Washington Post Changes Fareed Zakaria Headline Instructing Democrats to ‘Forget Pronouns’ after Twitter Backlash

The Washington Post changed the headline of an opinion piece by Fareed Zakaria after facing intense backlash on Twitter over the suggestion that Democrats should “Forget Pronouns.”

The article was first posted on Thursday with the headline, “Forget Pronouns: Democrats need to become the party of building things,” and Zakaria shared the article on Twitter with the commentary that getting “stuff done” is “a lot more important to most Americans than using the right pronouns.”

Zakaria’s message was widely criticized, with many emphasizing the importance of respecting pronouns and paying attention to the needs of transgender people. Chasten Buttigieg, husband of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, wrote, “It is wildly inappropriate to instruct Democrats to toss aside an entire group of Americans in order to win.”

Others attacked Zakaria for focusing on the issue of pronouns and trans people without providing evidence it is actually preventing progress on other issues.

As of 5:00 p.m. ET on Friday, the headline of the article had changed and included no mention of pronouns in the title. It now simply reads, “Democrats need to become the party of building things.” Other than the headline, the text of the article remains the same and no editor’s note has been attached to explain the change of headline.

Zakaria defended his article, writing on Twitter, “I hope it is clear that I am NOT arguing against any minority groups. (I belong to several myself.) I am arguing against giving Republicans an easy way to demagogue and divert attention. If the Democrats are wiped out in the midterms, it will not help these embattled groups any!”

Mediaite reached out to the Washington Post for comment, but has not yet received a reply.

https://twitter.com/ParkerMolloy/status/1547897674317238272?s=20&t=7eWEbTtu8Zvv4UzNjVdoww