Tuesday 16 August 2016

The end of Mr & Mrs?

Whilst the majority of people are comfortable in their genders there are around 1 in 10,000 people who can be described as transexual or other. That's around 0.01% of the population. Awareness of the difficulties such people face in society there has been a growing movement to defend their rights. Absolutely right. People should not be made to feel uncomfortable about themselves by bigots and the like.

However like many worthy causes sometimes the desire to end discrimination can in itself lead down the wrong road.

The Oxford Mail reports:

A panel of councillors said official forms should include the gender-neutral option of 'Mx' – pronounced like 'mix' – and that honorifics could be phased out completely from documents in the future.

Now there is no problem with allowing for the use of Mx (pronounced "mix") in the same way the use of Ms has become widely accepted, but why abolish "Mr &Mrs"? That's not being "inclusive" at all. I would imagine that the vast majority of people myself included are quite happy with such a prefix and would prefer to continue using it.

You don't fight discrimination by trampling on other people's rights and such measures could cause a backlash. Use Ms, Mx by all means but allow the rest of us a choice too.

Besides what would you call this wonderful old programme?

1 comment:

  1. Yet a man is called 'mr' regardless of if he is married or not? That could do with changing...either make so the women are always refered to as Ms (regardless of if they are married or not) or find a new 'title' for married men. Think 'mr' for all men and 'ms' for all women makes more sense. But hey what do i know

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