Mick Hartley

From the Mail:

The National MS Society has defended firing a 90-year-old volunteer for breaching its diversity and inclusion policy after she asked what pronouns were.

Fran Itkoff had served the non-profit for multiple sclerosis patients for 60 years, with her late husband running the Long Beach Lakewood chapter prior to his death.

She was left stunned when her bosses forced her to step down on January 19 following an exchange with a colleague who asked her to use her pronouns in an email signatures.

This lot recently kicked out a 90yo woman who had volunteered for them for 60 years because she didn’t understand pronoun-use. This is their statement about ‘inclusivity’.
BTW MS affects four times as many women as men. It’s almost like the SEX of a person matters sometimes. 🙄 https://t.co/Uh5ulOafR8

— Jill Foster (@JournalistJill) February 16, 2024

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

That National Multiple Sclerosis Society statement:

For more than 75 years, the National Multiple Sclerosis Society has advanced one bold vision—a world free of MS. Through thousands of volunteers, dedicated staff, and generous donors, we live that vision every day. We welcome anyone to join us to advance that mission. As an organization, we firmly believe that we best serve and support those living with MS by creating a space that welcomes all. This is especially true for self-help group leaders, who are responsible for leading meetings for people affected by MS to confide in and support one another. 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.

Yep, they even name and shame. The tyranny of "inclusivity".