Posted by 
To the Editor,
Sailing Anarchy,
San Diego CA
Dear Sir,
It falls to me, as World Sailing Executive Vice-President for Gender Equity and Sexual Diversity, to respond to your offensive commentary on the Gender Design Survey initiative recently announced by the World Sailing Trust.
This may be a matter for derision among the male heterosexual sailing community but for those of us who make a handsome living inventing meaningless issues and then attending all-expenses-paid conferences around the world to promote them, these are issues of considerable significance.
Let me provide one example: the term “Man Overboard”. This is plainly insulting to any sailor who does not identify as “male”.
The obvious replacement – “Person Overboard” – appears adequate until we consider its acronym, “PoB”. This could be confused with “Persons on Board”, which is required in the Owner’s Declaration before any offshore event.
The World Sailing Trust now proposes a new term: “Lesbian/Gay/Bi-sexual/Transgender/Intersex/Queer/Asexual Person Overboard”. This might take a little longer to say than the previous hail, however, as the person drowns they will have the comfort of knowing they were not demeaned by any slight on their current sexual identity or preferences…
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