Over the past couple of years, there have been a number of columns by pundits wondering what the late atheist Christopher Hitchens would have made of the world he left behind ten years ago. The infamously acerbic atheist was an opponent of both religion and political correctness who revered Orwell’s writing on the English language, and he did not suffer fools gladly.
I wonder how he would have suffered the transgender movement. I thought of him when I stumbled across an article in the Daily Mail recently. Hitchens used to open his events by saying “Good evening brothers and sisters, comrades and friends” — a line so characteristic it was delivered sardonically and to chuckles at the end. If the trans activists have their way, however, his famous opener might have landed him in hot water.
According to the Mail, a train operator with the London North Eastern Railway has been rebuked after a “non-binary passenger who goes by the Twitter name Laurence and uses the pronouns they them” complained that the conductor had used an offensive greeting. Apparently, he had welcomed commuters by saying: “Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls.” Laurence, livid, promptly tweeted at London North Eastern Railway to complain about this: “[A]s a non binary person this announcement doesn’t actually apply to me so I won’t listen @LNR.”
