Show it by thinking it
But this isn’t parody. Should be but isn’t.
The diktat by bosses at data watchdog the Information Commissioner’s Office suggests that it is not enough to call employees by their chosen gender pronouns.
It says staff can show their support for trans colleagues by ‘thinking of the person as being the gender that they want you to think of them as’.
Compliance not enough; visible actions not enough; you must think what we tell you to think.
Oh yeah? Well how are you gonna know? Magic?
The ICO’s Trans Policy and Guidance says its staff should ‘be guided by your trans colleague and their preferences’ in an effort to support them and they ‘must call a person by their chosen or preferred name’.
It adds: ‘ICO staff can support trans colleagues or individuals who are transitioning by… Thinking of the person as being the gender that they want you to think of them as.’
But they can’t. Seriously. Adults should know this already. You can’t support people by thinking something for the simple reason that what you think is locked in your head; other people have no access to it. You can of course say you think it, perform thinking it, put post-it notes on the wall saying you think it, but none of that is the same as actually thinking it. Other people’s minds are a black box, and on a subject like this in an environment like this…I would be very very skeptical of any self-reports of “how I think of you, fellow-employee.” Anyway all this saying and putting on the wall isn’t what the ICO is demanding: they’re demanding the thinking itself. Well how are they going to check? Eh?
Well, those pesky thoughts might lead to words and then to deeds, so if you think bad thoughts that puts your trans colleagues at risk. So it’s hellfire, er, HR for you if you do think wrongly.
Theists have written similar when encouraging the godless to “discover” within themselves a faith in God. Pretend to yourself that you believe in Him. Foster habits of thanks and praise. Address Him constantly in your mind. Look for signs of His existence or attention. Keep at it and eventually the virtue of a true inner belief will manifest itself.
It actually works in a sense, in that the way we consciously think can change the way we feel and thus the way we unconsciously think. The principle behind this is the basis for Cognitive Behavioral and Rational Emotive Behavior Therapies, though in those cases they’re used in getting rid of irrational thoughts instead of embedding them.
Don’t worry; your kids will listen to you when you sleep, and report your mumblings to the appropriate authorities, so that you can be properly re-educated.
They cannot yet read our minds, but with advances in MRI technology, they may be able to read our brains.
Send George Orwell’s thought police (1984) after suspected offenders.
Is ICO as supportive and solicitous of all of its employees who are pursuing delusional dreams? The third floor clerk in Records who’s always dreamed of being a concert pianist despite being tone deaf? Or the custodian with a tremor, and no medical background, who’s on his way to being a brain surgeon in his mind? Are their fellow emplyees exhorted to think that the pianist and neurosurgeon are already there with them, clerking and cleaning up? Is the company going to provide a piano and surgical instruments to demonstrate its beliefs in their dreams? Will they force the rest of the staff to endure “recitals” and/or undergo “procedures?” But this analogy misses the mark; being the sex one is not is not an acquired skill or even an inborn talent. It just can’t be done, whatever the effort expended. A better comparison would be if the company were demanding its workforce to think that some of their colleagues were in fact amphibians or invertebrates. This scenario is no less ridiculous or impossible than the belief that one could ever be the sex one is not. So why does any company, organization, or institution take trans claims seriously, when they would laugh a belief that someone was a different phylum than the one they were “assigned at birth” right out of the office? That’s the $64 question we’ve all been asking.
Edging ever closer to thought crime.
Christopher Hitchens used to say that religion was the theists’ favorite toy, they love it, they hug it to themselves.
He’s perfectly happy to let the theists have their favorite toys, and he, as an atheist or even an anti-theist, doesn’t even wish to take the toy away from them. He couldn’t, even if he wanted to. The problem is that the theists are never happy or satisfied to play with the toys themselves. They simply cannot be happy unless you believe too, unless you play with the toys also. That’s where it becomes so tiresome.
The genderist religion is just the same: the gender theists are not happy unless you believe too. You MUST participate in the magic gender religion with them, or it’s not good enough. Hence the gaslighting and the demands with menaces.