In the stupidity known as political correctness, the plural pronouns have been used to refer to a single individual who requests them. because such person is “non-binary” or makes some other idiotic claim. For anyone with an understanding of the English language, such can be jarring to read.

Fayette County inmate says they were sexually assaulted in jail. Officials investigating

by Christopher Leach | Friday, October 7, 2022 | 9:03 AM EDT | Updated” 4:56 PM EDT

An investigation is underway after an inmate reported being sexually assaulted by another inmate at the Fayette County Detention Center, a jail spokesperson confirmed Friday.

The victim reported the incident to a corrections officer Wednesday afternoon, said Maj. Matt LeMonds from Lexington’s Department of Community Corrections. The inmate told the corrections officer they were the victim of a sexual assault committed by another inmate.

“The Division of Community Corrections and the Lexington Police Department are actively investigating this incident and criminal charges have been filed,” LeMonds said in an email to the Herald-Leader.

LeMonds didn’t give specific information on how jail staff responded to the incident but said the jail does have protocol in place for when a sexual assault occurs.

“I can’t speak to specifics as far as the individuals involved in this incident, but in the event of an alleged sexual assault we do transport the victim to a local area hospital for a proper examination,” LeMonds said. “The alleged offender would also be subject to internal disciplinary sanctions in addition to criminal charges.”

You can read more of the story here.

Like so many other municipalities, Lexington is experience staffing shortages, and the alleged incident occurred while one of the corrections officers was on break.

This is really laughable. Prisoners are segregated by sex, so the use of the plural pronoun “they” to refer to the allegedly assaulted inmate is a silly way for the Herald-Leader to try to conceal what we all know anyway: the alleged sexual assault was a homosexual sexual assault.

It could, I suppose, be a reference to a victim who claimed to be “non-binary,” but the victim would still have been placed in custody in the prison which matched his biological status, and the article made no reference to the victim being non-binary.

In English, properly understood, the masculine subsumes the feminine, and in a situation in which the specific individual to whom a pronoun refers is unknow, the masculine pronouns are properly used, and do not imply that the person is male. For weaker minds, the writer, Christopher Leach, could have reconfigured his sentences to avoid the use of pronouns, but he did not do so. It is possible that the Fayette County Detention Center did not specify the sex of the inmates involved, but that is no excuse for the rotten grammar in the article.