http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Tennessee-students-asked-to-use-gender-neutral-6471356.php
University of Tennessee students have been asked to use gender-neutral pronouns such as "ze."
Multiple media outlets report that the University of Tennessee Office for Diversity and Inclusion is asking students and faculty to use the pronouns in order to create a more inclusive campus.
The University of Tennessee's Pride Center Director, Donna Braquet, wrote on the university's website Wednesday that she is requesting that teachers ask each student to provide the name and pronoun he or she — or ze — wishes to be referred by. She says it relieves a burden for people expressing different genders or identities.
No more "he" or "she." Football games on campus will be fun.
"Ze shanked the field goal. Volunteers lose again."
And how are zese folks going to take this?
And to hell with the 99.9999999% of folks who are now "burdened" with having to wonder if they're going to get hit with a frivolous lawsuit over the use of the wrong pronoun? (You laugh now - but just wait).
Let me share a personal story that happened recently - in my church no less. A few years back we had a very talented soprano - an absolutely BEAUTIFUL voice - on our church's praise team. I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to it, but after awhile I began notice that the only people she ever brought to church with her (it was rare but she did bring HS friends) were always girls, never boys. Then her hairstyle and clothing began to change into the stereotype. I finally wondered one day to myself - and this was after knowing her for eight years - "do you think she's LGBQT?" A few days later - and I promise you it was a complete accident, I was looking for something else - I discovered she was the VP of the Pride chapter at her school.
Here's what I didn't do - I didn't gossip, I didn't bash her, I honestly didn't know for sure how to handle it. I didn't want to create a ruckus, and I still like and even love her as I'm commanded to do, but you then get into things like qualifications for biblical service, a completely different issue. So I prayed on it and did nothing - and it pretty much resolved itself. She has not come back, she's in an Episcopal setting (I think that's who) and more comfortable, yadda yadda.
She came back to my church three weeks ago only......she was no longer a she. She didn't come to the service, she (he? ze?) came afterwards to see her/his/zis mother, who runs the sound board. I was very pleased at the confused yet kind reception my son gave her/him/zim/zer.
Last week, the mother asked for prayer and it was quite interesting - not about God changing anything or anything like that but notice how she said it:
"We need to pray for my youngest" (gender neutral). But in the course of the next five sentences or so in every single instance, she kept saying "her, uh his" life and whatever. Mom has known this for years and even Mom has trouble with the gender pronoun. This individual was heading for a career in international relations. In fact, as a transgender such a person might, in fact, move to the front of the line in the USA's never-ending social engineering experiment. That's now been given up for some sort of ecclesiastical (church) internship in rural Massachusetts (because, you know, the liberals of Mass are so much more tolerant than Southerners - and if you actually are dumb enough to believe that, I have a Bridge to Nowhere to sell you).
I can't sit here and say I know what's right for zim/zer to do. But it does appear to me that the confusion is about so much more than just gender.
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.