The People's Cube - Political Satire
"Naval Station Norfolk, VA -- The United States Navy has contracted experts to determine the preferred genders of all its nautical vessels.
"For millenia, mariners have assumed ships and boats were female and referred to them as "she/her." As the world becomes more aware that people are actually whatever gender they happen to be thinking of at the moment, a nearly universal outcry erupted that we are assuming the genders of all sorts of objects.
"Despite initial objections from some high-ranking Trump era holdovers, the Navy has decided that now is the time to come into 21st century thinking by figuring out what gender each ship actually would prefer to be. This is a new field, but experts from top US universities soon stepped up and were promptly hired.
" 'Aside from the fact that it is naturally just sexist and homophobic, it is also illogical." says Dr. Indigo Yehuda, a gender studies expert from Brown University who is working on this effort. "We've been assuming since, like, forever that all ships are female, right? But think about it - all ships can't be female, because then where would the little baby ships come from, like that rowboat over there? Duh."
"It is expected to take between 2-5 years and cost approximately $123M to fully understand the preferred genders of every vessel in the US Naval fleet. But the US Navy is committed and knows that someday, in the words of one Admiral who preferred to remain unidentified, "when you talk about one of our ships, you'll feel confident you won't offend it or anyone else around by referring to it by the wrong pronoun.' "