Tyrannosaurus Sex?
SUE, a 40-foot long Tyrannosaurus rex whose fossil remains presided over the the Stanley Field Hall at Chicago’s Field Museum from 2000 to 2018, has recently attained social justice enlightenment. She, or he, is now woke, man (apologies, I should have used the non-gender offensive term “person”).
Anyhow, the Field’s administrators have decided to distort scientific understanding in pursuit of a political goal, by demanding that people use only gender-neutral pronouns for this fossil.
The dinosaur skeleton “Sue” was either male or female. We just don’t know which. This purposeful misunderstanding has now made its way into her new exhibit, opened on the museum’s upper level in December 2018. In a world where even some scientists claim — erroneously — that there is no such thing as biological sex, this sets a dangerous precedent.
In addition to misinforming visitors, the museum’s patronizing move in deeming SUE non-binary disrespects and misunderstands the very non-binary individuals it purports to help.
With apologies to SUE and her reptilian cousins, they simply don’t have enough going on in their minds to express gender non-binary identity. Not to mention, we do not know anything about the mind of an animal whose brain rotted away after the Great Flood.
In an interview with Them magazine, museum officials point out that Museum volunteers are asked to refer to Sue by her gender neutral pronouns, and that in Sue's online presence — mostly on Twitter — she is a "gender-neutral" persona. The bottom line? These “woke” liberals are more interested in teaching museum-goers about the trendy movement for acceptance of non-binary identity than about paleontology or science.
My suggestion is that if any civic agencies have so much spare time that they’re regulating the gender of dinosaur skeletons, that agency should immediately be eliminated, and its buildings used for something with measurable public benefit, such as laser tag.
Non-binary dinosaur skeleton gender identity.
Harumph!
****