Use ‘Ze’ or Get Hit with $250,000 Fine

It sounds incredible. But it is very, very real.

Why must everyone else bend and conform to the “preferences” of such a small minority of people?

New York City has issued guidelines requiring employers and landlords in the Big Apple to use the pronouns “ze” and “hir” when referring to transgender workers and tenants who request the use of those pronouns. If those demands are not met, the employers and landlords can be slapped with fines as high as $250,000.

“Penalties of up to $250,000 can be imposed for violations that are deemed to be the result of malicious intent,” noted the New York Post about these developments.

Here’s the black-and-white print, straight from the New York City Commission on Human Rights, which updated these guidelines late last year: “The NYCCHR requires employers and covered entities to use an individual’s preferred name, pronoun and title (e.g., Ms./Mrs.), regardless of the individual’s sex assigned at birth, anatomy, gender, medical history, appearance, or the sex indicated on the individual’s identification.”

“Preferred” is the operative word here.

If a transgender individual “prefers” the use of “ze” or “hir,” as opposed to he/him/his or she/her/hers — the employer must use that preferred pronoun.

Related: Court Caves to Transgender Pressure

But how is that transgender individual going to convey that “preference”? And why must everyone else bend and conform to the “preferences” of such a small minority of people? And why must there be edicts issued about these developments and then financial penalties attached to this as well? Is this not local government overreach at its most egregious?

The Obama administration, of course, recently released its “bathroom decree,” in which every public school district in the U.S. and other educational institutions must allow transgender students to use the restroom that corresponds with their chosen gender identities — or potentially lose federal funding. Every day, it seems, new guidelines or decrees on handling gender identity issues are issued, crowding out far weightier concerns.

New York City, for its part, said the accidental misuse of a transgender person’s preferred pronoun would not be unlawful and would not be subject to a fine. The updated regulations are intended to address “situations in which individuals intentionally and repeatedly target transgender and gender non-conforming people with this type of harassment,” the commission’s spokesperson, Seth Hoy, told LifeZette on Thursday.

This article has been updated.