1984 - N.Y. to fine you $250,000 for using wrong gender pronouns

1984 Thought Crime in New York

New York Democrats have abandoned the 

Bill of Rights and instead adopted 1984.

(Washington Times)  -  Greeting customers as “Mr.” or “Mrs.” — or even not using the pronoun “ze” or “zir” — could prove costly for New York City businesses under rules drafted by Mayor Bill de Blasio’s bureaucrats.

The Gotham mayor’s Commission on Human Rights says entities that fail to address customers by their preferred gender pronouns and titles are in violation of the law and could be subject to penalties of up to $250,000.

The commission issued a “legal enforcement guidance” for the New York City Human Rights Law, which now “requires employers and converted entities to use an individual’s preferred name, pronoun and title (e.g., Ms./Mrs.) regardless of the individual’s sex assigned at birth, anatomy, gender, medical history, appearance, or the sex indicated on the individual’s identification.”

The guidance, issued in December as part of a broader interpretation of the human rights law, notes that some people prefer pronouns that don’t have masculine or feminine forms, including “they/them/theirs or ze/hir.” The former are plurals being drafted for use in the singular, while the latter are among several alternative pronoun systems developed by academics and/or LGBT communities.

Make sure and get my gender pronoun right.

It lists several examples of violations that could result in fines, including the “intentional and repeated refusal to use an individual’s preferred name, pronoun or title.”

“For example, repeatedly calling a transgender woman ‘him’ or ‘Mr.’ after she has made clear which pronouns and title she uses,” the guide says.

The maximum civil fine that the commission may impose upon “misgendering” is $125,000. But when the violation is the “result of willful, wanton, or malicious conduct,” the maximum fine can double to $250,000.

The guide says businesses can avoid penalties “by creating a policy of asking everyone what their preferred gender pronoun is so that no individual is singled out for such questions and by updating their system to allow all individuals to self-identify their names and genders. They should not limit the options for identification to male and female only.”

Writing at his Volokh Conspiracy blog, law professor Eugene Volokh questioned how the guidance is permissible under the First Amendment.

“So people can basically force us — on pain of massive legal liability — to say what they want us to say, whether or not we want to endorse the political message associated with the term, and whether or not we think it’s a lie,” Mr. Volokh wrote.

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George Orwell - Newspeak - 1984