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They just don't 'get it'

News of the Weird by Chuck Shepherd

By News of the Weird by Chuck Shepherd

Published May 23, 2017

They just don't 'get it'

Late last year, Oxford University professor Joshua Silver accused Britain's Home Secretary of a "hate" crime merely because the Secretary had made a speech urging that unemployed Britons be given preference for jobs over people recruited from overseas. Silver denounced this "discrimination" against "foreigners" and made a formal complaint to West Midlands police, which, after evaluation, absolved Secretary Amber Rudd but acknowledged that, under the law, the police were required to record the Secretary's unemployment speech as a "non-crime hate incident." [BBC News, 1-12-2017]

The British Medical Association issued a formal caution to its staff in January not to use the term "expectant mothers" when referring to pregnancy -- because it might offend transgender people. Instead, the Association's memo (reported by the Daily Telegraph) suggested using "pregnant people." The BMA acknowledged that a "large majority" of such people are, in fact, "mothers," but wrote that there may be "intersex" and "trans men" who also could get pregnant. [Daily Telegraph, 1-29-2017]

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