4 ms·

Facebook's mistreatment of LGBT folks is a real, documented thing that has existed for many years, and one of their pain points for that group is forcing a pers

Facebook's mistreatment of LGBT folks is a real, documented thing that has existed for many years, and one of their pain points for that group is forcing a person to provide government ID and a "real name", which can then be used to ban the account for "misrepresenting" their sexual orientation as well as expose them to harassment from hate groups. The author is an outspoken advocate for LGBT rights, so I can see where she is coming from with this. > It turns out that the reason the author is sitting at home crying on a Saturday night is because he/she/it is an emotionally unstable wreck... "he/she/it", really? The author clearly identifies as female, and you just outed your own bias against the very class of people she is fighting for.

techdragon 11y ago
What's hilarious to me is this is one of the times, linguistically speaking, where you have an "easy out". The author could have used "they" without it being insulting since it's valid mostly normal English. I'm not a otherwise biased person here. I seriously can't understand why anyone feels the need to make make life harder for someone over a petty thing. Except when language matters. I often feel something I've started calling "pronoun paralysis" and it's not because I'm talking to someone that doesn't care about this and I'm attempting to "inject" bias into the conversation by awkwardly referring to a male to female post op female who identifies as female as anything other than "she". It's the opposite, when I want to talk in detail with someone about this topic who does care, or who is a member of the LGBT community, it's time to put on the linguistic bomb disposal suit and waddle my way awkwardly through a conversation like I'm recreating a scene from The Hurt Locker. Can we all just be more accepting of the use of they/them/theirs and end this mess? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they
DanBC 11y ago
See also Facebook's weird standards around photos of women breast feeding their babies (strictly banned for years) and terrorists beheading captured people (fine by Facebook).
- morganvachon 11y ago
  That's something that has always struck me as upside-down. A sane society sees sex (and to be clear, I don't consider breast feeding at all sexual, it's Facebook making that connection) as healthy and positive, and violence as unhealthy and negative. Yet here is Facebook having zero issues with public beheadings of all things, while blocking something that isn't even sexual in nature on the grounds of public decency? It's maddening.

techdragon 11y ago

What's hilarious to me is this is one of the times, linguistically speaking, where you have an "easy out". The author could have used "they" without it being insulting since it's valid mostly normal English. I'm not a otherwise biased person here. I seriously can't understand why anyone feels the need to make make life harder for someone over a petty thing. Except when language matters. I often feel something I've started calling "pronoun paralysis" and it's not because I'm talking to someone that doesn't care about this and I'm attempting to "inject" bias into the conversation by awkwardly referring to a male to female post op female who identifies as female as anything other than "she". It's the opposite, when I want to talk in detail with someone about this topic who does care, or who is a member of the LGBT community, it's time to put on the linguistic bomb disposal suit and waddle my way awkwardly through a conversation like I'm recreating a scene from The Hurt Locker. Can we all just be more accepting of the use of they/them/theirs and end this mess? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they

DanBC 11y ago

See also Facebook's weird standards around photos of women breast feeding their babies (strictly banned for years) and terrorists beheading captured people (fine by Facebook).

morganvachon 11y ago
That's something that has always struck me as upside-down. A sane society sees sex (and to be clear, I don't consider breast feeding at all sexual, it's Facebook making that connection) as healthy and positive, and violence as unhealthy and negative. Yet here is Facebook having zero issues with public beheadings of all things, while blocking something that isn't even sexual in nature on the grounds of public decency? It's maddening.