– Giuliano Guzzo
Airlines for America, the oldest and largest airline association, has decided that in flight booking procedures, customers will be able to select from among three options: “male,” “female” and “unspecified.” Against common sense.
After getting into schools, in universities, on television, the gender theory could perhaps spare the world of airline companies? Of course not. Thus, to a certain extent, it is true, though sad – the news that gender ideology (according to which the existence of males and females is only a heteronormative belief with patriarchal veins) is about to take flight. The day of take-off is scheduled for June 1, 2019 and will take place thanks to Airlines for America which, for those who do not know, is the oldest association of airlines and also the largest, since – at present – it includes nine.
What will happen exactly? During the flight booking procedure, customers will be able to select the so-called gender identity in which they are most identified. Apparently, the options available will be three: “male,” “female” and “unspecified.” Each company in the group can decide how to introduce this novelty, but it seems that United Airlines will proceed as soon as possible, followed by Alaska Airlines, American Airlines and Southwest Airlines. For a change, this has been presented as an epochal and naturally inclusive turning point. “US airlines,” reads a note from Airlines for America from the New York Times, “are for a culture of diversity and inclusion, both at work and for our passengers, which is why we work hard every day. to meet the needs of all travelers, offering a safe, secure and pleasant flying experience” (editor’s translation from Italian).
As expected, the news was welcomed with great enthusiasm by the LGBT world, which greeted it as a necessary step forward because, to date, “non-binary” people have to face unnecessary, invasive and discriminatory controls by airlines, airports and security services. What exactly these “unnecessary, invasive and discriminatory controls” are is not known.
What is evident, however, is how the inclusion of a “third” sex in the forms to book an air flight has profound implications both of an ethical and, if we look closely, sociological nature. In fact, as pointed out by the philosopher Daniel Moody, the introduction of an X or an “unspecified” in the bureaucratic sphere is anything but innocent and neutral. For a simple reason: it determines the devaluation of “male” and “female” that, from alternative and complementary expressions of sexual identity (with respect to which only pathological exceptions exist), become mere variants, ways of being with respect to which gender X or, in fact, “unspecified,” assumes the same identical dignity.
It would therefore be tremendously naïve to believe that those to extend the rights of some, leaves the rights of all others unaltered. It is not like that at all. The reason was mentioned earlier: these are decisions that at first sight seem soft, apparently innocent, but which contribute to deforming the values of a society and determine the disruption of decisive anthropological foundations.
If we say that we can be “male,” “female” or “unspecified,” we are also saying that we can be men, women or “unspecified;” fathers, mothers or “unspecified” without then changing anything. With the result that to take a flight – to end who knows where – is, unfortunately, common sense.
(From La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana, 2019©AP. Used with permission)