Businesses in New York City face fines under a new law that makes it a violation of someone’s human rights not to use their preferred “gender pronoun”.
According to the New York City Commission on Human Rights, employees, landlords, and businesses who refuse to refer to transgender people as terms such as “ze” and “hir” will be in violation of the New York City Human Rights Law.
Violations include, “Intentional or repeated refusal to use an individual’s preferred name, pronoun or title. For example, repeatedly calling a transgender woman “him” or “Mr.” after she has made clear which pronouns and title she uses.”
“Covered entities may avoid violations of the NYCHRL by creating a policy of asking everyone what their preferred gender pronoun is so that no individual is singled out for such questions and by updating their systems to allow all individuals to self-identify their names and genders. They should not limit the options for identification to male and female only,” states the “legal enforcement guidance” on gender identity.
The notion of a business asking every customer who walks through the door if they want to be identified as “he,” “she,” “ze,” “hir,” or any other of the 71 Facebook “gender options” is of course completely absurd.
“So people can basically force us — on pain of massive legal liability — to say what they want us to say, whether or not we want to endorse the political message associated with that term, and whether or not we think it’s a lie,” writes UCLA Law Prof. Eugene Volokh.