perpetuate race and identity politics in the college admissions process. The cynic in me would argue that such a perpetuation serves to keep the woke Left in power to make sure they control the cultural narrative and foment a racial divisiveness in this country. 

I do not want to live in that society in which people are divided by race, religion, sexual orientation, or other factors. A goal in my interpersonal relations is that race does not play a factor on whether I spend time with that person. Above all else, I view them as human beings with their own experiences rather than part of a collective. 

That colorblindness plays a role in my personal life and I would like for it to play a role in greater society. We might not live in a meritocracy and we might not ever reach a strictly perfect meritocracy. Nevertheless, I believe that striving for meritocracy and a colorblind society is how we get over obsessing over race. I pointed out the importance of meritocracy after the recent Supreme Court affirmative action case. However, to end today's entry, I will quote former Manhattan Institute fellow Coleman Hughes, who happens to be black:

"Color-blindness is the best principle with which to govern a multiracial democracy. It is the best way to lower the temperature of racial conflict in the long run. It is the best way to fight the kind of racism that really matters. And it is the best way to orient your own attitude toward this nefarious concept we call race. We abandon color-blindness at our own peril."

"Time Blindness" TikToker Is Another Example of Society Prioritizing Victimhood Over Personal Responsibility

Like many Millennials, I use multiple forms of social media. While I am against a TikTok ban, one form of social media I decide to personally not use TikTok. I am not apprised to what normally happens in TikTok world. However, there was one viral TikTok post that recently caught my eye. A couple of weeks ago, a Gen-Z TikTok user by the name of Sarah Trefren (TikTok user name of chaotic_philosopher) was venting because she had asked in a job interview if there are accommodations for those who struggle with time blindness and being on time. According to Trefren's account, the interviewer replied by saying that accommodations for time blindness do not exist and "that if you struggle with being on time, you'll never be able to get a job." Trefren proceeded to opine that a culture that values being on time needs to be dismantled. She then concluded by saying entitlement is saying that entitlement is treating those [with time blindness] with such disrespect. 

Needless to say, the comment section flared up. Some were supportive of Trefren's gripe. Plenty more commenters responded with mockery and hostility. When I heard the video, it sounded like another whiny youngster making excuses because she cannot cut it in the work world. My initial gut reaction was with the naysayers that goes beyond certain negative stereotypes of the Gen-Z crowd or a more pervasive trend towards people feeling the need to pathologize everything to excuse their inadequacies. 

Forget that I have Nordic and Germanic ancestors or that business operations run more smoothly when on time. There is a reason why people get annoyed sitting two hours in a doctor's waiting room. Being on time is an indicator of reliability and trustworthiness: you get something done when you say you will or you arrive when you say you will. Furthermore, being consistently and chronically late shows disrespect for others' time. Imagine an Uber driver who cannot get their passenger to the airport on time. What about a doctor who is late for an urgent, life-saving surgery and the patient dies on the operating table because the doctor "forgot the time?" Plus, you would not be happy if the payroll department of your employer sent out an email saying, "We're not going to pay you this month. Please wait longer for your paycheck because we're dealing with a nasty case of time blindness." 

Then I thought about the concept of time blindness for a moment. Having difficulty with a perception of time is a common with those who have Attention Deficit/Hyperactive Disorder, or ADHD for short. Estimates for adults with ADHD range from 0.4 percent to 5.8 percent. It does not show up solely in ADHD, but can also manifest in depression, anxiety, or post-traumatic stress disorder. It does not have to go to such extremes. There's the phrase "time flies when you're having fun." I can say that when I have really gotten into writing pieces for this blog, I have gotten so immersed in the process that I have lost track of time and hours have passed. It happened to me when I wrote this piece! The phenomenon is called the "flow state" or "being in the zone." 

For argument's sake, let's give Trefren the benefit of a doubt. Let's assume that she is not lazy or wants to whine simply because she cannot handle the working world. Let's assume she legitimately has issues with time perception and keeping track of time, both of which result in chronic tardiness. Even if we are to assume Trefren's case of time blindness is a real condition, it does not matter. Why?

We all have our strengths and weaknesses. Some are not good with time. Others are bad with directions or numbers. There are those who do not have much in way of physical strength. Part of being an adult is being able to compensate and learn how to function in the world. While technology has given us certain conveniences that were unimaginable by our ancestors, the reality is that life is still difficult. Part of life is learning to surmount or at least manage life's travails and challenges.

I do not elevate time blindness to a full-blown disability. Take Helen Keller as an example. She dealt with deafness and literal blindness. Do you think that Helen Keller moaned and complained to everyone in earshot that she was blind and deaf expecting accommodations for every last thing? Of course not! She didn't whine about how life is unfair and how the world should cater to her every last need. She developed the resilience and grit necessary to co-found the American Civil Liberties League (ACLU) and author 14 books. Helen Keller did not play victim and she had way more many obstacles than TikToker Sarah Trefren has in her life. Helen Keller's strength and resolve are what make her admirable. 

This victimhood is the result of over a half-century of participation trophy and entitlement mentality in which schools teach that everyone is special. Sarah Trefren pointing her finger at society, calling for the system to be dismantled, and for people to cater to her is unsurprising given the aforementioned cultural undercurrents. It also explains how a phenomenon such as fat acceptance has gained traction in spite of a ton of evidence showing that obesity is bad for one's health. It is easier to eat a lot of sweets than it is to exercise 3-4 days a week. Laying on your couch and binging Netflix is more fun than planning a healthy diet. Stoic author Ryan Holiday once called self-control and discipline unsexy, but they are vital for living a successful and meaningful life. 

Dealing with time management is no exception. If Trefren or anyone who wants to use "time blindness" as an excuse were to take any sense of personal agency, they would buy an alarm clock or use the alarm setting on her smartphone. They could use apps and services that can help with scheduling. And don't forget about the Pomodoro technique or the number of other techniques! There is no need for employers to make accommodations when technology makes it possible to manage time. 

What Sarah Trefren does not seem to realize is that self-victimization does not lead to success. And it sure doesn't lead to happiness. When I covered the topic of why conservatives are happier than liberals, I found that resilience and a sense of personal agency are two characteristics that lead to happiness. What Sarah Trefren's reaction implies it is that she lacks these traits. The hard truth is that this goes beyond a single TikToker who has not figured out the art of time management. It is about a society that finds more comfort in laziness and victimhood. It takes a fair bit of discipline, perseverance, and resilience to overcome one's weaknesses or shortcomings. But why do that when you can cry victim and think that people will exempt you from a basic sign of courtesy and respect? 

Back when I was in college, I thought that the real world would have taken these snowflakes, chew them up, and spit them out for being too fragile. Instead, we have taken that unexpected turn of catering to their every last kvetch and encouraging fragility along the way. This is not about an isolated incident of a TikTok who cannot make it in the work world. It is reflective of a growing group of people that would rather envy than create, complain rather than fix, and play victim rather than take personal responsibility and grow. The extent to which we cater to those playing victim will undoubtedly help determine the resilience and strength of this nation in the years to come. 

Disparity Doesn't Automatically Mean Racism or Bigotry: The Woke Left Needs a Lesson on Correlation versus Causation

What isn't racist these days? If you listened to the woke Left, almost everything these days is racist. In 2020, the Smithsonian Institute declared logic, individualism, politeness, and "objective, linear thinking" as a part of "white culture." Earlier this year, Time magazine branded exercise as a form of white supremacy. Here are a few other things that the woke have called racist: homework, classical music, white babies, white paint, cycling (also see here), meritocracy, mathematics, the art industry, theatre, monkeypox, swimming, health care providers, Thanksgiving, and gardening.

The list of what the Left can call racist or bigoted can go on for ages. Google "the problem with racism in..." or "[insert thing] is racist" and odds are that you will find someone who has called something racist. And if it is not out there, I would be willing to bet that it is only be a matter of time before someone from Woke World calls something racist. For those who are woke, it is not a matter of whether something or someone is racist. It is a matter of "how it is racist." The problem with calling everything racist is not simply because it is intellectually lazy to do so. This oversimplified view is a narrow viewpoint not based in reality. 

By this so-called "logic," a disparity that exists in the world automatically means racism. As I am going to illustrate shortly, that is simply not that case. Let's start off with some questions that I know are going to irk the woke crowd:

• Does the NBA disproportionately having black basketball players mean the NBA is discriminatory against white people? 
• Men are more likely to commit crimes. Does that mean that the system is sexist against men or is it that men are more prone to aggressive behaviors than women are because of testosterone and other aspects more typical with men? 
• U.S. Hispanics live longer than white people in the U.S. Is the health system rigged against non-Hispanics or are there genetic or cultural factors to consider? 
• Does the fact that Asian-Americans are much less likely to be in prison mean that the system is in favor of Asian-Americans and wants to screw over everyone else, or is there a cultural element in play?
• Men are more likely to commit suicide than women are. Is society meaner towards men or are men less likely to open up about their emotions than women are?
• In terms of undergraduate college enrollment, 58 percent of students are women and 42 percent are men. Does this mean that those working in college admissions offices hate men? 

The examples above are mainly of people who are mostly considered in the majority or not consider particularly oppressed. If you are white, male, Christian, and/or heterosexual, the woke would consider your Original Sin to be your existence. Even before wokeness took a stranglehold on the Left, it was common for those on the Left to attribute racism and discrimination as the major causes of disparity that exists in the world. Since identity politics play a major role in the woke way of thinking, I would like to highlight a few examples that affect minorities and marginalized individuals to better illustrate the oversimplified view of the woke that everything is racist and/or bigoted. 

Gender Wage Gap. In America, women earn 82 cents for every dollar earned by men (Pew Research). At first glance, this seems unfair that women would earn less. As I have brought up since 2013, this is not an apples-to-apples comparison. Once you factor in educational attainment, occupational choices, and labor attachment, the wage gap all but disappears. Men are more likely to work longer hours. Women are more likely to have part-time jobs, in no small part because many women prioritize raising their children. The gender wage gap does not exist because of discrimination, but due to career choices that men and women make. 

Dating Transgender Individuals. I remember reading a study showing how nearly 90 percent of people are not interested in dating transgender people (Blair and Hoskin, 2019). Only 3 percent of heterosexuals were interested in dating someone who is transgender. It was higher among gay men (12 percent) and lesbians (29 percent). Bisexual and nonbinary individuals were at 50 percent. While the authors never asked the respondents why, one of the co-authors ascribed this unwillingness of dating transgender people to discrimination. 

There is a more obvious explanation as to why most people do not want to date transgender individuals than discrimination. For the vast majority of people, sexual and romantic attraction are based in biology. It is not about being attracted to gender identity, but one's sex. Gay men are attracted to other men. Heterosexuals are attracted to the opposite sex. Sexual attraction is about sex, what a concept! I cannot imagine how difficult it is for a transgender person to date. At the same time, "the very basis of the gay rights movement was that sexual [orientation] is a personal matter that is not beholden to anyone else's wishes or expectations."

Marriage taxes and racial disparity. While the topic of marriage taxes is more obscure, this piece from the Left-leaning Urban Institute caught my eye because it proves my point. Urban found that black couples were about 7 percent more likely than white couples to incur a marriage penalty under tax law. This sounds like it could be an example of discrimination. Thankfully, the analysts over at Urban are smarter than that. They recognized that it is tricky to deal with these disparities because the tax treatment of marriage does not explicitly refer to race. Both spouses are more likely to work in black couples than white couples. Also, black married couples were more likely to claim children as dependents than white married couples. While there is a disparity between black and white married couples, it was not due to a racist tax code. 

Using "They/Them" Pronouns on Job Résumé. Earlier this year, the people over at business.com released survey results about people who use "they/them" pronouns on their résumé. They found that nonbinary individuals who use pronouns on their résumé are about 10 percent less likely to get hired for a job. Forget for a moment they did not include those who use "he/him" or "she/her" pronouns on their résumé to see if it was an issue with preferred pronouns generally or "they/them" pronouns specifically. The author's conclusion was that this hiring trend was due to discrimination. 

Time to play Devil's Advocate. Maybe it comes off as virtual signaling for someone to add information that lacks practical purpose in the hiring process. Maybe it is because it is a subtle political statement, a point I made last year when criticizing the practice of preferred pronouns. Maybe it could be perceived that you are more likely to be difficult to work with or could be a liability. Maybe including this particular something that has zero bearing on job performance shows that you are less concerned about how your skill set would benefit a potential employer. All are plausible reasons that have nothing whatsoever to do with bigotry against nonbinary individuals. 

Conclusion

If a woke person does not like a certain outcome or takes issue with a certain disparity in life, it is easier to call it discrimination. I am not here to say that racism and bigotry have never existed nor do they exist. To say that would be a denial of history. At the same time, to attribute every disparity to racism or bigotry is a denial of reality. Simply because a certain correlation exists does not mean the causation is inevitably racism or bigotry. To quote the Foundation of Economic Education:

The problem with this [assumption of racism] is that human interactions are inherently messy and subjective. We treat each other all kinds of ways for all kinds of reasons. In this type of environment, if you look for a phenomenon in an interaction you will find evidence for it; even if the phenomenon doesn't actually exist in that interaction...A scholar will look at complicated interactions and will weight the evidence in search of the truth. An activist will dig for anything that supports their pre-existing dogma. 

As I illustrated above, it would have some weird conclusions if disparity automatically meant bigotry, especially when we are talking about differences between such large sets of people. We have to be able to understand the intricacies of a given issue and see what is contributing to a given problem if we are to solve it. It might feel nice to be on a certain high horse thinking you are going to fight "institutional racism" or "stick it to the white supremacists." But screaming about a nebulous, amorphous "systemic racism" and immaturely calling people "racist" or "a bigot" simply because they disagree with you on a policy proposal will accomplish nothing for the betterment of society.

The Woke Left Controlling Language Will Not Put Itself on the Right Side of History

I don't know if you have noticed or not, but the English language has been undergoing a lot of changes in the past five or so years. These changes are due to the puritans of our time: the woke Left. Mothers have become "birthing people." Affirmative action is now "diversity." Disinformation has become wokespeak for "speech I disagree with," which has a similar vibe to the phrase "threat to democracy." Infrastructure went from "roads and buildings" to "anything the Left deems essential for the government to spend tax dollars on." There are more examples that I will provide below, but it begs the question of what is happening and why. To quote the American Institute for Economic Research:

Wokesters quickly grab the moral high ground and ruthlessly denounce any deviation from the neo-orthodoxy du jour. Social media provides a conduit for quickly detecting tough and lifestyle infractions, shaming deviants into compliance or having them 'cancelled.'

This shift to gain the moral high ground is seen in a number of instances. We went from a fight for equality (i.e., equal treatment under the law) to one of equity (i.e., attempting to correct past discrimination with present discrimination, often to the point of "equality of results"). While inclusion has meant "everyone is welcome," it has an additional woke meaning of "a space that restricts speech to cater to those who are offended." Then there is anti-racism. Forget that almost no one is pro-racist. We used to fight for a colorblind society, but that is now deemed racist. And if you disagree, that is considered racist. Don't pay any heed to the fact that the obsession over race in the anti-racist world is its own form of racism. 

I want to point out a couple of notable examples from recent months to accentuate the woke Left's attempt to control language. Let's start with a list from Stanford University's Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative (EHLI) created this May. The Wall Street Journal discovered the list in December and had a field day with it. Here are a few good suggestions from the list:

• Calling it a "blind review" insinuates that blindness is abnormal and negative, furthering an ableist culture. Similarly, calling it obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is insulting, which is why EHLI suggests calling it detail-oriented. Way to minimize OCD!
• "Burying the hatchet" is considered cultural appropriation, as is the word guru. 
• Calling someone brave is an insult to the Indigenous people.
• Using such words as freshman, congressman, gentlemen, or chairman perpetuates gender binary language. 
• Instead of using Hispanic, EHLI suggests using the condescending, linguistically inaccurate, and exclusive term Latinx. 
• Calling it a white paper denotes that "white = good," which is why you should call it a position paper.
• "Beat a dead horse" perpetuates violence against animals. 
• Survivor is a good substitute for "victim" because it gives agency, but it's not good enough for Stanford. 
• It is bad enough that woke institutions try to thrust the usage of preferred gender pronouns onto the rest of us. In an attempt to out-woke everyone else, EHLI now says that calling the pronouns "preferred" is bad because it suggests that being gender nonbinary is a choice and a preference.

This list reads like a parody from the satirical site Babylon Bee. Yet these examples are coming from a well-known university being serious about linguistic shifts. A person with normal sensibilities would look at the list and dismiss most, if not all of it, as ridiculous. It is not only Stanford University making these sorts of modifications to the English language. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has put itself in charge of administering woke language in the health sector by releasing Preferred Terms for Select Population Groups and Communities. 

Calling someone a smoker is considered offensive, so the CDC thinks you should use the term "person who smokes." Forget the fact that the CDC has trademarked the phrase "Tips From Former Smokers®." The CDC being incapable of taking its own advice is another reason I cannot take the CDC seriously. Calling someone an addict is deemed incorrect by the CDC. The CDC thinks "criminal" should be replaced by "person who is incarcerated or detained." Out of all the things a criminal in jail is going to worry about, do you think being called a criminal is at the top of that person's list? 

Yes, there are some truly offensive words out there. There needs to be a balance between being a society of sociopaths and being a bunch of snowflakes who have not developed the basic emotional resilience to handle words that are not considered offensive by the vast majority of people. The woke Left is incapable of striking such a balance. 

The woke Left's obsession over language is less about offensiveness because they do not care about offending anyone who disagrees with the woke in-group. Odds are that changing language is not going to address real issues because the legitimate problems facing us (and not micro-aggressions) entail solutions that go much deeper than making words less offensive for the least stoic and emotionally resilient in society, i.e., the woke. One of the main functions of language is to clearly communicate ideas, but all wokeness has done is muddy up and bastardize language for political purposes. Wokeness, or what was formerly referred to as political correctness, is thought and speech control in the guise of brotherhood (sorry, I mean all humans getting along in a harmonious fashion). To quote the Right-leaning The Federalist:

The obsession with over-complicating language is not incidental and has in fact been a consistent and identifiable strategy to muddy theaters of political discourse and frame discussions in a way that benefits the Left from the outset of the conversation.  

The woke Left's strategy is "control the language, control the conversation and how stories are told." Confucius once said that "when words lose their meaning, people lose their freedom." The ability to express oneself is an essential part of freedom. It is no accident that freedom of speech is in the First Amendment. It is also no accident that the woke Left is trying to control speech: because they want us to conform to their way of thinking. The only way to deal with the woke Left's Orwellian doublespeak is to speak up and fight back. As I brought up in October 2021, we should not be encouraging fragility or victimhood. We need emotional resilience and anti-fragility in our society. We also have to call out the woke B.S. and create institutions that counter the wokeness. 

As British magazine Spiked pointed out, "Society tends to oscillate between periods of liberalism and puritanism or conservatism. We are currently living through a puritan age. Soon will come a reaction, a swing once more towards liberalism....The people of the future will probably damn the generation of 2023 for its suffocating, moralizing, Philistine culture of censorship and its desire to wipe out the past." That shift cannot come soon enough. Much like with the ridiculous barrage of ineffective and harmful COVID restrictions, I anticipate that future generations will look at the woke attempts to mess with language with the same disdain and ridicule that it rightly deserves. 

The Dangerous Bait-and-Switch That Is Critical Race Theory

A proper education is one of the most important gifts that we can bestow upon children. It is not simply because a proper education is one of the main factors in high wellbeing. It is because it gives us critical thinking skills, helps us make correct decisions, makes us less susceptible to the influence of others, and improves our understanding of the world. A proper education in history is specifically important because it helps us learn from past mistakes, as well as successes. It becomes problematic when something as paramount as an education in history is politicized because it distorts truth. 

Nonetheless, that is what is happening in the U.S. education system. I am sure that by now, many have heard the term "critical race theory", or CRT for short. You can read the analysis I wrote last year on CRT for more background, but let me summarize the debate as follows. 

CRT is a theory "about how socially constructed racial identities are intertwined throughout all our legal and social structures to create and reinforce a system of white supremacy." Proponents of CRT claim that CRT is simply a way for us to better understand how racism shaped the United States. Opponents of CRT see it is a radical ideology that is dead-set on creating division based on race and is not interested in teaching an objective view of history. 

If CRT were solely about teaching history accurately and making sure that the less-than-ideal parts of U.S. history are not whitewashed, I would be all for CRT. Children should not be learning a watered-down or bastardized version of U.S. history. By the time children have completed high school, they should know all about U.S. history: the good, the bad, and the ugly. As reading a recently released article from The Federalist entitled "No, Critical Race Theory Isn't About Teaching 'Slavery Is Real'" reminded me, CRT is actually a bait-and-switch that we should all find to be disturbing. 

CRT attempts to do away with rational thought and objectivity. This is not something that CRT advocates exactly hide. Stephen Sawchuk, who is the Associate Editor of Education Week, pointed out in his article praising CRT that CRT is a subset of critical theory that emerged from postmodernist thought and is meant to question and criticize "universal values, objective knowledge, individual merit, Enlightenment rationalism, and [classical] liberalism." This is not only problematic because these are values I hold dear. It is because it means rejecting such phenomena as critical thinking, the scientific method, or the sort of objectivity that reminds us that 2 + 2 = 4. I think CRT needs to be postmodern because it would not survive scrutiny under logic or critical thinking. CRT puts activism ahead of finding the truth, which makes it that much more difficult to find solutions to the problems that CRT advocates purport to care about. After all, how can you fix a problem if you cannot accurately diagnose it? 

The idea of accurate diagnosis gets into another issue with CRT, which is that CRT lobs unfalsifiable accusations of racism. When I say unfalsifiable, what I mean here is that CRT advocates assume a conclusion about something (e.g., the pervasiveness of systemic nature of racism in society) or someone (e.g., whether all white people are racist) without having to provide any evidence for their claim. To apply that to CRT, it does not first prove whether racism took place. It simply assumes that racism is there and jumps straight to asking "How was this situation racist?" For CRT advocates, you do not have to prove something or someone was racist. It is a belief, an axiom to be held as sacrosanct. As this article from the Foundation of Economic Education points out:

The problem with this [assumption of racism] is that human interactions are inherently messy and subjective. We treat each other all kinds of ways for all kinds of reasons. In this type of environment, if you look for a phenomenon in an interaction you will find evidence for it; even if the phenomenon doesn't actually exist in that interaction...A scholar will look at complicated interactions and will weigh the evidence in search of the truth. An activist will dig for anything that supports their pre-existing dogma. 

None of this is a surprise since CRT rejects critical thinking and is unkind towards teaching students how to think. Rejecting reason not only comes with the price of halting progress, but it comes with a warped sense of priorities and problem-solving. While I would argue that lockdowns played a major role in the increase in of riots and "mostly peaceful protests," I would also argue that CRT contributed to the tension quietly in the background. After all, if the problem is systemic racism and the system is so "rotten to its core" that it oppresses colored people and keeps them down, then the only solution is to fight fire with fire and use violence to tear it down. 

Ibram X. Kendi, who is one of the most brazen advocates of CRT, openly admitted that "the only remedy to racist discrimination is anti-racist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination." I don't think Kendi even realizes the irony of such a solution, but what the CRT mentality does is continue a perpetual cycle of discrimination instead of finding a solution to put an end to the discrimination. 

As much as I would like to have a world without racism, having the intent of making the world a more racially just and equal place does not give CRT advocates the moral high ground. As Milton Friedman famously said: One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.

When taken to its logical conclusion, obsessively focusing on race like CRT does is destructive and divisive. In the event what I wrote today was not compelling enough, I will direct you once again to the analysis I wrote on CRT last year to supplement today's analysis. I discussed how it lowers morale for students of color and how it can create resentment and/or lower self-esteem for white students. I also described how it will worsen race relations and make society more racist, which is contrary to the supposed goals of CRT advocates.  

I am not here to say that racism is gone or that race relations were or are perfect because none of that is true. I explained that concept when I argued last year why we should all celebrate Juneteenth. At the same time, CRT advocates react to racial relations in the U.S. as if Jim Crow were alive and well or if we were living in the antebellum South. Progress has been made since then and we should use that progress to bring us closer to giving all U.S. citizens the opportunity to live the American Dream. In case it has not been abundantly clear by now, there are a myriad of legitimate reasons to criticize CRT and to want it removed from the classroom. I would accuse CRT advocates as being intellectually lazy when they call anyone who is opposed to CRT a racist, but they don't care about objective truth, remember?

"Latinx" Is an Exclusionary Term: Another Reason to Do Away With It

Labels can be used to confine or limit, but they can also be used to describe someone or something. Finding a term to describe those of Spanish or Latin American descent has been quite the bumpy road. The terms Hispanic and Latin took some time in the 20th century to get used accustomed to, but it was not easy. Although used interchangeably in everyday speech, the words Hispanic and Latino refer to two different types of people. A Latino is someone who comes from a part in the western hemisphere that a) was formally colonized by Spain or Portugal, and b) where a Romance language, whether Spanish, Portuguese, or French, is predominantly spoken. Hispanic refers to someone from a Spanish-speaking country, whether that is Spain or a Spanish-speaking country in Latin America. So Latino is a geographical and ethnic designation, whereas Hispanic is more of a geographic and linguistic designation. 

If that did not make things murky enough, here comes the term Latinx. The premise behind the term "Latinx" was to create an inclusive option for non-binary and gender-neutral individuals of Latin or Hispanic origin. The term emerged in 2004 and was primarily used amongst academics and Left-leaning activists. The usage of the term started to increase in 2014 (Salinas et al., 2017) and became an entry in Webster's dictionary in 2018. 

There has been considerable pushback to the term "Latinx." Earlier this year, the mayor of Buenos Aires issued a public statement banning the use of "Latinx" or any other gender-neutral variant because it violates the rules of the Spanish language. The Uruguayan government released a similar memo in December 2020. In 2020, the Real Academia Española, which is the institution considered to be the gatekeeper of the Spanish language, called it alien to Spanish morphology. There have been initiatives in Peru and some states in Mexico to ban gender-neutral language in schools. 

While the term "Latinx" has been around for almost two decades, it still remains unpopular. In 2020, Pew Research pointed out how a quarter of Hispanics have heard of it, but only three percent use it. Earlier this year, Gallup estimated that 4 percent of Hispanics use it as an identifier. In December 2021, NBC pointed out a poll that shows that only 2 percent of those of Latin descent use the term "Latinx." Compare that to the 40 percent in the same poll that find the term "Latinx" offensive. 

It does not surprise me in the slightest. In 2019, I wrote a scathing piece where I took multiple issues with the term "Latinx." One of my main issues stemmed from the fact that the suffix "-x" does not grammatically or orally correspond with the Spanish language. Even if it were created strictly for a U.S.-based audience, it does not make sense to create the term "Latinx" because English has gender-neutral terms to describe this demographic: Hispanic and Latin. Also, after acquiring a major in Spanish, spending time in Spanish-speaking countries, using Spanish in a professional context, having multiple Spanish-speaking friends, and even having previously been engaged to a Hispanic, I can tell you that Spanish-speakers prefer their country of origin as a form of self-identification over a generic term such as Latino, Hispanic, or the obnoxious "Latinx." 

Last week, I read an article from The Conversation that was in Real Clear Policy. It was entitled "Stop using 'Latinx' if you really want to be inclusive." Not only do I have issues with the term "Latinx" because it is unnecessary, linguistically improper, or condescending. This article highlighted another reason to despise the term: its exclusive nature. Here were some gems I found in the article:

• If the term is truly inclusive, it gives equitable weight to vastly diverse experiences and knowledge; it is not meant to be a blanket identity. 
• Furthermore, if the goal is to be inclusive, the "-x" would be easily pronounceable and naturally applied to other parts of the Spanish language. 
• Individuals who self-identify as Latinx or are aware of the term are most likely to be U.S.-born, young adults from 18 to 29 years old. They are predominantly English speakers and have more college education. In other words, the most marginalized communities do not use Latinx (Pew Research). 

First of all, the term "Latinx" goes against the very concept of inclusivity. If you are going to use a term this broad to describe a group of people, it has to represent all of those individuals, not only some. More to the point, the inoperability of "Latinx" in the Spanish language excludes millions of Spanish speakers throughout the world. The suffix "-x" does not correspond to the Spanish language. Therefore, people cannot use the suffix in everyday conversation or written correspondence. By the way, the millions of Spanish-speaking individuals cannot use the suffix "-x" also includes the vast majority of the non-binary and gender-neutral individuals for whom "Latinx" was created. This would explain why the term "Latinx" is used by a small, elite subset of Latinos: the ones with a college education and high English proficiency. Part of why language evolves organically is because any modifications made over time would need to fit within the given language. The term "Latinx" fails at that spectacularly. In attempts to be more inclusive, the term "Latinx" ends up being significantly more exclusive. 

To quote Joaquin Blaya, who is a co-founder of the Spanish-speaking TV network Univision, in his objection to the term 'Latinx': "It's too weird. It's dumb. It's foreign. It's not Spanish." Blaya is correct on all fronts. The suffix "-x" is English-language speakers imposing an Anglophone norm onto the Spanish language, which is culturally and linguistically inconsiderate. The term "Latinx" is even clunky in English. Language is meant to be clear when communicated, which the term "Latinx" cannot accomplish in English; even more so in Spanish. In short, the term "Latinx" dishonors the Spanish language and its speakers while excluding way many more people than it includes. In case there were not enough reasons to relegate the term "Latinx" to the dustbin of history, the exclusiveness of the term is another one to add to the list of reasons why "Latinx" is a linguistic bastardization that needs to be discontinued. 

We Should Not Shame the Obese, But We Should Not Celebrate or Glorify Obesity Either

Bill Maher has been a political commentator that has fascinated me over the years. When I was younger, I did not care as much for Maher's comedic style or content. As I became older, I have come to appreciate Maher as a comedian. One reason is that as I became more libertarian, I better understood the nuances of this world and was able to understand where Maher was coming from. Another factor is that the mainstream Left has moved much more to the Left in the past decade. While Maher identifies more with the Left, he has on multiple occasions called out the Left for abandoning its more traditional roots (e.g., freedom of speech, tolerance) and buying into inane, crazy ideas that would have been considered extreme only a few years ago. 

What makes Maher special is that he is one of the only political commentators that self-identifies as a liberal and is willing to stand up to the crazier elements that exist within the U.S. Left. Maher's criticisms are those that I find myself agreeing with much more than I am disagreeing these days. Look no further than last week's episode of Real Time with Bill Maher where he lambasted the fat acceptance movement (see below). Maher did not hold any punches back. He said that body positivity is used to mean "I'm perfect the way I am because I'm me." He called it "Orwellian how often positivity is used to describe what is not healthy." Maher went as far to say that "If you are participating in this joyful celebration of gluttony that goes on now, you have blood on your hands, full stop."

 

I want to get into why Maher is right about the calamity that we face with the high amounts of obesity in this country. But first, I want to preface by saying that the obese should not be shamed. I would not simply argue that from a moral stance of human decency, but also as a public health stance. Shame is not an effective public health strategy. When was the last time you changed your mind on something because someone berated you and made you feel awful for existing? Don't all raise your hands at once. 

The truth is that shaming does not work (e.g., Ho et al., 2015; Costa and Kahn, 2013). Shaming did not get skeptical people to wear face masks in 2020 or get hesitant people to get the COVID vaccine in 2021. Shaming does not work as a strategy for smoking cessation or getting someone to stop drinking. Shaming did not work as a tactic during the heyday of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. Shaming is more than merely ineffective. If anything, shaming can make things worse. The Canadian Medical Association Journal shows how shaming worsened health outcomes for HIV, obesity, and fetal alcohol syndrome (Duong, 2021). A study from the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA) shows that shame makes smokers more likely to smoke (Cortland et al., 2020).

Why does shame prove to generally be ineffective in a public health context? To quote neurologist Caroline Leaf, "Shame is a very negative emotion that challenges a person's identity and tends to make people feel defensive or aggressive, or make them withdraw to protect themselves. Shame essentially tells someone they are bad, as opposed to making them feel that they may be doing something that will have negative consequences." That explains why more often than not, shaming people in a public health context leads them to hide or not disclose their behavior. Shame is not the way to go in terms of public health. It is not going to incentivize healthier behaviors. But what about obesity? The question on this topic is not whether shame should be used, but the debate has become whether we should normalize and make obesity an acceptable life choice on a societal level. 

Those who are activists for fat acceptance (see below), they think that stigmatizing fat is the problem. A 2021 article from Cosmopolitan tried to depict obesity as healthy, which is amusing considering that the satire website Babylon Bee satirized the idea a few months earlier. In spite of what fat acceptance activists would argue, my issues with obesity have nothing to do with fatphobia, thin privilege, or whichever term that the woke like to use to deflect criticism. As we will see shortly, obesity has significant, negative impacts on physical health. 

I can imagine a criticism along the lines of "the Body Mass Index (BMI) is not perfect, ergo obesity is not an issue." That argument is half-right: the BMI is not a perfect measurement. For example, muscle weighs more than fat. A wide receiver for a football team who is all muscle could be considered under the BMI. On the flip side, you can take it in the other extreme direction with unhealthy thinness, whether that is bulimia or anorexia. At the same time, the BMI is still a good proxy for metabolic health. 

The idea of "healthy at every size" is a myth. The truth of the matter is that there is a large evidence base showing that health issues are linked to obesity. There is a reason for that. A meta-analysis of 72 cohort studies from the BMJ showed that indices of central fatness (including BMI) are significantly associated with a higher all-cause mortality risk (Jayedi et al., 2020). And here is an older meta-analysis of 97 studies from Journal of the American Medical Association saying the same thing (Flegal et al., 2013). 

Maher is right to point out that one of the first things that you do when visiting the doctor is stepping on the scale and getting your weight checked. A list from the National Institutes for Health (NIH) shows how obesity elevates the risk for multiple diseases, including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, sleep apnea, metabolic syndrome, fatty liver disease, osteoarthritis, gallstones, cancer, and kidney disease. In 2019, the New York Times said that "poor diet is the leading cause of mortality in the United States."

If you need a more contemporary example, let us examine COVID and obesity. If you have a problem walking up a few stairs, imagine how an upper respiratory disease such as COVID could wreak havoc on your health. We do not have to imagine. The CDC says that obesity can triple your likelihood of being hospitalized from COVID and that the obese are 1.42 times more likely to have severe COVID if hospitalized. The British Medical Journal found that those who were physical active were much less likely to be hospitalized from COVID (Sallis et al., 2021). Obesity was second only to age as the largest factor in COVID morbidity, according to a 2022 study from The Lancet. If more people took care of their personal health, fewer would have died in this pandemic. 

You are probably wondering why I care about the topic of obesity. My political philosophy leads me to believe that as long as you are not hurting, harming, or directly affecting anyone with your personal decisions, I do not care what you do. That is the nonaggression axiom in a nutshell. If you want your diet to consist of McDonald's, Twinkies, and a whole array of processed foods, that is your dietary choice. If you want to be vegetarian or vegan, go for it. If you decide to drink raw milk or eat genetically modified foods, that is "your body, your choice." I have applied this philosophy to more than dietary choices. I believe that it applies to freedom of speech, freedom of religion, owning a firearm, marrying whichever consenting adult (or adults) you would like, selling your own organs for cash, and a whole host of choices. 

I care about this issue for two reasons. The first reason is just because I believe you have the freedom to do something does not mean I personally agree with certain life choices. I can believe that an adult can get married to whatever consenting adult they want, but I do not believe that polygamy is a good idea. The same goes for having children before getting married. Regular exercise, a sound diet, and good sleep are still three essential components of a healthy lifestyle. Keeping alcoholic consumption within moderation is healthier than binge drinking. Winston Churchill might have smoked multiple cigars a day and made it to his eighties, but daily cigar smoking is not a healthy habit. The less you smoke, the better. To quote Maher again, "No one pretended there was positivity in smoking. You're not a freedom fighter because you want to keep eating donuts." As already illustrated, being obese does not make for a healthy lifestyle. 

This leads to the second reason why I care. We have a major problem because fatness is not fitness. According to the CDC, 41.9 percent of Americans are obese and 73.6 percent are overweight. When a large portion of the population decides to partake in unhealthy decisions, those decisions lead to poorer health outcomes. Those poorer outcomes result in increased demand for healthcare services, as we see with a U.S. study (Cawley et al., 2021), as well as a Danish study showing that obese people have about double the healthcare costs that non-obese people have (Spanggaard et al., 2022). What happens when you drive up the demand for a good or service? The price of that good or service increases. That is the Law of Demand. In other words, the society-level perpetuation of obesity affects me because millions of obese people needing more healthcare services skyrockets the healthcare costs for me and every other American who decides to live healthily enough to not be obese. 

Here is some food for thought on the economic costs. A report from Research Triangle Institute (RTI) International shows the global impact of obesity. Some economic costs in the RTI report include increased absenteeism, reduced productivity while at work, early retirement. This RTI report, by the way, found that obesity-attributable diseases killed cause five million deaths and 160 million disability-adjusted life years globally. In its report, the World Bank adds the costs of significantly increased mortality, increased disabilities, and reduced length of disability-free healthy living across the life cycle. The Milken Institute found in its 2020 study that in 2016, chronic diseases driven by obesity in the U.S. cost $480.7 billion in direct health care costs and $1.24 trillion in indirect costs due to loss of economic productivity. This total cost of $1.7 trillion was the equivalent of 9 percent of the U.S. GDP. 

Bill Maher is right in that there is an unfortunate trend of "rewriting science to fit ideology or just to fit what you want reality to be." We have seen it with anti-vaxxers, lockdown lovers, and those who despise genetically modified food, to name a few. We should not ignore overwhelming evidence about the economic and health costs of obesity simply because it is inconvenient or difficult to hear. It does not do anyone any favors to sugar-coat the truth (or food for that matter). 

Up until a few years ago, it was indisputable that obesity came with considerable health and economic costs. Yet fat celebration is what we get for a society that indulges in self-entitlement, feeling good for its own sake, emotional fragility, and thinking that life should be a piece of cake. Guess what? Life has always been a struggle. As Maher pointed out, cake was delicious in 1969 and yet people somehow had better impulse control. It takes time and effort to go and exercise. It takes discipline to follow a diet or exercise regiment. It takes impulse control to not eat compulsively, smoke, or drink too much alcohol. The whole premise behind personal development is that you are not fine just the way you are and there is always room for self-improvement. It should not matter if there is more processed food or if more people sit at a desk for eight hours at work. Anything worthwhile in life takes time, patience, effort, and discipline. Healthy habits, discipline, self-control, and prudence used to be considered values, but not in a country where self-gratification is more important than self-improvement. 

Framing it in terms of discrimination and social justice while telling people they are "fine just the way they are" does not help the obese. When you tell people they are "fine just the way they are" and those people buy into fat acceptance, they are 85 percent less likely to lose weight, according to research from the Obesity Society (Muttarak, 2018). Rather than embolden the obese to live happier, healthier lives, the cognitive dissonance behind fat positivity makes matters worse. 

Maher was spot-on by saying that we have reached the point where acceptance became enabling. I remember watching Family Guy in 2005 when it satirized the fat positivity movement with the episode The Fat Guy Strangler (see clip above). Times are so upside-down that satire has become reality less than twenty years after the release of that episode. There was a time when we used to at least try to be fit and healthy and society praised those who succeeded. To paraphrase Maher, our society has devolved to the point where letting yourself is a point of pride and improving upon yourself (in this case, with fitness) is being vilified. 

What we should be doing is being respectful of obese individuals while encouraging them to make necessary life changes to be healthier. One should find a healthy self-acceptance that does not glorify obesity or shame fitness. Yet multiple industries, including food, health, and clothing, have a cash cow by making more money off of people who are obese. The media is not catastrophizing it when it should be. Obesity has many negative implications for public health and the economy at large, plain and simple. We should act more healthily like our lives depend on it because in terms of longevity and quality of life, our lives do depend on it. To quote Maher one last time, when we as a society are "lying about it and making excuses, it is psychologically telling ourselves that letting ourselves go is the best we can do." A society that propagates the lie that "all shapes are healthy" does so at its own peril.