11 ms·

I feel like there's part of this story I'm not hearing because just using gender neutral language for everyone on its own shouldn't be offensive. Unless, as I s

I feel like there's part of this story I'm not hearing because just using gender neutral language for everyone on its own shouldn't be offensive. Unless, as I said in my other reply, you're basically doing it to avoid having to gender someone correctly. I certainly wouldn't expect somebody to know what my pronouns are over the Internet. I try very hard to present in a way that is identified as female in real life, but the Internet? It's not like I try to write in a feminine way or anything, there's just no way you would know.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
TeMPOraL 7y ago
The part of the story you're missing is the somewhat recent (arguably happening for many years, now) phenomenon where some people take an issue like this (correct use of pronouns, in this case), weaponize it, and use it to assault communities. If you find yourself in a situation like this, you cannot get away by being more neutral and more reasonable, because it's not a misunderstanding - it's an attack. The situation is very asymmetrical; a lot of people and organizations yield at the very first opportunity, and people thinking it was just a misunderstanding get thrown under a bus.
- mirimir 7y ago
  Sure. But social justice activists aren't unique in that. What puzzles me greatly is how differently things are developing online vs in meatspace. Maybe it's just an urban vs rural dynamic.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    They aren't, though they seem to be most successful at it currently. To me, this phenomenon feels like a memetic equivalent of transplanting a species into a perfect niche far away from home, where it faces no predators or restrictions, so it's free to grow extremely fast. It usually ends up with it devastating the new ecosystem it was introduced to. I think the difference is made by the medium. In any meatspace population, most quirks and beliefs are close to normally distributed. You have to deal with people who are different from you in many dimensions. The cost of associating and forming groups is high. On-line, all differences except those a person is willing to express themselves are masked by default, the cost of associating and forming groups is near-zero. Any group that finds purchase in their attempts at gaining influence can very quickly exploit it. What I'm not sure about is why gender and race, and not religion. It would seem that religion was the original hot topic on the Internet, but we've managed to develop ways of dealing with the issue in both meatspace and on-line. Then again, maybe it's because the way we did it was to stick to the letter of old anti-religion-discrimination laws, but otherwise marginalize the religious - if you bring religion to a discussion you're by default "in the wrong", the same way that when you bring race or gender identity to a discussion, you're somehow by default "in the right".
    - mirimir 7y ago
      Yes, they're most successful at it online. And from what I read, on many university campuses. But notwithstanding the historic election of President Obama, things aren't looking at all well for them in meatspace. I get what you say about the ease of community building online. But online, all you can do is talk. And yes, frighten people who are managing online communities. In meatspace, however, you can vote. Without otherwise revealing what you support. And you can also game the process through gerrymandering, challenging voters, and so on. It will be interesting to see how this plays out over the next couple decades. Especially in light of the surprises that climate change may bring. Such as perhaps millions of immigrants coming north as drought reduces agricultural productivity.
      - TeMPOraL 7y ago
        > Yes, they're most successful at it online. And from what I read, on many university campuses. Which correlates with what I've observed: they're all young. I don't think I've seen a social justice activist older than 30-35. I wonder why that may be? > It will be interesting to see how this plays out over the next couple decades. Especially in light of the surprises that climate change may bring. Such as perhaps millions of immigrants coming north as drought reduces agricultural productivity. Interesting, yes, but it's the flavor of "interesting" that scares the hell out of me. Dealing with climate issues requires cooperation, and it seems that in spite of all the social and technological advancements we've made, we're at historical low point of humanity's ability to coordinate.
        mirimir 7y ago
        They're mostly young because change is accelerating so fast that few older people remain outliers. I used to consider myself a social justice activist. A few decades ago. It scares the hell out of me too.
        TeMPOraL 7y ago
        Huh, didn't consider that angle - that changes happen so fast that your cause can fall out of the public consciousness within a decade or three. Thanks.
- JimboOmega 7y ago
  But what, exactly, do they gain from this?
nullc 7y ago
Picking up an argument I wouldn't generally make myself, because I think I at least understand it: Imagine some person, P. P is not very nice and for whatever reason P really hates transgendered people and thinks everything about them is fake and invalid. P encounters a transgendered person, T, and would like nothing more to call T by the wrong gender to make it clear that P disapproves and to make T unhappy. But P's culture would consider such an action harassment, so P can't get away with that. So what does P do instead? Maybe P carefully and conspicuously erases T's gender in every interaction specifically calling attention to this de-gendering through its conspicuousness, and ultimately having the same harassing result. [You could even imagine that T might even prefer the more overt behavior, then at least it would be clear where everyone stood-- and T wouldn't lose support from people who hadn't yet seen enough from P to have inferred the intent.] I think most reasonable people would agree that someone carefully following the letter of an anti-harassment rule in a contrived way in order to harass someone ... would simply be harassment, and should just be dealt with as such. I don't think it's that hard to see how some could believe that it is possible to prevent this sort of problem (or at least make giving P a kick in the teeth much easier) by proscribing in advance P's behavior. I think the problem with that approach is that P's specific behaviors weren't the problem at least in isolation, P's intent was the problem. An effort to prohibit that behavior by blunt rule which is inherently blind to intent will inevitably be full of false positives and be unduly burdensome. Especially so because avoiding a needless invocation of gender has historically been a highly effective way to avoid offending people when you simply don't or can't know what gender to use, and also because the overuse of gender itself offends some people who argue against gender existentialism. But the idea that there could be harassment that exploits the ability to omit gender seems reasonable to me, even if it doesn't seem reasonable to me to solve that problem by-rule. Of course, there are much less charitable interpretations of these sorts of disputes. But the mere fact that there are both charitable and uncharitable interpretations possible on all sides is a major reason why this kind of issue can turn into such a mess.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

TeMPOraL 7y ago

The part of the story you're missing is the somewhat recent (arguably happening for many years, now) phenomenon where some people take an issue like this (correct use of pronouns, in this case), weaponize it, and use it to assault communities. If you find yourself in a situation like this, you cannot get away by being more neutral and more reasonable, because it's not a misunderstanding - it's an attack. The situation is very asymmetrical; a lot of people and organizations yield at the very first opportunity, and people thinking it was just a misunderstanding get thrown under a bus.

mirimir 7y ago
Sure. But social justice activists aren't unique in that. What puzzles me greatly is how differently things are developing online vs in meatspace. Maybe it's just an urban vs rural dynamic.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  They aren't, though they seem to be most successful at it currently. To me, this phenomenon feels like a memetic equivalent of transplanting a species into a perfect niche far away from home, where it faces no predators or restrictions, so it's free to grow extremely fast. It usually ends up with it devastating the new ecosystem it was introduced to. I think the difference is made by the medium. In any meatspace population, most quirks and beliefs are close to normally distributed. You have to deal with people who are different from you in many dimensions. The cost of associating and forming groups is high. On-line, all differences except those a person is willing to express themselves are masked by default, the cost of associating and forming groups is near-zero. Any group that finds purchase in their attempts at gaining influence can very quickly exploit it. What I'm not sure about is why gender and race, and not religion. It would seem that religion was the original hot topic on the Internet, but we've managed to develop ways of dealing with the issue in both meatspace and on-line. Then again, maybe it's because the way we did it was to stick to the letter of old anti-religion-discrimination laws, but otherwise marginalize the religious - if you bring religion to a discussion you're by default "in the wrong", the same way that when you bring race or gender identity to a discussion, you're somehow by default "in the right".
  - mirimir 7y ago
    Yes, they're most successful at it online. And from what I read, on many university campuses. But notwithstanding the historic election of President Obama, things aren't looking at all well for them in meatspace. I get what you say about the ease of community building online. But online, all you can do is talk. And yes, frighten people who are managing online communities. In meatspace, however, you can vote. Without otherwise revealing what you support. And you can also game the process through gerrymandering, challenging voters, and so on. It will be interesting to see how this plays out over the next couple decades. Especially in light of the surprises that climate change may bring. Such as perhaps millions of immigrants coming north as drought reduces agricultural productivity.
    - TeMPOraL 7y ago
      > Yes, they're most successful at it online. And from what I read, on many university campuses. Which correlates with what I've observed: they're all young. I don't think I've seen a social justice activist older than 30-35. I wonder why that may be? > It will be interesting to see how this plays out over the next couple decades. Especially in light of the surprises that climate change may bring. Such as perhaps millions of immigrants coming north as drought reduces agricultural productivity. Interesting, yes, but it's the flavor of "interesting" that scares the hell out of me. Dealing with climate issues requires cooperation, and it seems that in spite of all the social and technological advancements we've made, we're at historical low point of humanity's ability to coordinate.
      - mirimir 7y ago
        They're mostly young because change is accelerating so fast that few older people remain outliers. I used to consider myself a social justice activist. A few decades ago. It scares the hell out of me too.
        TeMPOraL 7y ago
        Huh, didn't consider that angle - that changes happen so fast that your cause can fall out of the public consciousness within a decade or three. Thanks.
JimboOmega 7y ago
But what, exactly, do they gain from this?

nullc 7y ago

Picking up an argument I wouldn't generally make myself, because I think I at least understand it: Imagine some person, P. P is not very nice and for whatever reason P really hates transgendered people and thinks everything about them is fake and invalid. P encounters a transgendered person, T, and would like nothing more to call T by the wrong gender to make it clear that P disapproves and to make T unhappy. But P's culture would consider such an action harassment, so P can't get away with that. So what does P do instead? Maybe P carefully and conspicuously erases T's gender in every interaction specifically calling attention to this de-gendering through its conspicuousness, and ultimately having the same harassing result. [You could even imagine that T might even prefer the more overt behavior, then at least it would be clear where everyone stood-- and T wouldn't lose support from people who hadn't yet seen enough from P to have inferred the intent.] I think most reasonable people would agree that someone carefully following the letter of an anti-harassment rule in a contrived way in order to harass someone ... would simply be harassment, and should just be dealt with as such. I don't think it's that hard to see how some could believe that it is possible to prevent this sort of problem (or at least make giving P a kick in the teeth much easier) by proscribing in advance P's behavior. I think the problem with that approach is that P's specific behaviors weren't the problem at least in isolation, P's intent was the problem. An effort to prohibit that behavior by blunt rule which is inherently blind to intent will inevitably be full of false positives and be unduly burdensome. Especially so because avoiding a needless invocation of gender has historically been a highly effective way to avoid offending people when you simply don't or can't know what gender to use, and also because the overuse of gender itself offends some people who argue against gender existentialism. But the idea that there could be harassment that exploits the ability to omit gender seems reasonable to me, even if it doesn't seem reasonable to me to solve that problem by-rule. Of course, there are much less charitable interpretations of these sorts of disputes. But the mere fact that there are both charitable and uncharitable interpretations possible on all sides is a major reason why this kind of issue can turn into such a mess.