Donald Trump Jr is upset over deadly Hurricane Beryl’s supposedly ‘non-binary’ name
Donald Trump Jr has said he thinks hurricanes shouldn’t sound gender-neutral. (Getty)
Spare a thought for poor Donald Trump Jr. He is upset – very, very upset – at the name given to Hurricane Beryl, which is currently devastating parts of the Caribbean.
Hurricane Beryl, which brought winds of up to 130mph (210km/hr) to the southern coast of Jamaica and has killed at least seven people, swept through the region in the past few days.
Responding to satellite imagery of the storm, the eldest son of former president Donald Trump – not to our knowledge known for his meteorological knowledge – has decided the traditionally female name is in fact gender-neutral.
“Beryl?” he wrote in a post on X/Twitter. “Even our hurricanes are gender non-binary now.”
Even the most cursory research proves that “Beryl” is a feminine Greek name that dates back to at least the 19th century.
Famous women with the name include British actress Beryl Reid, English author Beryl Bainbridge, ballet dancer Beryl Grey, aviator Beryl Markham and Manga character Queen Beryl.
The name derives from the natural mineral beryllium, a semi-precious, light green gemstone. While the name has been used as a masculine in the past, this is true of almost all names in some capacity.
Its use as a name for a meteorological storm also supports its status as typically female, because US hurricanes and tropical storms have been named after women since at least 1953.
While the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) now names storms after both men and women, and has done for several decades, despite Trump Jr’s outrage, the original decision to stick with feminine names is likely to be down to prior naming conventions being “fraught with racism and sexism”.
According to Atlas Obscura, tropical storms were once typically named through “personal preferences and vendettas” and were borrowed from “places and saints, wives and girlfriends, and disliked public figures,” which caused confusion and was rooted in misogyny.
Nowadays, the WMO keeps a list of pre-determined names, both male and female, to avoid confusion. The name Beryl has been used every six years since 1979, with its last usage in 2018.
Trump Jr is no stranger to conspiracy theories. He backed the “stop the steal” campaign, which was based on a disproven claim that his father won the 2020 presidential election, and he has also claimed that former first lady Michelle Obama is transgender and that collaborations with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney are a sign that the “trans mafia” control everything.
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