The Virginia House of Delegates has been around for almost 400 years (including the 157 years it was known as the House of Burgesses), and during all that time, there is no record of members referring to one another as anything but “gentleman” and (more recently) “gentlewoman.”
When first heard, it can seem odd that members of the nation’s oldest deliberative body would address one another with such antiquated-sounding honorifics. When the House speaker recognizes a member to speak on a bill, he (no women have yet been elected speaker in Virginia) calls on “the gentleman from Giles County” or “the gentlewoman from Richmond” and so forth. When engaging in spirited disagreements about legislation, members use this title to address one another in the third person while directing all of their arguments to the speaker. The use of what is essentially a forced compliment has been credited by historians as a way to impose civility on otherwise heated debates.
But with the GOP in charge (for the moment) of the Virginia House and the commonwealth’s first transgender lawmaker about to join the chamber, Republicans aren’t going to let concerns about civility and almost 400 years of tradition get in the way of pandering to their transphobic base.
In an announcement he perhaps thought would get lost amid pre-Thanksgiving hubbub last Tuesday, House Republican Leader Kirk Cox (who thinks he’s going to be the next speaker, but if any of the three remaining House elections slated for recounts or potentially more drastic action go Democrats’ way, he definitely won’t be) revealed that, should the GOP maintain control of the chamber next session, lawmakers will no longer be referred to as “gentlemen” and “gentlewomen” from their given jurisdiction. Instead, all members will be addressed gender-neutrally as “delegate.”
The coincidence of the GOP leader throwing out centuries of tradition as he’s about to seat Danica Roem, Virginia’s first transgender legislator, is far too contrived to be considered innocent. Cox claims he’s been considering the change since “shortly after he was chosen as the party’s designee for speaker”—last February. The notion that no hint or rumor of this drastic departure leaked from him or his fellow Republicans in the intervening nine months strains credulity beyond reasonable limits.
Virginia Republicans’ refusal to acknowledge that Danica Roem is a woman was made clear on the campaign trail, when the state party paid for direct mail that referred to her using male pronouns. Cox’s Republican colleagues—who have decried shifts toward “political correctness” and gender-neutrality in the past—are delighted by the fact that they won’t have to address Roem with female honorifics.
Democratic lawmakers have rightly attacked the GOP’s move to reject Roem’s identity as a woman, as well as the rejection of centuries of traditional civility, as the transphobic garbage it is. But unless Democrats can deny the GOP a House majority by winning one of the impending recounts, they’re powerless to stop this change.
But you can help: Contribute $3 now to help Democrats win these recounts and block a Republican majority in Virginia.