An outraged conservative host said gingerbread cookies have a gender, and they are “obviously” men—and what?

Ah, the holiday season. With December 25th less than a week away, complaints about a nonexistent “war on Christmas” have reached their annual fever pitch. And this year, it seems that conservative pundits aren’t just content with attacking others for saying “happy holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.” In a recent Fox News broadcast, pundit Tammy Bruce made it clear that she thinks “political correctness” has come for gingerbread men.

Mediaite notes that Bruce appeared on the December 18th episode of Tucker Carlson Tonight in a segment in which the host discussed a Scottish Parliament’s gift shop that is currently selling “gingerbread people” instead of “gingerbread men.” Bruce claimed this is an example of being “bullied into what you can and cannot say.” She essentially said this had “tipped her over the edge.”

"In this case, it's, you know, calling a gingerbread man a gingerbread person when obviously, they're men," she told Carlson.

Carlson agreed, saying “the rest of us shouldn’t participate in our own spiritual neutering”—seeming to imply that referring to gingerbread “men” as “people” is somehow an affront to his religion.

Watch the full, baffling exchange below.

Tammy Bruce says cookies have a gender and "obviously they're men" pic.twitter.com/n7NWEzQrJc

— Madeline Peltz (@peltzmadeline) December 19, 2018

Twitter users (thankfully) rolled their eyes at the segment.

This is the ideal male body. You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like. pic.twitter.com/gm7Pa6KNgO

— Catton Arthur (@soundkitties) December 19, 2018

https://twitter.com/udfredirect/status/1075397962249965569

Actually, they could be Tammy Bruce in jeans or a pantsuit.

— Lisa Miller (@LisaMillersTale) December 19, 2018

false

The idea that inanimate, people-shaped cookies have to be referred to with gendered language is absurd. Baked goods, by definition, have no gender. And it seems outright ridiculous to be offended on behalf of cookies when trans and nonbinary people are still being mocked and discriminated against for their gender expression.  There is no war on Christmas, and there is no war on “gingerbread men.” There is, however, a very real need for more compassion and inclusion in this world—and the language we use in our everyday lives helps achieve that.