On this episode of Keeping Up With The Clown World we head out to California where an elderly woman was asked to step down from her decades-long position as a volunteer at the National Multiple Sclerosis Society because she didn't understand why people were attaching pronouns to their email signatures. Yes, that's how far we've come with this confusion.
For the record, This woman's husband ran the Long Beach Lakewood MS support group before he died in the early 2000s. Fran Itkoff's husband had MS, and you have to think he was the inspiration behind her volunteer work. Well, not anymore.
An elderly volunteer for the National Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Society was told to step down from her position because she 'did not understand pronouns,' according to an interview with Chaya Raichik of Libs of TikTok.
Fran Itkoff, 90, said she had been volunteering for the organization in her home state of California for about six decades before she was told to stop. She said she received multiple awards over that time and was generally commended for her hard work and dedication, but her failure to 'abide by [the MS Society's] Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion guidelines' resulted in her dismissal.
During the interview, Itkoff said she "was confused," and "didn't know what it was and what it meant" when she was asked by a colleague to put her pronouns in her email signature. She said she'd seen pronoun signatures in a few emails, but wasn't sure what was going on.
Think about it, you've seen these pronoun signatures too. They're confusing. Like, why am I seeing pronouns after your name? It honestly makes no sense, and I'm not even a 90-year-old woman. But in today's world, even if you're a 90-year-old woman, you have to know about pronouns; or else you'll get dropped by the MS Society and stripped of your life's work.
Here's what seems to have gotten Fran released from the MS Society:
For being confused and asking a question!
I had seen it on a couple of letters that had come in after the person's name — they had the pronouns but I didn't know what that meant. So finally when I was talking to her, I thought I'll ask what does it mean and let her tell me, and she said that it meant they were all-inclusive, which didn't make sense to me because it sounds like you are labeling for females, not males, if you are just putting in she/her.
And that's allegedly what prompted this email:
I hope this email finds you well. We appreciate your dedication and contribution as a Self-Help Group Leader with our organization
As we discussed earlier during our phone conversation, after a thorough review of our guidelines and standards, it has come to our attention that there has been a failure to abide by our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion guidelines during your time as a volunteer. Unfortunately. based on the situation we have made the difficult decision to have you step down from your volunteer position, effective immediately.
Crazy times, and I have to say I'm feeling much like Libs of TikTok right now.
Here's a look at the people who make decisions like this:
And here's part of that statement from the National MS Society:
Recently, a volunteer, Fran Itkoff, was asked to step away from her role because of statements that were viewed as not aligning with our policy of inclusion. Fran has been a valued member of our volunteer team for more than 60 years. We believe that our staff acted with the best of intentions and did their best to navigate a challenging issue. As an organization, we are in a continued conversation about assuring that our diversity, equity and inclusion policies evolve in service of our mission, and will reach out to Fran in service of this goal.
Bro, stop the world and let me off. It's too much for me.
You can't even continue a 60-year run as a volunteer unless you abide by the pronoun laws.
So incredibly backwards. So incredibly Clown World.
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