Swedish medical authorities have just done a U-turn, recommending restraint on prescribing children “trans” drugs. In England, a major clinic providing such (Tavistock) is poised for closure and is the target of a class-action lawsuit. And people in general are leery of the MUSS (Made-up Sexual Status, aka “transgender”) agenda. But this hasn’t stopped Virgin Atlantic from going all-in on that agenda in “inclusivity’s” name — and boasting about it.
The Washington Times reported on the story Wednesday, writing that the “company announced its updated gender identity policy in a Tuesday press release, which will let LGBT employees of the airline choose between the bright red blazer and skirt formerly donned only by its female employees or the dark burgundy suit and tie that its male staff had worn exclusively before.”
The airline states that this “cements its position as the most inclusive airline in the skies,” is “part of an on-going drive to champion the individuality of its people and customers,” and is “complemented by the roll out of optional pronoun badges for all its people and those travelling with the airline.”
“Virgin Atlantic has also updated its ticketing systems to allow for those who hold passports with gender neutral gender markers to select ‘U’ or ‘X’ gender codes on their booking as well as the gender-neutral title, ‘Mx’” (take that, Latinx!), the company further explains.
Touting the policies, Juha Jarvinen, Virgin Atlantic’s chief commercial officer, said, it’s “so important that we enable our people to embrace their individuality and be their true selves at work. It is for that reason that we want to allow our people to wear the uniform that best suits them and how they identify and ensure our customers are addressed by their preferred pronouns.”
Good to know. If I fly Virgin, I’ll inform that my pronouns are Great One/Master/Possessor of All’s.
One matter unexplained in the release or the ensuing reportage, however, is, if “sex” is a continuum and should be subordinated to “gender,” and gender is a social construct, why is the airline retaining the standard of having two different uniform styles born of a bigoted era that subscribed to the notion of binary sex? Why not reach for the heavens of enlightenment and ditch the bright red blazer and skirt and the dark burgundy suit and tie in favor of a uniform, communist-like, olive-green outfit?
The answer may be that such uniformity is contrary to the imperative “self-expression,” and Virgin Atlantic did commission research finding that “allowing staff to embrace their individuality at work increases mental wellbeing (49%), feelings of happiness (65%) and creates a better experience for staff and customers (24%),” the company informs.
Yet, in truth, eight billion people’s expressive desires cannot be satisfied with a mere two options, or even within the ever-expanding “gender” category. What about, as an example, people who identify as clowns and experience a deep and abiding urge to dress like Bozo?
Then, just as social scientists (ahem!) define the strong sense of being stuck in the body of the “wrong” sex as “gender dysphoria,” so do they speak of “species dysphoria,” the sense that you’re an animal trapped in a human’s body. And what of these “people’s” (creatures’?) expressive desires?
Animals don’t wear clothes, after all, so perhaps flight attendants thus disposed should be allowed to work au naturel or, maybe, in just a doggy blanket. And don’t complain if one of them is begging next to your seat during the meal service. Tolerance is the order of the day, remember.
If any of this seems “over the top,” take a gander at the below Virgin Atlantic video — under which is stated, “Comments are turned off” (I wonder why!) — in which the company trumpets its new MUSS policies.
In reality, this is obviously a serious issue, as commentator Andrea Widburg explained Wednesday.
“I have my doubts about this claimed happiness,” she wrote, addressing the aforementioned “research” purporting to show that self-expression yields greater contentment. “If I see a bearded man in a dress behind the controls of the airplane, I’m going to start wondering whether he’s one of the so-called transgender people with a much higher [rate of] suicidal ideation than the general population. Suicidal airline pilots are a really bad idea [as ‘suicide by pilot’ is actually a thing]. And if you look at the people profiled in Virgin Airline’s proud announcement video [above], I don’t get happy vibes. I get narcissistic and weird vibes.”
But, hey, I bet Widburg believes in the sexual binary, too. And she may even suppose that the recent arrest of the Army’s first openly MUSS officer for trying to give secrets to the Russians may, anecdotally, point to the dangers posed by placing in sensitive positions those saddled with what were once called serious mental disorders.
Ours is a more enlightened time, however, one in which, under the Obama administration, people whose worst high-school subject was science, who were unemployed, and who played a lot of school sports were favored over licensed pilots for all-important air-traffic controller positions (because the controller corps is “too white”), according to this report. And upset that its pilots were excessively white, and too male, and prioritizing “diversity” over meritocracy, United Airlines announced last year its aim to train 5,000 pilots by 2030, half of them women and “people of color.”
As for expressing desires’ link to happiness, what if you’re a Virgin employee who identifies as someone who’s disgusted by the MUSS mess? Well, accommodations for such people were not mentioned in the company press release.
