Alabama did what Congress did not. It passed a law, HB2, requiring all state and local entities, and their employees, to call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America.

(1) Refer to the body of water that borders the coast of Alabama as the “Gulf of America.”

(2) Reflect the “Gulf of America” terminology in all newly created maps, documents, educational materials, websites, official communications, and other resources.

(3) a. Make reasonable efforts to update all pre-existing resources owned by state and local entities, including, but not limited to, official state maps, documents, educational materials, websites, and communications under their jurisdiction to reflect the name change, where practicable.

b. The requirements of paragraph a. shall not apply if compliance would impose an operational or financial burden on the state or local entity and their employees.

Nothing in this section shall prohibit a public K-12 school or public institution of higher education from using the term “Gulf of Mexico” within a larger course of academic instruction when reasonable for historical purposes.

At Volokh Conspiracy, Eugene explains why this law, applicable to state university profs in the classroom, likely violates the First Amendment. The same would be true if applied to a state or local employee’s non-work speech. But as far as their official work and speech is concerned, the state can constitutionally mandate the name change without offending the First Amendment.

When it comes to speech that is part of the job—writing text for a government web site, corresponding with the public, and so on—then the government is indeed generally entitled to dictate which words are used. That is also true as to K-12 education.

And so far as HB2 is concerned, that’s likely correct. After all, an official name is whatever the law says it is, even if the law changes a name from that which it has been called for centuries. Indeed, it would be correct regardless of whether the motive behind the law came from a presidential Executive Order or just because somebody in the legislature got the notion in a dream. That’s the nature of laws. And it can be changed back just as easily by law, should the impetus for renaming change with the next regime.

But can the same be said about changing words or phrases relating to things other than place names? In another EO, Trump has decided to rename Artificial Intelligence to Super Intelligence. For those unaware, this came after Trump ran a poll on his Truth Social asking whether the name should be Supreme, Superior or Super Intelligence, later reduced to only two choices, Superior or Super because “Supreme” sounded too much like a certain court with which Trump has conflicted emotions.

Taken to the logical extreme, this Orwellian approach to speech can produce some deeply bizarre results. Can the state enact a law forcing all state and local entities and their employees to refer to the Governor as “His Royal Highness”? What if the law mandated that the president be referred to as “The God-King Trump”? Ridiculous, sure, but once you get into dictating permissible words and phrases, as opposed to words and phrases that have inherently accepted meanings, where do you draw the line?

Lest anyone think this is just a Trump or Alabama issue, consider how many words were redefined over the past decade or so, like “rape” and “sexual assault,” which have been reduced to meaninglessness. Even worse is the meaning of the words “man” and “woman,” which have completely objective definitions that have been rejected in favor of identitarian feelings. If there is nothing wrong (and there isn’t) with someone identifying as transgender, why is it somehow offensive and harmful to be acknowledged as transgender?

You can be a woman because of your chromosomes, your uterus, your hormones, and still present as a man if that’s what you decide you are. Hey, that’s entirely up to you. But that doesn’t change your chromosomes, make your uterus disappear or morph your vagina into a penis. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Yet, like a law requiring the Gulf of Mexico to be called something it’s not, laws have been enacted in numerous states prohibiting the recognition of objective fact under the guise of gender identity discrimination.

If anything, renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America, at least until it’s changed back again by the next Democratic president, is a more appropriate use of governmental fiat than redefining words like “man” and “woman.” Naming places is a normal government function, even if it’s the product of one narcissist’s effort to flex his power to shove infantile names down people’s throats.

Whether the rest of the world cares or refuses to adopt the silly new name is irrelevant. If Alabama decides to rename the state Trumpville, that’s its choice, for better or worse. And should Alabama men and women decide that their sweet home isn’t Trumpville, at least they will still know who is a man and who is a woman refusing to comply.