Election 2024

Marjorie Taylor Greene says Nancy Pelosi’s ban on “gender pronouns & family names” is over

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene laughed at the suggestion that monkeypox is a global health threat
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) Photo: Screenshot

While the GOP has yet to get enough seats to know if they have a majority in the House of Representatives, one Republican from Georgia is already promising an end to the ban on “gender pronouns and family names” she claims was put in place by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

“Good news,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) tweeted. “I’ve read through the proposed @HouseGOP conference rules resolution for the 118th Congress and gender pronouns and family names are not banned like they are now under Nancy Pelosi.”

Her message may appear confusing at first, partly because last names and pronouns were never banned in Congress. And because no one is even advocating anything like a ban on last names. Also because many Republicans have made it a point to say that they hate the practice of sharing one’s pronouns and often say that they’re “against pronouns” as shorthand for that position.

It’s possible that what Greene was referring to was the House rules resolution passed by Congress in January 2021 that changed words used in the House’s Standing Rules to “honor all gender identities by changing pronouns and familial relationships in the House rules to be gender neutral.”

The resolution was the subject of exaggerations online, with conservatives saying that words like “brother” and “sister” were banned completely even though they were only changed in one document that the vast majority of Americans will never read. In fact, USA Today reported that the part about family relationships only applies to Clause 8(c)(3) of the Standing Rules, which defines what it means to be a “relative.”

But that didn’t stop the story from being abstracted and exaggerated online for years, despite even conservative media outlets like Fox News correctly explaining what happened.

That said, it’s possible that Greene believes that the expression “family names” refers to terms that describe family relationships and not what most people think family names are: last names. It’s also possible that she somehow missed the fact that gendered terms are used all the time in Congress, even though she has worked there for two years.

On Twitter, people expressed some confusion about what she was talking about, but mostly people told her that they didn’t think this was much of an accomplishment.

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