Megyn Kelly just clashed with New York Times contributor Benjamin Ryan over the use of pronouns, the latest chapter in the former Fox News star’s dramatic evolution from early supporter to fierce critic of so-called “preferred pronoun” usage.
Ryan posted on X that “misgendering is cruel and rude, no matter how many edge cases or straw man arguments people can come up with to try to assert otherwise.”
Kelly responded with a lengthy rebuttal to Ryan’s claims.
“It is not rude or cruel to say what’s real and true or to refuse to participate in another person’s delusion,” Kelly wrote. “Going along w/preferred pronouns is dangerous – it forces us to cede entire arguments about who can play in which sporting event, disrobe in which locker room and enter into which prison before we’ve even made our case. (‘She’ can’t play in women’s sports makes no sense; HE can’t do it makes everything clear.)”
Kelly instead claimed that preferred pronouns serve a broader purpose beyond politeness.
“Preferred pronouns are meant to dull our senses to get us accustomed to the gender-bending lies we are being told – it’s an effort to override instincts that are there for good reason … including, for women, their own safety,” the conservative commentator wrote.
“It can literally be a matter of life and death for a girl to learn to listen to her own instincts about when a man is present. Teaching her to force herself to lie about that is teaching her to dull her gift of fear.”
“Don’t let a man like Benjamin tell you that you are rude or cruel if you stand up for reality as well as your, your daughter’s, and all of our daughters’ safety,” Kelly claimed.
Overall, it represents a dramatic shift for Kelly from earlier views. In a June 2023 monologue on her podcast, Kelly revealed she was “an early proponent of using preferred pronouns as far back as the early 2000’s.”
“Of saying ‘she’ when I knew the truth was ‘he.’ It seemed harmless and I had no wish to cause offense. Trans people were tortured enough, it seemed to me, by nature of their dysphoria and society’s disdain for them in general. So I complied. I went along with it,” Kelly said in 2023. “I didn’t see the harm.”
Kelly described her support for transgender access to bathrooms in 2016 while covering the issue from the news desk.
“How does it affect our lives as women if here or there a trans person uses a stall in our bathroom? These people aren’t bothering anyone – why wouldn’t we accommodate them?” she recalled thinking.
During her time at NBC in 2018, Kelly said she “smiled and listened politely as a guest told me ‘gender is just a social construct.'”
Her shift began around 2020 when she started The Megyn Kelly Show podcast and became aware of what she viewed as concerning trends.
“When I slipped and said the trans girls were ‘biological males,’ this person told me that was offensive. I explained that it was an attempt at clarity but began to re-think the language policing. Why did I have to deny reality in order to be polite?” Kelly said.
By 2023, Kelly said she had reached a definitive conclusion about pronoun usage.
“For these reasons, I have resolved to base my conversations around gender on the same tenets that already govern my life: truth and reality. I will not use preferred pronouns, a decision motivated by a growing alarm over women’s rights and the safety of children,” she declared.
“They say pronouns are a gateway drug. They open the door to these lies that lead to real harm to real females. They’re a clever rhetorical trick that forces you to cede the argument about women’s spaces before you’ve even spoken one word of substance.”
Reflecting on her journey in 2023, Kelly said she regretted her earlier position.
“But I will not take this gateway drug anymore. Because I have a daughter. Because I am a woman – an adult human female. Because for far too long, I failed to see the harm and therefore helped cause it.”