One Giant Step for Kittenself Kind: NASA Invites Employees to Pick Their Pronouns

It’s pronouns, not rocket science.

Or isn’t it?

On Wednesday, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration made an ascendant announcement: NASA’s joining the gender revolution.

Blast off–

We’re committed to supporting the right of every employee…to be addressed by their preferred name and pronouns.

Social media users were urged to “read a statement from [the] Office of Diversity & Equal Opportunity in regards to a recent gender pronouns IT project.”

We’re committed to supporting the right of every employee at NASA to be addressed by their preferred name and pronouns.

Click here to read a statement from our Office of Diversity & Equal Opportunity in regards to a recent gender pronouns IT project: https://t.co/Z8Q1H0WIND pic.twitter.com/MlHDJWCrhL

— NASA (@NASA) March 10, 2022

Strap in:

Through an effort to create a more inclusive workplace, NASA recently completed an IT project at Goddard Space Flight Center that allowed approximately 125 employees to test the option of including their gender pronouns in NASA’s email display fields — which currently includes each employee’s name, center, and an organizational code. The learnings from this test will be used to inform the advancement of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility.

It all boils down to rights:

NASA is fully committed to supporting every employee’s right to be addressed by their correct name and pronouns. All NASA employees currently have the option and flexibility to include their gender pronouns in their customized email signature blocks.

The federal subsidiary invites its employees to share:

This option remains unchanged and is supported by NASA leadership so that employees can share their gender identities and show allyship to the LGBTQIA+ community.

The statement is signed by NASA’s “Associate Administrator for Diversity and Equal Opportunity.”

As you likely know, the space agency is far from alone in its enlightenment.

Not long ago, participation-trophy critics claimed an entire generation would find it difficult to hold a job. But the corporations caught up with youth culture. Likewise, some may have assumed America’s updated pronoun practices would remain relegated to private industry.

But wokeness is profusely pumping from the aorta of the federal government:

Army Chaplain is Investigated for Calling Transgenders ‘Mentally Unfit’

Sailors Can Use Whichever Locker Room Suits Their Gender Identity

Navy SEAL Ethos Goes Gender-Neutral, Drops Toxically Masculine Terms

Air Force Academy Professor Teaches CRT and ‘Structural Racism’ to Cadets

Air Force Forms ‘LGBTQ’ Focus Group

Nevada Air Force Base Hosts Drag Show

Military Generals Encourage More Women in Combat

As for our profound pronoun progress, it’s worth noting what exactly is going on.

We’re on the verge of a supremely sophisticated society. Those who control our institutions are not simply accomodating the few who express heartfelt hardship over identity.

Rather, from kindergarten to cubicles, Americans are being issued an assignment: In this age of screen names and icons, create your character.

You’re being tasked with settling on a name. You bear the burden of picking pronouns.

We’re being told to build who we are — as if life is an online account.

Perhaps pronouns are our passwords.

And don’t forget “neo” pronouns — such as bunself and kittenself.

As we all create our purrfect profiles, we’ll be wired into a system colossally more complicated than before.

Don’t expect it to end with names and nouns.

As for where we are at the moment, grammatical coherence hasn’t yet caught up — people who insist they’re a “they” still refer to themselves as “I” — not “we.”

Oddly enough, that’s the word that hasn’t changed at all: How we refer to ourselves.

Instead, we’re being asked to indicate how strangers must speak in our absence.

Where’s this all going to land?

One thing’s for sure, we’re not set for simplicity.

Compared to the ways of yore — even more so now that NASA’s on board — where complication’s concerned, I’d say the sky’s the limit.

-ALEX

See more content from me:

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Find all my RedState work here.

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