Politico reports that in addition to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s push to “equity as a criterion in existing DOT grants,”
- His FAA has asked its Drone Advisory Committee for “recommendations on how it might use more gender-neutral language” eliminating words like ‘unmanned aircraft’ and ‘airman’.
- The head of the FAA’s drone integration office wants to see “the adoption of gender-neutral language…in aviation generally.”
- The FAA will also look at updating language throughout existing regulations to scrub gendered words.
The Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, in response to the prevailing winds, is looking at changing its own name though they haven’t come up with a replacement for ‘Unmanned’ yet.
How to prioritize cultural issues like language use is going to be a key challenge for the Biden administration, which just managed to pass the American Recovery Act in the Senate – a $1.9 trillion Christmas tree of Democratic Party priorities, many of which were only tenuously related to the pandemic at best – while Republicans preferred to focus on the sale of Dr. Seuss books.
Democrats got state pension bailouts by tying them to popular items like $1400 checks for most Americans. They will be tempted to change not just laws but American culture, eliminating exclusionary gendered language from the government and by those doing business with the government. However doing so likely trades off with the ability to push other legislative priorities, making life more difficult for the few Red State members of Congress in a close House and Senate.
The interplay between cultural priorities and legislative priorities will be an important theme of this administration. My own view is that there’s a brief window during which a new President can advance his agenda in a close Congress, before 2022’s elections become paramount. If Democrats lose control of either the House or Senate, that stalls legislative progress, but the cultural battles can still be fought on the executive front – so it may make sense to push those off a year. However doing so risks reducing the relative status of important activists within the party.
Surely, we have more pressing matters that should be addressed
Our tax dollars at work. On the other hand, the more energy our leaders spend on pointless but harmless activities the better. Because any substantial initiatives are more likely than not to backfire after people learn to game the system. So go ahead and give us NOTAP’s (Notices to Air Persons). Please.
Appealing to the social justice warriors. This is like the California school district that focused all their attention on renaming schools they deemed offensive instead of working to get kids back in school.
This is why Democrats will never dominate politics- this type of stuff turns off many people they will need in 2022. Oh well can’t wait until Nancy isn’t speaker
@AC
“this is why Democrats will never dominate politics”
I too agree that this stuff turns people off, but Dems are controlling the WH, Senate, and House, so they are doing something right
If anything is fraud, waste and abuse of tax payers money, time, resources and energy is this petty and stupid initiative. Besides people are going to call it what they want no matter how hard you try to shove it down their throats.
@Matt
“so they are doing something right”
I’d say they just suck a little less …
Stupid.
2022 mid-terms will be end up in a rout thanks to useless posturing like this. It’s embarrassing.
Here are some non-aviation related gender-neutral language the Biden administration should start using;
Joe Biden is now -> Smooth brained political person
Nancy Pelosi is now -> Brain free, circle talking automaton
Pete Buttigieg is now -> Official aviation thought leader
Chuck Schumer is now -> Nancy’s Glucose Guardian
Don’t these idiots have better things to do? <- that was rhetorical.
Catering to the 1%’s BS.
Throwing legitimate voters off the rolls, closing polling stations and making it harder for people to vote when they do show up are handy ways to make sure Democrats don’t win. However demographics are in their favor. Anyway, to look at the initial topic about 25 years ago I wrote the FAA and said that as a pilot I would like to see gender neutral language used in the regulations. They brushed this off as too complicated and unnecessary. Since then some aviation textbook authors have followed through on the idea. But I guess we had to wait for a new generation to get into the bureaucracy. Things change, but often not very fast…until suddenly a tipping point is reached and they flip.
It’s no surprise that Democrats are drunk with power. Like it or not, they were elected and they’re not wasting any opportunity to press their liberal agenda. I understand their appeal to certain segments, particularly minorities, gays, and unions. The Democrats have created a coalition whose primary focus is on their singular issues – for example, gays may be most concerned about their demands to have someone bake them a cake or to use the bathroom that is opposite their gender – they don’t see the big picture nor do they necessarily care about economic and other political issues. So long as these segments get what they want, they don’t care about what is necessarily good for the country as a whole – they just want what s most important to them.
Republicans also have to appeal to their party faithfuls, so it’s all in the game of politics. Who loses – is the moderate voter – the parties seem to only appeal to the fringes who scream the loudest.
The sad thing is that mayor Pete and the rest of the social justice warrior brigade truly don’t see this as “useless posturing”. This is what happens when the “enlightened” gain power. Forget taking care of things that actually matter and need fixing! Nah, just focus your effort (and in turn the American citizens’ tax dollars) on gender pronouns in the aviation industry. Yes, these are actually their priorities. That “unmanned aircraft” is not inclusive and thus discriminates. Absolutely ridiculous.
Some may say this will backfire in 2022 (and I hope it does), but sadly, there’s probably enough snowflakes out there that love the idea of “inclusive” terminology and will continue voting for these misplaced priorities.
Goodness…don’t they have more important and pressing issues to address??? Where do they find the time to worry about these things?
Don’t know whether to laugh or cry or both when I read this stuff. Where does it stop? Guess no more ‘manned space flight’ or ‘ladies & gentleman, this your captain speaking’ etc.
I think the government’s ability to multitask is better than the average social media user (that is us).
So someone at the FAA can work on changing language and someone else can regulate air safety. (Duh!)
Speaking as a democrat, only democrats would look at a word like “unmanned drone strike” and think, “This is an injustice that innocent people are getting hurt by our reckless actions, we need to fix this!” and then proceed to remove the word “unmanned”.
Going gender neutral – how dare they! This is an affront to our heritage or should that be hisitage. Oh I wish I was in the land of cotton.
Wow didn’t know you had such a right wing following. I’d rather they ungender the things that matter like boarding passes, but it’s a start.
What an absolutely stupid way to waste taxpayer money. There are certainly more important issues that should take our time and money.
Unbelievable!!! The Biden administration has insisted the sky is falling with this Wuhan virus. We know Biden can’t utter a coherent thought unaided, so his operatives are creating all this crap and moving his mouth for him. Aren’t there more pressing issues to address???
The world laughs at America.
Good grief, “airman” and “unmanned” aren’t gendered. They refer to pilots of both genders. Have we forgotten “man” also refers to homo sapiens…human…mankind. I’m a pilot, and though I’m a guy, I know of no female pilots who give two shakes about “NOTAM” or “unmanned” aircraft. I’m sure there are a few who are offended but they’re not the majority.
Most snowflake Republican triggering post to date I think
Can’t beat em – vote suppress em?
@RYan – I mean there are not many female pilots at all
Jeeze. What utter nonsense.
woMAN
woMEN
total idiocracy. Biden is a coward.
We are all men. huMAN
This is why I hate government and why we’d all be better off admitting we are totally incompatible. Every breath taken without independence from leftist tyranny is a breath taken with strain and disgust. Conservatives unfortunately always lose because they focus on the wrong priorities and don’t mobilize their control of the majority of counties in the country to say no to the feds at the local level. Conservatives worship cops when cops are literally the people enforcing leftist laws.
I wish conservatives woke up regarding the issue of abortion. 100% of the people getting abortions (outside of birth defects) are the same people who want to criminalize the incorrect use of pronouns and push this pc cultural nonsense on society. Abortion is evil/disgusting/reprehensible. It’s a good thing 100% of the people getting abortions are evil/disgusting/reprehensible. It’s a win win. Leftist genes are eliminated with every abortion. Conservatives would be wise as a matter of survival to oppose any abortion ban or limits on access whatsoever. Abortions literally save our daughters from being raped by thugs (who are aborted) and more of our freedoms taken away through tyranny of democracy.
What will a NOTAM turn into?
Aircrew.
Uncrewed aircraft.
There. Solved. What’s the next problem that needs to be fixed? I’ll tackle it in 3 seconds too.