The Philadelphia Police Department, in yet another show of political correctness, is forcing its officers to lie. From The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Philadelphia police outline new transgender policy Updated: June 25, 2019 PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Philadelphia police must use a person’s chosen name and pronoun when interacting with someone who is transgender, regardless of what is listed on their government-issued identification card. The change is part of a new police department policy announced Tuesday that addresses how police should interact with transgender and non-binary people. Officials say the policy is meant to serve as a guide for unbiased day-to-day interactions with transgender and non-binary people, as well as those who are being detained or transported. Deputy Police Commissioner Joseph Sullivan says it’s intended “to ensure safe, supportive and respectful interactions” with city’s LGBTQ community. Other guidelines include transporting and housing transgender people separately from other prisoners, if possible, and ensuring transgender people can express a preference for the gender of the officer who searches them.

One wonders if officers will be disciplined for not addressing ‘transgendered’ people if the persons in question do not promptly state their preferences. And what happens if a ‘transgendered’ person has not legally changed his name; how is such a person to be booked, if arrested, if the name he prefers is not his legal name?

At some point, this silliness in lying about people is going to have real consequences. If Joe Blow is a convicted rapist, he’s going to be on the sex offender registry. If he decides he’s a woman, and calls himself Chelsea, people who are required to accept his chosen name aren’t going to find him on the sex offender registry. The policy requires housing ‘transgendered’ prisoners separately, if possible. What if it isn’t possible? What if the ‘transgendered’ prisoner insists that housing him separately is a violation of his rights? If some 200 lb guy being arrested tells police officers that he identifies as a woman, is he going to have to be locked up with 120 lb women? When a 135 lb female who insists that she is male gets arrested, will the officials in the City of Brotherly Love incarcerate her with a bunch of 220 lb not-very-nice men?

Does it really require that much imagination to foresee potential negative consequences here?

When political correctness clashes with common sense, situations such as those I’ve suggested are going to arise; when the political leadership — and make no mistake here: the Philadelphia Police Commissioner is a political appointee and very much a political animal — takes decisions based on political correctness when common sense dictates otherwise, some very bad things will happen.

It’s not a question of if, but when.

At some point, someone is going to get raped or killed because elected politicians or political appointees has taken a decision to treat the ‘transgendered’ as though they really are the sex they claim to be, and not the sex they actually are. We already have actual physicians who say that men males can get pregnant, and real women being trounced by males claiming to be female in athletic competitions, and men males claiming to identify as female caught taking photos of girls in dressing rooms.

Sadly, we may need a real martyr, someone killed because the loony left, when in power, go along with the delusions of the ‘transgendered’ — or those claiming to be ‘transgendered’ for a nefarious purpose — before the ‘Social Justice Warriors,’ SJWs, realize that their positions are inherently stupid. And even then, such might not happen.

If someone is so mentally ill that he doesn’t know what sex he is, or believes that he is a different sex from that which his physiology shows, we can, and should, have sympathy for him. But having sympathy for his plight does not, and should not, mean that we ought to go along with his delusions, that we ought to treat him, in a legal sense, as anything other than what he is rather than what he claims to be.¹ Rather, common sense and the good order of society require that we tell the truth, and classify ‘transgendered’ individuals as the sex that they are, not what they wish to be. That the city of Philadelphia, and especially its Police Department, are going along with the delusions of the ‘transgendered’ can only result in negative consequences.

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¹ – Please note that the use of the masculine pronouns here do not assume that the person to whom they refer is male. The stylebook of my website, The First Street Journal, notes that when an individual is not identified the masculine pronouns are appropriate, and do not somehow assume that the person referred to is specifically male.

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