Vermont Department of Health tells public to avoid using words like 'son' or 'daughter'



The Vermont Department of Health issued a caution this week not to use the words "son" and "daughter," insinuating that a failure to do so may cultivate unhealthy learning environments.

In a Facebook post shared to its official page Wednesday, the department (VDH) — run by Mark Levine, who was appointed commissioner by Republican Gov. Phil Scott — stated, "Many families and students are getting ready for the new school year. Equity in the classroom is an essential piece of a productive and healthy learning environment."

"When talking about family, it's important to use terms that cover the many versions of what family can look like," said the post.

Accompanying the post was an image titled, "Inclusive Language for Families," which contained instructions on how Vermonters should adjust their vocabularies and mindsets.

According to the VDH, which states elsewhere that "gender is socially constructed," Vermonters should "[u]se 'child or 'kid' instead of 'daughter' or 'son'" because these substitutes are "gender-neutral and can describe a child who may not be someone's legal son or daughter."

In addition to abandoning the centuries-old terms linked, respectively, to the Old English sunu for "male child in relation to either or both parents" and the Old English dohtor for "female child considered with reference to her parents," the VDH urged the sons and daughters of the Green Mountain State to say "family members" rather than "household members" because "not all families live in the same home — think divorced or incarcerated parents, stepsiblings, etc."

'Challenging our instinct or bias to prioritize the needs of white, straight, cisgender, and non-disabled and neurotypical students is the first step.'

Blaze News reached out to the VDH inquiring about what prompted the posting as well as whether there was any scientific basis to its insinuation that the use of the terms "son" and "daughter" was harmful. The department did not provide a response by deadline.

The VDH post seeking further severance of language from biological and conventional meaning was subject to immediate backlash, prompting the department to follow up on Facebook with a message claiming, "This post was intended to encourage using inclusive language when you don't know someone's family situation. This is especially important in settings like classrooms, afterschool programs and sports teams."

"Using language that includes everyone helps children feel seen, respected, and valued no matter how their families are structured," wrote the department, adding a link to a department page about "health equity."

According the department, health equity:

exists when all people have a fair and just opportunity to be healthy, especially those who have experienced socioeconomic disadvantage, historical injustice, and other avoidable systemic inequalities that are often associated with social categories of race, gender, ethnicity, social position, sexual orientation and disability.

The VDH's health equity page indicates why an organization that might otherwise assign greater focus to the local fallout of the opioid epidemic or alarmingly high STD rates is now pestering Vermonters about how they describe their children.

In the interest of "culturally and linguistically appropriate care," the VDH has integrated the National Standards for Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services in Health and Healthcare (CLAS Standards) in all of its work.

The National CLAS Standards were developed by the U.S. Department of Health and Health and Human Services' Office of Minority Health in 2000.

The standards call for public organizations to "establish culturally and linguistically appropriate goals, policies, and management accountability, and infuse them throughout the organization’s planning and operations" as well as to "[partner with the community to design, implement, and evaluate policies, practices, and services to ensure cultural and linguistic appropriateness."

Adherents to the standards are expected to learn about various cultural identities, combat bias, respect others' values and communication preferences, and adapt their services to various persons' cultural needs.

The Christian Post noted that in its latest "Health Equity Update," the VDH provides additional tips on how Vermonters help with their leftist social engineering.

The newsletter states, "Supporting the needs, backgrounds, and abilities of all students is a complex task. Challenging our instinct or bias to prioritize the needs of white, straight, cisgender, and non-disabled and neurotypical students is the first step. This will reduce barriers for BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ students as well as those with physical and neurological disabilities."

In addition to de-prioritizing the needs of students hailing from that racial demographic, which makes up around 91% of the state's population, the health organization echoes CLAS literature, stressing that teachers, coaches, "afterschool school providers," and mentors should reflect on their own beliefs and "become more conscious of issues related to racial equity and gender equity."

The VDH is hardly the first institution to urge Americans to drop words leftists believe are offensive or antiquated.

Stanford University, for instance, released an index of "harmful words" in 2022 that it indicated would be eliminated from use and its websites. These words included: "addict," "American," "ballsy," "Brave," "chief," "gentlemen," "he," "straight," "master," and "white paper."

The New Hampshire Journal highlighted how earlier this year, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu's (R) Department of Information Technology shared a memo claiming the words "citizen," "guys," "he or she," "man-made," "handicapped," "normal," and "elderly," were problematic, exclusionary, and/or harmful.

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Trudeau-appointed Supreme Court justice opts for 'person with a vagina' rather than 'woman' in rape case



Leftists captive to radical gender ideology routinely engage in mental gymnastics in order to reference the very immutable realities they seek to undermine.

The Biden administration replaced the term "mother" with "birthing person" in a public health section of a 2022 budget. Rather than use the word "woman," Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) opted instead for "menstruating people."

It appears social constructivism has had a similar impact north of the border.

A Trudeau appointee on the Supreme Court of Canada recently took issue with a lower court's use of the word "woman." According to Justice Sheilah Martin, it would have been less confusing for an officer of the court to refer to a female rape victim — in a case that was not involving transvestites or non-straights — as a "person with a vagina."

Critics have roundly ridiculed the Canadian high court over its embrace of woke language conventions, especially when dealing with a case as serious as rape.

Background

The court took up two separate and unrelated rape cases linked only because the "Court of Appeals overturned the convictions on the basis of alleged errors of law in the trial judges' credibility and reliability assessments."

According to the Court of Appeals, the "trial judges erred in law by making assumptions about human behavior not grounded in the evidence."

One of the cases concerned Christopher James Kruk's rape conviction. Kruk reportedly found a woman "intoxicated, lost, and distressed one night in downtown Vancouver." He took her to his house where he claimed she spilled water on herself then passed out with her pants around her ankles. The victim testified that she woke up to find herself in a state of undress with Kruk actively violating her.

The trial judge stated, "[The complainant's] evidence is devoid of detail, yet she claims to be certain that she was not mistaken. She said she felt [Mr. Kruk's] penis inside her and she knew what she was feeling. In short, her tactile sense was engaged. It is extremely unlikely that a woman would be mistaken about that feeling."

The Court of Appeals indicated that the trial judge in Kruk's case erred in concluding that it would be unlikely a woman would be mistaken about the feeling of being raped.

'Engender[ing] confusion'

The Canadian Supreme Court overrode the Court of Appeals and upheld the original conviction at trial in its Friday ruling.

While Justice Martin agreed the trial judge's "conclusion was grounded in his assessment of the complainant's testimony," she took issue with his language.

Martin wrote that the trial judge's choice "to use the words 'a woman' may have been unfortunate and engendered confusion."

The judge, a former recipient of the YWCA's Advancement of Women Award, made sure to use her preferred turn of phrase in the same section, writing, "Where a person with a vagina testifies credibly and with certainty that they felt penile‑vaginal penetration, a trial judge must be entitled to conclude that they are unlikely to be mistaken."

The female justice did not appear to provide any explanation for why the word "woman" might create confusion in a case concerning a man's alleged rape of a woman. However, it has been suggested she may have been attempting to address what she called "an improper generalization" between women in general and the victim.

Nevertheless, the Trudeau appointee's use of the term "person with a vagina" is the first such usage in a Canadian judicial decision, reported the National Post.

Following the Friday decision, the high court and Martin, a "person with a vagina," were roundly ridiculed.

Conservative parliamentarian Melissa Lantsman responded to the ruling, writing, "No, there is nothing confusing about the word 'woman,' it's common sense. It's not hateful, bigoted, wrong or unfair in anyway. This is just complete nonsense that moves nothing forward. It's not 'progress.'"

The X user Wall Street Silver wrote, "Everything ok up there Canada? We are sort of worried about you guys."

Libs of TikTok tweeted, "RIP Canada."

The Toronto Sun highlighted that two days after the ruling, the Supreme Court of Canada posted a possibly confusing message to social media honoring female judges.

"March 10, we celebrate International Day of Women Judges, which recognized the importance of the full and equal participation of women at all levels of the judiciary," said the post, which featured an image of Martin.

March 10, we celebrate International Day of Women Judges, which recognized the importance of the full and equal participation of women at all levels of the judiciary.\n\n\ud83d\udcf8 Justices Moreau, O\u2019Bonsawin, Karakatsanis, C\u00f4t\u00e9 and Martin
— (@)

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CNN writer vexed by conservatives' use of leftist terms



CNN appears unwilling to admit that Americans have grown antipathetic to certain leftist terms on account of the loathsome and/or meritless concepts they signify.

Instead, to make sense of the ongoing backlash to leftist terms and concepts such as "woke," "critical race theory," and "equity," senior CNN writer John Blake has penned an article explaining why Republican "verbal jiu-jitsu" is to blame.

Blake defined "verbal jiu-jitsu" as a "form of linguistic combat in which the practitioner takes a political phrase or concept popularized by their opponent and gradually turns into an unusable slur."

An example would be the Biden administration and Democratic establishment's hostile use of the term "MAGA" as a modifier for those populist conservatives and Republicans whom they wish to mark as extremists.

Blake suggested that the adoption of new terms or turns of phrase by those with differing worldviews is a means to "avoid taking opposing arguments head on and instead redirect their opponents' momentum to beat them."

The CNN writer presumed further that terms like "critical race theory" are radioactive, not because of their original, intended meaning, but because of their misuse.

Accordingly, "critical race theory" is not met with derision and contempt because it references a leftist theory that reduces people to their immutable characteristics, presumes nasty motivations in the most innocuous of behaviors, accuses the United States of being institutionally racist, and saddles persons with irredeemable guilt on the basis of their pigmentation. It is instead derided because Republicans dared to describe that pernicious leftist theory with the correct terminology.

"Mention almost any touchstone phrase adopted by the left in recent years ... and it has been redefined or tarnished by conservatives," wrote Blake, later equating today's conservatives with the Democrats of yesteryear who supported segregation.

Robin DiAngelo, the University of Washington associate professor who penned the book "White Fragility," told Blake that "diversity" and "equity" are the next terms to be tarnished by virtue of their prospective utterance by deplorables.

Whereas Merriam-Webster notes the historic meaning of "equity" as concerning justice and proportional fairness, Blake expressed his resentment over American conservatives' acknowledgment of its meaning as now intended by leftists in both policy and practice, suggesting that they have "sought to reframe 'equity.'"

Rather than nondiscriminatory equal treatment, as is meant by "equality," "equity" has come to mean preferential treatment, doled out on the basis of perceived fairness. In the context of critical race theory, equity demands preferential treatment on the basis of race.

McGill University defines equity thusly: "Equity, unlike the notion of equality, is not about sameness of treatment. Equity denotes fairness and justice in process and in results. Equitable outcomes often require differential treatment and resource redistribution so as to achieve a level playing field among all individuals and communities."

"The difference between equity and equality is that equality is everyone get the same thing and equity is everyone get the things they deserve," said so-called racial justice activist DeRay Mckesson.

While verbal jiu-jitsu appears to mean simply taking leftists like Mckesson at their word, DiAngelo concluded that the right's correct usage of leftist terms like "critical race theory" serves to "silence the conversation and protect the status quo."

Blake highlighted why Republicans' use and comprehension of woke terminology is cause for concern.

If able to name the concepts, then conservatives can take action and introduce legislation to nip the corresponding initiatives in the bud.

Blake stressed that Democrats must get better at "jiu-jitsu" soon or risk losing the 2024 election.

The CNN article was roundly ridiculed online, with some X users quipping that the so-called verbal jiu-jitsu bouts ahead may be one-sided, particularly if Democrats continue to have trouble defining terms as fundamental as "woman."

Robby Starbuck suggested that Blake's article would have been better titled "Democrat policies prove unpopular when scrutinized."

Spectator editor Stephen Miller asked, "Are you okay?"

Mark Hemingway, senior writer at RealClearInvestigations, tweeted, "Next thing you know, those dastardly Republicans will be saying pronouns are sex and number specific!"

Scott Horton, director of the Libertarian Institute, attempted to capture the liberal thought process behind the CNN piece, writing, "Why is it that every word we use to describe the way we think ends up toxic to everyone else? It's the conservatives! They're cheating by reminding people what horrible, humorless scolds we are! Not fair!"

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