By Roger Severino – The Daily Signal
If your boss required you to announce publicly that 2 + 2 = 5 and act like you sincerely believed it, would you comply or be fired?
Unfortunately, tens of thousands of federal employees are being put to a similar test by the Biden administration. But instead of being required to deny basic math, they’re being forced to deny basic biology under radical “gender identity” policies.
Last March 31, on International Transgender Day of Visibility, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management ordered federal agencies to prohibit the intentional use of “incorrect” pronouns in the workplace because it could contribute to an “unlawful hostile work environment.”
First to comply were the Department of Health and Human Services, the State Department, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection), all of which recently issued workplace pronoun mandates.
Not surprisingly, the Biden administration’s LGBT advocate-in-chief, Assistant Secretary of Health Rachel Levine, announced the policy for HHS. Although Levine is a biological male (and for decades went by Richard), HHS employees are prohibited from using anything other than “she” when speaking of Levine and all other trans-identifying biological males who work there.
Further, because the policy covers “gender nonconforming,” “agender,” “gender fluid” or “nonbinary” identifications, biologically male employees may retain male names and dress and appear like a man on any given day and still demand to be addressed as she, xir, or they.
Not to be outdone, Customs and Border Protection issued a memo for Border Patrol agents prohibiting them from addressing persons they catch illegally crossing the border as “Mr., Mrs., Ms., Sir [or] Ma’am” until they ask, “Can you please confirm your pronouns or gender identity?” and then adopt whatever the migrant says.
To drive the point home, the CPB memo states that agents may not offer “personal opinions” on these matters or “refer to being LGBTQI+ as a ‘choice’ or ‘lifestyle.’” But shutting up about one’s beliefs, as bad as that is, isn’t actually an option because pronoun use is part of life and practically unavoidable. There will be no hiding or laying low on this one; everyone will be found out eventually.
Perhaps most offensive of all, under Office of Personnel Management guidance, all federal facilities with showers and changing rooms now must be opened to people of the opposite sex based on their say-so. Surely many women who enjoy working out at the office gym will object to seeing grown men getting naked in front of them in the lockerrooms.
While the policy (at least as implemented by HHS) acknowledges that some people may “feel uncomfortable” with this certain eventuality, it clarifies that it is objecting biological women who must leave the facilities in this situation, not the other way around.
There was a time when a boss allowing men to undress in front of female employees was considered 100% automatic sexual harassment. But now the federal government is treating it more like a job requirement and will label you a bigot if you object.
Federal employees are not defenseless. They should file lawsuits seeking to block enforcement of these illegal policies under the First Amendment’s free speech clause and Title VII, at the very least.
And those who believe that sexual human embodiment is part of God’s design also shoud file claims under the First Amensment’s free exercise clause and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, requesting religious accommodation.
Totalitarians throughout history have demanded that the people they subjugate repeat sanctioned lies as a way to secure their power. If those in power can make you say with your own lips that men are women, or neither, or both, and back again, they can make you say and do anything, including drafting you into the pronoun police to spy and inform on your coworkers.
Eighty years ago, the Supreme Court said: “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”
Back then the issue was whether government schools could require students to pledge allegiance to the American flag, while today the question is whether the Biden administration can force Americans to pledge allegiance to the rainbow flag.
The answer to that question should be no. But as always, our liberties become effective only when people have the courage to stand up for the truth and their right to remain free, even if it comes at a cost.