January 22, 2024 THOMPSON, blog.

Academia Parenting Politics

The ‘S’ Word

January 22, 2024 58 Comments

Attention, heterosexuals. The way you self-identify is, it turns out, terribly oppressive:

[Seattle high-school teacher, Ian] Golash had handed out a “Social Identity Wheel” worksheet to his class which supposedly helps determine who has “unearned privilege or oppression.”

A Wheel Of Innate Sin For Which You Must Atone. Hours of fun. And that question-begging fatuousness won’t be internalised without a little prompting.

The mom of a (male) student in the class had complained to Golash and Principal Ray Garcia-Morales, writing that her son “was told that if he identifies as straight that he needed to pick a term that was less offensive. It is completely inappropriate to dictate what terms a student can and cannot use to identify themselves with.”

Following the complaint, Mr Golash has replied that his disapproval of the term straight was directed at the entire class, not a particular individual, and is therefore merely a matter of encouraging “reflection” on the part of heterosexual students. Specifically,

Because I think language has power and that it shapes the culture that we live in, I did say to the class, in response to a student, that I do not use the term ‘straight’ because it implies that to not be straight is to be ‘crooked’ which could have a negative connotation.

Should any gay readers have been rendered tearful and downtrodden by an utterance of the word straight, as Mr Golash would have us believe, do feel free to share your harrowing tales in the comments below. Sad music can be added for a small fee.

And so, according to Mr Golash, we will march towards a shining tomorrow via cultivated neuroticism – fretting about the allegedly wounding properties of the word straight – and by telling heterosexual male students that they are merely a “product of the patriarchy that teaches young boys not to care.” Because, unlike the word straight, that’s not insulting at all, apparently.

The claim that straight male students are the hapless dupes of some nebulous yet diabolical and all-pervasive force is not disputed by Mr Golash. And it remains unclear whether all this caring and reflection should extend to being concerned by the dogmatic overreach of an activist high school teacher – an avowed communist and Antifa-booster who uses the classroom to champion Hamas – and who punishes students for their unfashionable honesty. On which, more in a moment.

It’s perhaps worth mentioning that the term straight – meaning heterosexual or sexually conventional – is generally thought to have its origins in gay American slang of the 1940s. Which is to say, it was a favoured in-group term used by some gay people, and often used sarcastically.

If doubt remains as which party may be in need of “reflection,” I should also probably mention our educator’s hair.

And more seriously, this:

The same mom previously had taken Golash to task after allegedly giving her son an “F” on a quiz because he wrote that men can’t get pregnant, and women don’t have penises.

You see, if students are presented with the statement “Only women can get pregnant,” and then fail to tick the word “false,” this is a basis for an ‘F’. And any attempt by a student to defend their answer – say, by referring to observable reality – will be construed by Mr Golash as disruptive behaviour and a basis for further scolding.

And so,

The mom eventually pulled her son from his class.

Quite right, madam. Though other, perhaps more obvious candidates for removal may come to mind.

Previously in the world of neurotic word-policing.

Reading time: 3 min

Written by: David