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Sometimes I have a hard time believing that this gender stuff is really happening. That there are really people who want to divorce the words "man" and "woman"

Sometimes I have a hard time believing that this gender stuff is really happening. That there are really people who want to divorce the words "man" and "woman" from a person's sex, and instead make them about personal identity. That they have enough political power to force changes like this with no discussion and no dissent allowed. It is not in any way bigoted or transphobic to believe that a person being a man or a woman, and therefore the pronouns used to refer to that person, are determined by that person's sex at birth. This was the accepted belief of the vast majority of the human race up until about 20 minutes ago, when it suddenly became a bannable offense. StackOverflow going all-in in support of social engineering on behalf of political activists is baffling to me. Where does this end? Is the goal really to force all of society to change to placate a small group of activists? A reasonable compromise would have just been to allow "they" to refer to someone in a neutral way, but I understand that this is actually not allowed if the person being referred to has stated they would like "he" or "she". This is what makes me think it's more about social engineering than actually protecting anyone from harm.

ykevinator 7y ago
The presumption of malicious intent is what's off putting. Plus its a fool's errand, you cannot retrain a few billion people by public shaming. I'm a liberal, and this is stupid.
- ihatemondays 7y ago
  One of the central ideas that lead SE is "Assume good intent". There's no presumption of malicious intent.
  - rednixion 7y ago
    ... didn't they just fire someone like two weeks ago based on a presumption of malicious intent?
- notadoc 7y ago
  > you cannot retrain a few billion people by public shaming There have been many cultural revolutions throughout history where a group tries to retrain millions through shaming, reeducation, force, policy, banning, censorship, etc.
an_d_rew 7y ago
> It is not in any way bigoted or transphobic to believe that a person being a man or a woman, and therefore the pronouns used to refer to that person, are determined by that person's sex at birth. Actually, yes it is (bigoted and transphobic). Consider making the same statement using the phrase “females are intellectually inferior to males” or “negroes are inferior to whites” to see the fallacy. And both of these (repugnant) beliefs were commonplace for much of history.
- anoncareer0212 7y ago
  Can you clarify how "X are [optionally, Z] inferior to Y" is the same thing as saying "a person being a man or a woman, and therefore the pronouns used to refer to that person, are determined by that person's sex at birth."? I don't agree with OP, but am disturbed by your comment.
- ljm 7y ago
  Saying “He’s got a penis, we’re going to have a boy!” when taking an ultrasound is in no way comparable to the examples of racism and chauvinism that you’ve described. The comparison here is utterly absurd. Why not throw something about Hitler in there too?
lidHanteyk 7y ago
But, at the same time, some 2% of people are neither male nor female, and our society ought to accommodate that. Not likely to happen while SO's moderators aren't even honestly engaging with the community, but instead rewriting their posts without comment: https://meta.stackexchange.com/posts/334979/revisions https://meta.stackexchange.com/posts/334979/revisions
- ihatemondays 7y ago
  And according to the SO 2019 survey, "only" 91.7% of people on SO identify as male (do keep in mind that not everyone who identifies as male uses he/him too), yet most people default off to he/him when referring to others. This can alienate the 8.3%+, and is probably one of the reasons why that percentage is that low. This change isn't just about trans people, but about anyone who doesn't use he/him or isn't male.
  - mckirk 7y ago
    > This can alienate the 8.3%+, and is probably one of the reasons why that percentage is that low. That "probably" there isn't justified, in my opinion. As others in that FAQ thread have pointed out, StackOverflow isn't a place where a lot of third-person interaction is taking place, so I'd consider it a stretch to make that out as a reason that non-males are lacking there. Maybe it's just that women often have better things to do than to ask strangers for help on why their Haskell state monad is acting up.
    - ihatemondays 7y ago
      StackExchange is more than StackOverflow, and StackExchange is more than just the main site. Third party pronouns are widely used in meta and chat.
      - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
        Meta and chat are the preserve of keen insiders. A new user will typically arrive at SE for asking or answering specific questions. Even most of the users with accounts rarely seem to go near meta and chat. When I was active on SE (I gave up logging in a few years ago), meta was the afterthought to bitch about some policy or detail and the annoying habits of questioners. The chat usually empty or quiet enough that even looking to see if it was active seemed mostly pointless. I'm sure it's grown since, but that's not really where new people are going.
krapp 7y ago
>It is not in any way bigoted or transphobic to believe that a person being a man or a woman, and therefore the pronouns used to refer to that person, are determined by that person's sex at birth. It is bigoted, because the implication behind this belief that all trans people are delusional, mentally ill or liars. Mind you, I agree that "they" is an acceptable pronoun unless it's being exclusively used to avoid the chosen pronouns of trans people (in other words, it's fine to me if applied neutrally) and I think SO is going overboard here, but your comment has a lot of anti-trans bigotry in it you may not recognize.
belorn 7y ago
I am not surprised. In the last few hundred years one of the more important social etiket was to use the correct title and social gesture. People could get lynched/beaten if incorrect behavior was given to an important enough person or group. Unproportional and often extrajudicial in their application of violence, but far from unprecedented. From a historical perspective all that has change is which group is important enough and what titles are deemed socially required.
kupiakos 7y ago
The claim that requiring pronouns be based on assigned sex not being transphobic is akin to claiming Prop 8 wasn't homophobic. Judging that a e.g. a trans man cannot possibly be a man and use he/him pronouns is transphobic by definition. It sucks because the day of a trans person can be ruined by someone being an asshole and then feeling justified that they weren't "because biology". Because the reality is, I'm trans and I don't feel safe participating on Hacker News anymore. If I try to ask someone to be respectful towards me, I know I'll be attacked because this is the top comment. And that sucks.

ykevinator 7y ago

The presumption of malicious intent is what's off putting. Plus its a fool's errand, you cannot retrain a few billion people by public shaming. I'm a liberal, and this is stupid.

ihatemondays 7y ago
One of the central ideas that lead SE is "Assume good intent". There's no presumption of malicious intent.
- rednixion 7y ago
  ... didn't they just fire someone like two weeks ago based on a presumption of malicious intent?
notadoc 7y ago
> you cannot retrain a few billion people by public shaming There have been many cultural revolutions throughout history where a group tries to retrain millions through shaming, reeducation, force, policy, banning, censorship, etc.

an_d_rew 7y ago

> It is not in any way bigoted or transphobic to believe that a person being a man or a woman, and therefore the pronouns used to refer to that person, are determined by that person's sex at birth. Actually, yes it is (bigoted and transphobic). Consider making the same statement using the phrase “females are intellectually inferior to males” or “negroes are inferior to whites” to see the fallacy. And both of these (repugnant) beliefs were commonplace for much of history.

anoncareer0212 7y ago
Can you clarify how "X are [optionally, Z] inferior to Y" is the same thing as saying "a person being a man or a woman, and therefore the pronouns used to refer to that person, are determined by that person's sex at birth."? I don't agree with OP, but am disturbed by your comment.
ljm 7y ago
Saying “He’s got a penis, we’re going to have a boy!” when taking an ultrasound is in no way comparable to the examples of racism and chauvinism that you’ve described. The comparison here is utterly absurd. Why not throw something about Hitler in there too?

lidHanteyk 7y ago

But, at the same time, some 2% of people are neither male nor female, and our society ought to accommodate that. Not likely to happen while SO's moderators aren't even honestly engaging with the community, but instead rewriting their posts without comment: https://meta.stackexchange.com/posts/334979/revisions https://meta.stackexchange.com/posts/334979/revisions

ihatemondays 7y ago
And according to the SO 2019 survey, "only" 91.7% of people on SO identify as male (do keep in mind that not everyone who identifies as male uses he/him too), yet most people default off to he/him when referring to others. This can alienate the 8.3%+, and is probably one of the reasons why that percentage is that low. This change isn't just about trans people, but about anyone who doesn't use he/him or isn't male.
- mckirk 7y ago
  > This can alienate the 8.3%+, and is probably one of the reasons why that percentage is that low. That "probably" there isn't justified, in my opinion. As others in that FAQ thread have pointed out, StackOverflow isn't a place where a lot of third-person interaction is taking place, so I'd consider it a stretch to make that out as a reason that non-males are lacking there. Maybe it's just that women often have better things to do than to ask strangers for help on why their Haskell state monad is acting up.
  - ihatemondays 7y ago
    StackExchange is more than StackOverflow, and StackExchange is more than just the main site. Third party pronouns are widely used in meta and chat.
    - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
      Meta and chat are the preserve of keen insiders. A new user will typically arrive at SE for asking or answering specific questions. Even most of the users with accounts rarely seem to go near meta and chat. When I was active on SE (I gave up logging in a few years ago), meta was the afterthought to bitch about some policy or detail and the annoying habits of questioners. The chat usually empty or quiet enough that even looking to see if it was active seemed mostly pointless. I'm sure it's grown since, but that's not really where new people are going.

krapp 7y ago

>It is not in any way bigoted or transphobic to believe that a person being a man or a woman, and therefore the pronouns used to refer to that person, are determined by that person's sex at birth. It is bigoted, because the implication behind this belief that all trans people are delusional, mentally ill or liars. Mind you, I agree that "they" is an acceptable pronoun unless it's being exclusively used to avoid the chosen pronouns of trans people (in other words, it's fine to me if applied neutrally) and I think SO is going overboard here, but your comment has a lot of anti-trans bigotry in it you may not recognize.

belorn 7y ago

I am not surprised. In the last few hundred years one of the more important social etiket was to use the correct title and social gesture. People could get lynched/beaten if incorrect behavior was given to an important enough person or group. Unproportional and often extrajudicial in their application of violence, but far from unprecedented. From a historical perspective all that has change is which group is important enough and what titles are deemed socially required.

kupiakos 7y ago

The claim that requiring pronouns be based on assigned sex not being transphobic is akin to claiming Prop 8 wasn't homophobic. Judging that a e.g. a trans man cannot possibly be a man and use he/him pronouns is transphobic by definition. It sucks because the day of a trans person can be ruined by someone being an asshole and then feeling justified that they weren't "because biology". Because the reality is, I'm trans and I don't feel safe participating on Hacker News anymore. If I try to ask someone to be respectful towards me, I know I'll be attacked because this is the top comment. And that sucks.