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New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signs new law banning ‘gendered language’ for professions. Priorities.

August 20, 2022 | | Print Article

Though she’s refused to do much of anything about the state’s glaring cashless bail problem, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul was able to set aside some time this week  to tackle the issue of gendered language in state laws …

Specifically, the governor signed a series of bills that ban state laws from using gendered language as it pertains to professions/jobs.

Meaning, for instance, that no longer can sales laws reference “salesmen.” They must instead reference “salespeople.”

“Jobs have no gender, but unfortunately, many of our state’s laws still use gendered language when discussing professions that are practiced by people of all genders,” state Sen. Anna Kaplan, one of the two legislators who sponsored this particular bill, said in a statement.

“People of all professions deserve to feel valued, but gendered language in our real property law fails to adequately recognize the contributions of women and non-binary New Yorkers,” co-sponsor Assembly Member Danny O’Donnell added.

“We want our workplaces to reflect the diversity of New York, and the best way to achieve that goal is by making sure all realtors feel that they belong and the profession is accessible. I thank Senator Kaplan for her leadership on this issue, and I am pleased that Governor Hochul has signed this important measure into law.”

Another bill similarly replaces the word “councilman” with “council member,” while yet a third bill, this one pushed by state Sen. Roxanne Persaud, reportedly replaces the terms “mentally retarded” with “developmentally disabled.”

“There is no place for the ‘R’ word in our vocabulary and certainly not in our laws,” Persaud reportedly said.

There’s reportedly also a fourth bill that replaces “inmate” with “incarcerated person,” because not stigmatizing the criminal lifestyle is apparently important.

These, it appears, are the priorities of New York lawmakers …

As well as the priorities of Hochul, who signed these bills into law.

New York Republicans, for their part, think their Democrat colleagues have lost their minds.

“Welcome to Democrat-controlled New York … Where the ‘incarcerated individuals’ are running the asylum,” Michael Fraser, a spokesman for Republican Assembly Minority Leader William Barclay, reportedly said earlier this month.

Or put more precisely, welcome to Democrat-controlled New York, where legislators are willing to jump through hoops to protect people’s feelings but have very little to no interest in enacting laws to protect people’s safety.

The signing of these bills comes amid an unprecedented crime wave thanks to the cashless bail policies pushed by the state’s lawmakers.

And while the wave has affected everybody, it’s hit minorities — Democrats’ ostensible favorite special interest group that they purport to care so much about — the hardest.

“While African-American and Hispanic Americans only make up 48% of New York City’s population, unfortunately, they are disproportionately the victims of crime brought on by bail reform, which also then increased as a result of bail reform, as demonstrated below,” according to the American Bail Coalition.

“The combination of African-American and Hispanic Americans in New York City represent 90.7% of homicide victims, 96.9% of shooting victims, 73.2% of rape victims, and 79.8% of robbery victims to name a few. Even in misdemeanors, such victims disproportionately bear the brunt of these progressive criminal justice reform policies.”

Take Jesus Cortes, a 52-year-old Hispanic man who’s currently in a coma after having been knocked out by a convicted sex offender who was subsequently freed without bail.

The release of suspect Van Phu Bui provoked so much backlash that Hochul decided to personally intervene and demand that he be re-arrested for a parole violation.

“Our team has been in contact with the Bronx District Attorney’s Office to talk about the actual charges that were filed, because under the laws that we’ve strengthened to support keeping people off the street who are dangerous, we want to make sure that our laws are being properly executed. But I took action in my own hands,” she said in a statement Friday.

“I directed the Department of Corrections and community supervision to immediately examine whether or not this parole violation occurred. Yes, it did. You could tell it occurred. This was a person on lifetime parole, and as of minutes ago, that person is now in custody. That is at my direction. The people of New York need to know that as their governor, I’ll stand up and protect them.”

But, as noted by her critics, Phu wouldn’t have been released in the first place if Hochul and the state’s legislators weren’t so busy policing language versus pursuing laws that make it harder — not easier — to be a criminal in the state of New York.

Vivek Saxena
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