You don’t have to imagine a world where calling someone by the wrong gender pronoun could land you in legal hot water; you only have to imagine how soon it will affect you. According to a recent Newsweek survey, a startling number of millennials, those aged 25-34, think this should be the case. A whopping 44 percent of this group believe that misgendering should be punishable by law, easily overshadowing the 31 percent who disagree.
Even the slightly older age group, those aged 35-44, aren’t far behind, with 38 percent in favor of criminalizing misgendering, while 35 percent oppose it. The flames of this debate are fueled by the ongoing political tug-of-war over transgender rights, where Republican-led states are righteously introducing laws to save confused children from a sick culture that wants to pump them full of puberty blockers and cut off healthy body parts.