Pronouns, pepper spray and a meltdown at a mall

A meltdown over a pronoun reignites the culture war

Political correctness has reached a point of no return: an incident at a shopping mall where a security guard got a blue-haired person's pronouns wrong ended with pepper spray, a meltdown and the police on the scene. However, the details of the altercation reveal a conflict more complex than a simple linguistic slip.

According to accounts circulating on social media, the person, probably non-binary, reacted disproportionately after being addressed with a pronoun that did not match their self-identified gender. The guard, in an attempt to control the situation, used a pepper spray that proved ineffective — perhaps expired or faulty — adding an almost comic element to the tension. The episode has served as ammunition for two camps: those who see an example of the tyranny of political correctness, and those who argue that respect for gender identity should come above all else.

While some maintain that a guard's mistake does not justify a meltdown, others argue that the trans law (Spain's 2023 gender self-identification law) protects the right to be treated according to one's felt gender. The reality is that neither the rules nor security protocols are prepared for these situations. Staff training and the quality of riot-control equipment (judging by the failed spray) leave much to be desired.

Conflicts of this kind will probably multiply as long as the rules remain unclear. Or perhaps not: society may be reaching the limit of its tolerance for identity radicalization. Time, and the courts, will tell.