Claims Damage Was Devastating And Demeaning
Hurricane Milton, a category 5 storm that struck central Florida in October of 2024, sued the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration today in Federal Court for damages that resulted from misgendering. “They knew I was a guy and they still called me a Hurricane. It was devastating. I was traumatized. I was so hurt I couldn’t even speak for the whole week I was in Florida. I didn’t know what to say to my friends and family” said Milton.
NOAA Has A Policy On Naming Hurricanes
According to Laura Grimm, NOAA Chief of Staff and the Acting Under Secretary for Oceans and Atmosphere and NOAA Administrator, the policy uses rotating, six-year lists of alternating male and female names, with names being retired if a storm is particularly deadly or costly, replaced by new names. The lists, managed by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) under the authority of the National Hurricane Center (NHC) (part of NOAA), do not include names starting with the letters Q, U, X, Y, or Z to avoid confusion. When a name is retired, it’s replaced with another name of the same gender to maintain the established pattern and ensure communication clarity.
NOAA Didn’t Intend To Misgender Milton
“Look. We knew it was going to be a problem eventually. You just can’t be naming a hurricane with a guy’s name and then calling it a ‘hurricane’. It’s stupid and it makes us look bad. But there’s no such thing as a ‘himicane’. So what are we supposed to do?”, Grimm added.
Agency To Consider Himicanes
Federal District Court Judge Marcia Morales Howard said that the court takes misgendering very seriously. “This isn’t just some LGBTQ+ nonsense left over from the Biden era. We think that misgendering is tantamount to using the ‘N’ word. How would you like it if you were queer and someone kept calling you mister? It would hurt your feelings. It’s way more than a microaggession. It might even be a ‘slight’ or an ‘affront’ to one’s personhood. If a hurricane want’s to identify as a straight man, he should be called a ‘himicane’ or something,” he exclaimed in rage.
Trump Says Hurricanes Are Hurricanes
“There’s only one sex. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I mean there are just two sexes, men and women. But in this case there’s just one sex. That’s how God intended it,” he explained. “We need to go back to the old days when we only named these after girls,” he added.
