Last night, the ABC sitcom Abbott Elementary introduced a substitute second grade teacher who uses the "non-binary" fake pronoun "mx" with students.
In the episode, "Breakup," substitute teacher Cassidy Geoffrey (Sabrina Wu) fills in for Janine (Quinta Brunson), a second grade teacher who left to take a fellowship with the school district.
Cassidy is driving Abbott's other second grade teacher, Melissa (Lisa Ann Walter), crazy with her flighty, hair-brained behavior. She encourages the children in her classroom to scream as a group and yells in the air along with them. When Melissa asks her why she does this, Cassidy tells her, "Been using tactics I read in a book I heard. You know, sometimes it feels like I'm the one teaching them."
Cassidy also mistakenly refers to her teaching certificate as a "gift certificate." Melissa becomes convinced Cassidy must be lying about being a teacher. She calls Janine at the district to look up whether Cassidy is a legitimate substitute or a fraud.
Janine cannot find Cassidy in the district database, so Melissa and Janine confront Cassidy in her classroom.
Cassidy: Oh, hello Melissa and uh...
Janine: Your worst nightmare. The jig is up, Jeffrey. I actually work at the school district. And guess who isn't in the substitute database?
Cassidy: Who?
Janine: You.
Cassidy: I don't know what you're talking about. I've subbed all over Philly.
Melissa: Oh, yeah? What schools?
Cassidy: Washington. Jefferson. Roosevelt. McKinley. Roosevelt again.
Melissa: Okay. You're just naming presidents. You're out of here.
Janine: Yeah. I've searched every employment file that the district has, and there's no record of a Cassidy... Is it "Gee-oh-free"?
Cassidy: It's pronounced "Jeffrey."
Janine: But it isn't spelled that way, now, is it?
Up until this scene, there is little indication that Cassidy falls into any sort of invented gender category. She has a short haircut and androgynous clothes, but who cares? Her outfits are not out of the ordinary.
In many ways, kooky Cassidy is a perfect representative for the immature Tumblr madness of invented gender pronouns. "Mx," pronounced "mix," is gobbledygook that is being embraced by left-wing LGBTQUIA "educators." It confuses vulnerable young children in both grammar and human biology.
The episode at least refused to make Cassidy an idealized, perfect person, which is rare for LGBTQUIA television characters nowadays.
"If we took out those quirks [Cassidy's], it wouldn't be funny. It's hard to have people of certain identities presented as perfect because then what is there to laugh at?" episode writer Brittani Nichols told Entertainment Weekly.
Nonetheless, the episode's casual use of "Mx" on the blackboard further normalizes nonsense and wrongly perpetuates the idea that foisting adult gender confusion on early elementary school children is acceptable.
