Samuel Hoffenstein published ‘Poems in Praise of Practically Nothing’ in 1928. I kind of fell into his attitudes as a high school student. In it was a section titled ‘Love songs – at once tender and informative’:
Breaths there a man with hide so tough, who says two sexes aren’t enough?
I thought of that brief poem when I read of a 78-year-old man in British Columbia, who the BC Human Rights Tribunal fined $750,000 for the crime of insisting that there are only two sexes. Barry Neufeld is appealing his sentence – but it is worth remembering that he made his offensive comment while he was a school trustee.
Obviously, saying that two sexes aren’t enough offends someone in British Colombia. I’m fairly certain that the BC Human Rights Tribunal is based in western BC, and that I would be fairly safe if I quoted Hoffenstein in Grasmere, or even Fernie.
I wonder how it is that political correctness trumps biology. I guess we have to admit that law is a social construct, and it has been constructed a bit differently north of the 49th parallel. There, we find the answer to Hoffenstein’s doggerel – somewhere in Vancouver, By the Sea, there “Breaths there a man with hide so tough, who says two sexes aren’t enough?” I’m glad he isn’t in Helena.
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