A single horse doesn’t make a herd
even if it goes by “them/him”
You’ll remember the story I told you about the Brazilian pony Furacão, who was sent to prison for not taking a girl’s pronouns all too serious. Well, I’m sorry to tell you that now something very similar happened over here at the ranch. To save you the suspense, no horse was sent to prison. We’re not that radical over here, but what went down still gave me a sleepless night. I need my three hours of sleep, you know…
On Sundays, we often get groups of girls who visit us for trail rides, or sometimes just to gallop out in the wide open prairie. These girls were in for a trail ride with Jason, a cowboy from nearby who makes a dime on the side as a mounted guide. Most of the girls were all saddled up, but one was struggling. Jake asked John, another cowboy: “Could you give her a hand?” The girl turned around and her face was visibly tense. She just said “Them. My pronouns are she / them.” Jake didn’t really pay attention and went on: “Just lift her leg a little up.” The girl became seethingly furious. She got down to the ground and said “You rednecks will stop to harass me right now. If you continue like this, I will end up like Next Benedrick. That is what you want. I know you want that.” She did go into the ranch house. We heard some shouting and weeping, but it wasn’t all that clear to us what was being said. A little later, we saw her jog to the parking lot and slip into a muddy puddle before she drove off, leaving a cloud of dust behind. We later learnt that she had insisted that the ranch fire Jake, or else she would push a complaint for harassment. Yet we at the ranch have known Jake since he was a child, and nothing like that will happen. She won’t get very far with her complaint either. Fortunately, we are a ranch, not a university.
(We are a ranch, not a newspaper. We are not amplified by media and appreciate if you subscribe)
In fact, many universities these days would consider this a case of harassment. The United States government recently updated the “Title IX” statutes, which had originally been created to prevent sexual harassment of women. However, since the latest version, “harassment” now encompasses gender identity. The revision of these statutes are merely the latest step in a trend that, sadly, has been developing for years now. In 2022, Stanford university backtracked soon after launching a new language policy that instructed students not to use the word “American”. Another guidance given in that policy was to ask for fellow student’s “pronouns”, thereby explicitly stressing not to refer to those as “preferred pronouns”. The reasoning behind these two steps are that “people cannot choose their gender identity as they are born with it” and that “not to affirm somebody’s gender identity leads to permanent psychological harm”. Both of these claims are nonsense, but students are being threatened with expulsion if they don’t adhere to the corresponding rules. Even more so, they are being encouraged to throw a tantrum if somebody else does not comply and to report such cases as “harassment”. These behavioral nudges belong in the Soviet Union rather than in the United States, but we can only observe that they have become commonplace now. This is exactly why the girl felt that she was acting “righteously” when attacking Jake.
The self-righteousness is only one aspect to be concerned about in the girl’s tantrum. What she did there is by no means an outlier. In self-proclaimed “liberal” circles, it has become the norm rather than the exception these days to get angry without limits and also without caring to get any of the facts right. What matters to such people, is to show that they are “on the right side” and therefore, it is “all right” to try and silence anybody who hurts their feelings. At the same time, they don’t care in the least to stop for a second and consider not to hurt other people’s feelings. I don’t know if Jake likes to be called a “redneck”. Maybe he does. But what I do know, is that he does not want to be accused of pushing others towards suicide. And that is exactly what the girl implied.
So who is “Next Benedrick”, you may wonder? Well, let’s set our own standards higher than what “liberals” manage to these days, shall we? So … Nex, born Dagny, Benedict’s story was hyped by mainstream channels for a split second as “a sixteen year old non-binary student who was bullied to death in an Oklahoma conservative school”. That is, until a few facts surfaced inconvenient to that narrative. At first, when it became clear that the autopsy report stated drug overdose and suicide as cause of death, the “bullied to death” narrative collapsed. She was not beaten to death as a result of “transphobic aggression”. But there is more, and it is a very tragic story. At age eleven, she was abused by her father. According to the autopsy report, she had a history of “constipation, bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety, self-harm (cutting), chronic tobacco abuse, and chronic marijuana abuse”. Recall the she died at the age of sixteen, yet already had such a “history”. It is a very tragic and lamentable story, that culminated in suicide. These are the facts. At this point I’ll note though, that some mainstream sources conveniently omit some of these facts to this day, to paint a picture still closer to the original bullying story. Unfortunately, we live in a time where seemingly trustworthy sources like Wikipedia in fact publish very one-sided propaganda on any topic that can classify as contentious.
We will never know for sure why Dagny did what she did, but let me tell you what I see here. I see the story of a girl who grows up in a horrible family setting. She is abused by her own father. It is a very understandable reaction to want to escape. Many teenagers want to get away from their families, but let’s say that Dagny had a motive more understandable than most. Dagny took several steps to evade her misery. It’s hard to speculate where she would have ended up in society back in the nineties. But in today’s society, social media (and likely peers) told her how to find the ultimate solace, that would end her depression and need for licit and illicit drugs: change her gender, name and pronouns. She would become non-binary, go by “Nex” and live happily ever after. I wonder how long it took before the person now referred to as Nex found out that it didn’t turn him happy on the spot… We all know what happened after. Nex did not die because of “transgender bullying”. It seems that he did have irreparable psychological harm, but not as the result of people addressing him by pronouns he did not prefer. Nor was it the result of the state requirement to use bathrooms assigned by sex. I am not sure if Dagny’s eventual suicide could have been avoided, but if anything could have accomplished that, then it would have been to tell her hundreds of times a day that she was good the way she was until she believed it herself. Every person has the capacity to feel good the way they are, in their bodies the way they are. Instead of teaching students this universal truth, schools encourage them to covet thoughts to the opposite.
I like Jake. He’s a great cowboy. I have never seen him harass any of the girls on our trail rides, even though I can see that many of them are into him. His blond manes and cowboy hat seem to have an effect. Harassment is not in Jake’s dictionary. What he did is not harassment either. I can tell a stallion from a mare. It’s pretty easy. That’s why our languages have come up with words that refer to such visible and sensible differences that originate in biological sex. Pronouns describe sex, not gender identity. Not to use the preferred ones, is in no way harassment, nor transphobia, nor does it lead to any sort of irreparable harm.
In spite of that observation, I’d still be willing to make a step towards the girl’s wishes if I could see that she intended to be addressed differently. Unfortunately, I only saw one girl. I don’t know why she wanted to be referred to as “them”, nor do I think that anybody should encourage that behaviour. Nobody is born singular as a subject and plural as an object. To identify oneself as “she/them” is simply a way to try and attract undue attention. Not to treat a single person as plural is a great step to not amplify psychological delusion. I will not be “affirming” her number dysphoria. I’ll forgive her tantrum, though, because I know that does not reflect who she is as a (single) person, but rather what the stupidity community has nudged her to believe is right. And I truly wish that she does not end up “like Next Benedrick”. But I also wish that, as she grows up, she will come to realize that one single pony doesn’t make a herd, even if it goes by “they/them/theirs”.
(If you don’t know what nudging is, or what the “stupidity community” is, you should consider to read more Pony Wisdom and subscribe)