un-civilisation

The Linguistic Collapse of Late-Stage Civilisation

20 February 2026

4.3 MINS

A sharp critique of media language on gender identity, arguing that when words are bent to fit ideology, clarity collapses — and with it, public trust and eventually, civilisation.

The only way trans ideology survives is by doing what every doomed regime eventually does: rewriting the dictionary before it rewrites reality.

When reality refuses to cooperate, you simply declare war on nouns.

Take this introduction from a Herald-Sun article during the week:

Prison authorities were warned not to transfer a transgender murderer to a women’s prison amid warnings they would sexually assault another prisoner if moved.

A transgender murderer?

It’s the sort of phrase that makes English quietly weep in a corner.

Rewriting Reality by Rewriting Words

What exactly is a transgender murderer? A person who transitions mid-homicide? And transitions into what?

The clue is buried in the warning. Authorities were told not to move the “transgender murderer” to a women’s prison because of the risk of sexual assault.

Now, if the murderer were a woman, there would be no particular controversy about placing her in a women’s prison.

That’s generally how prisons work.

You put women with women. Men with men. It’s one of the last places civilisation still acknowledges biology – or did.

So, clearly, the murderer is a man.

But journalists — whether cowed by the mob or marching in step with it — cannot say this.

And so they contort the English language like a medieval monk on a rack, until words confess to things they never meant.

Pronouns, Prisons and Public Safety

Look again at the Herald-Sun introduction:

Prison authorities were warned not to transfer a transgender murderer to a women’s prison amid warnings THEY would sexually assault another prisoner if moved.

They?

Who is they?

The word “they” suggests multiple transgendered murderers roaming the corridors like a homicidal barbershop quartet.

Of course, there is only one. And he is a he.

But we cannot say “he.” The word is forbidden.

So he becomes “they.” Singular becomes plural. Clarity becomes fog. Grammar commits ritual suicide.

We are watching the slow-motion collapse of linguistic coherence — and with it, civilisation itself.

Rome had bread and circuses. We have pronouns … and journalists wearing clown suits.

The Herald-Sun article goes on to explain that prison guards warned higher-ups that allowing a man — who identified as a woman — into a women’s prison would be a disaster.

The guards knew what was what. Biology has a way of asserting itself, particularly in confined spaces.

Tiptoeing About

But when speaking to the media, listen carefully to how the prison guards described the man they warned about.

“She was allowed to come into the staff office to shop online for underwear and makeup. She demanded to be allowed to swim in the male prison pool in a bikini. She threw fits if prison bosses got her the wrong colour scrunchies.”

Wait.

Is “she” the “he” prison guards warned officials about?

We are now in a world where a man in a bikini demanding the correct scrunchie colour is treated as a matter of identity, not irony.

Later in the article, we read:

“There was a big meeting with management and I said ‘please don’t send this person… it will be a matter of time before they assault someone’,” they said.

This person?

They?

Everyone knows we are talking about a man. Everyone. The guards. The bureaucrats. The journalists. The readers. Even the scrunchies probably know.

But no one may say “he.”

So he becomes “she.” Or “they.” Or “this person.” We are reduced to linguistic charades, gesturing at truth without ever naming it.

And these are not activists fresh from a gender studies seminar. These are prison guards; people who deal in hard realities, not faculty lounge fantasies.

When even the prison guards speak in riddles, you know the empire is late-stage.

Tongue Twisters

Speaking of riddles, even trans activists sometimes forget which linguistic acrobatics they’re performing.

Have a listen to US Democrat Tim McBride — the first trans member of Congress — who just this week accidentally referred to himself as someone others use as a bogeyman.

“They take bogeymen, or in this case bogeypeople, and they blame them.”

Bogeypeople?

Somewhere under a pile of discarded grammar textbooks lies the corpse of the English language, clutching its red pen in despair.

What is a bogeypeople?

Is it singular?

Plural?

A Halloween costume?

It must be exhausting — never being able to let your guard down. Never being able to speak plainly. Living in constant fear that reality might slip out of your mouth and ruin the narrative.

But the charade must continue. And everyone plays their part.

Not Grandma

Remember little Gus Lamont, who went missing in South Australia in September?

Last week, police arrested one of his grandparents on firearms charges. Listen carefully to the Nine News report:

We are told the little boy’s “GRANDMOTHER” was arrested.

The ABC reported the same:

“Yesterday, police arrested and charged Gus’s GRANDMOTHER, 75-year-old Josie Murray, with firearm offences they say are not linked to the boy’s disappearance.

“The GRANDMOTHER is expected to appear in the Peterborough Magistrates Court in May.”

And here’s the headline in the Adelaide Advertiser:

Police charge 75yo GRANDMOTHER Josie Murray with firearm offences after returning to Yunta station in search for missing boy Gus Lamont

The article begins:

Police searching for toddler Gus Lamont have arrested and charged his GRANDMOTHER, Josie Murray, with firearm offences

A couple of paragraphs later, we read:

After taking 75-year-old MS Murray, of Grampus, into custody, detectives from Task Force Horizon – which is investigating the case – charged HER and SHE was then bailed to appear in the Peterborough Magistrates Court in May.

It’s not until 13 paragraphs into the article — if you made it that far — that the read stumbles upon this little detail:

A day after the disappearance was declared a major crime, Gus’s grandparents, Josie, a TRANSGENDER WOMAN, and Shannon Murray, broke their silence, issuing an official joint statement.

So police had not charged a grandmother at all. They had charged a granddad. Or perhaps a transdad?

A cheap joke. I apologise.

But here’s the darker truth beneath the humour:

When a society can no longer describe a prisoner, a politician, or a grandparent in plain English, that society is not merely being polite. It is severing itself from reality.

And civilisations that sever themselves from reality do not endure.

They don’t fall because someone misused a pronoun.

They fall because they decided grammar was negotiable and truth was unnecessary.

If only our politicians, officials and media would apologise.

Not for the jokes. For the lies.

___

Republished with thanks to The James Macpherson Report.

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3 Comments

  1. 749bc8306c94f576b694c23139674823619cc45e9feaaf3a15e8c21a1f319f39?s=54&d=mm&r=g
    Stephen Ireland 20 February 2026 at 9:16 am - Reply

    Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.
    .
    George Orwell, Language & Politics, 1946

    • a9294bc051143ecec2086c93a39b84e0ee0eaedeb0879b7fc145cdb11363e236?s=54&d=mm&r=g
      Kate 20 February 2026 at 7:06 pm - Reply

      So beautifully articulated.

  2. 44e01ecdadff427ffa7e4ad8d52e476ed37c1879476041c9a6f85726f3093143?s=54&d=mm&r=g
    Rae Bewsher 20 February 2026 at 9:21 am - Reply

    A sad article James. Very thought provoking.

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