State Senate Committee Enacts New Rule For Its Meetings, Won't Use Pronouns "He" Or "She," Specifies Gender-Neutral "They"; What's Next? Will LB-Area State Senate Candidates Propose This For Their Council Meetings

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(Jan. 23, 2019) -- On January 15, 2019, the state Senate Judiciary Committee -- with newly elected state Senator Tom Umberg (D, SE LB-West OC) among its members -- adopted rules for the coming legislative session. Committee Chair Hannah Beth Jackson (D, Santa Barbara) announced that the Committee will no longer use the pronouns "he" or "she" and will instead use the gender neutral pronoun "they" [and presumably "them" when used as an object ] Committee chair Jackson matter-of-factly explained the change in the use of the English language reflects the state's recognition of non-binary as a gender.

No Senator(s) voiced any objection to this and the Committee voted to adopt the rule 6-0. (the Committee's sole Republican, Senator Andreas Borgeas (R., Fresno) said nothing and was recorded as "not voting.") And yes, SE LB state Senator Umberg was among those voting "yes."

Chair Jackson, who will now presumably be addressed as "they," then became the first to violate the new edict, adding that her former grammar teacher would have a heart attack but "she's long gone and we won't be hearing from her" prompting someone to correct her: "from them; from they."

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We now wonder if Long Beach's Mayor and/or a City Councilmember(s) will agendize an item to adopt a similar policy governing Long Beach City Council proceedings...and if LB Council incumbents Lena Gonzalez or Al Austin, now seeking to become LB's next state Senator, will propose it.

Three days earlier, LB area Democrats voted to choose delegates to send to the CA Democratic Party's convention using a ballot containing two gender segregated lists of candidates, one labeled "self-identified female" (women) and the other labeled "other than self-identified female" (men.) Perhaps that's next for LB, since we heard no objections to it from any of the LB Dem-Party participating in the election. Nor did we hear any objections to segregating the ballot choices by gender in the first place. No one at the LB Dem Party event said publicly that in elections on policy matters, a person's brains and their values ought to matter more than their genitalia.

For our part, LBREPORT.com won't be banning the pronouns "he" and "she" and we will continue to use the words "women" and "men."

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