In an unprecedented Orwellian move, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently imposed a pronoun mandate that forces employees to, among other things, identify transgender individuals employing gender pronouns they may not prefer.
According to American Family Association (AFA), a legal expert has deemed the HHS mandate to be legally untenable and a violation of existing laws, including those that prohibit the government from forcing people to engage in speech that they do not wish to express.
The AFA contended the HHS mandate constitutes a suspension of employees’ right to free speech in addition to being a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (which prohibits employers from taking action based on “sex stereotypes” and other types of discrimination).
Notably, the mandate goes beyond gender identity and expression and includes a list of pronouns and gender-related terms which employees are required to utilize in “all communications, documents, and other forms of communication.” This includes the internally imposed requirement to refer to male and female individuals as “partners” regardless of the individual’s self-identified gender.
Many experts have argued that the HHS mandate not only elevates the rights of transgender individuals over the rights of others, but it also carries a very real risk of criminalizing those who refuse to comply. This is a dangerous precedent for a society that values freedom of speech and thought, and could have a significant social and legal impact on those who do not wish to follow the mandate.
At the end of the day, the HHS pronoun mandate presents a stark example of government overreach that seeks to deny reality and force its citizens to comply with its will. This is a dangerous move and one that will certainly have far-reaching consequences on our society if allowed to stand.