5 ms·

Note that trans rights activists are pushing for the use of "personal pronouns", which are not limited to the traditional binary genders. They want you to use

Note that trans rights activists are pushing for the use of "personal pronouns", which are not limited to the traditional binary genders. They want you to use pronouns such as Ze/Zir/Zirs/Zirself, or Moon/Mooner/Moonself, or whatever someone feels like. If you object, or can't keep up, you'll be labelled a transphobe. Here's a sample, linked from the website of Stonewall UK, a prominent trans rights organization: https://www.mypronouns.org/how https://www.mypronouns.org/how

danShumway 5y ago
So? I don't understand how people are so upset about this. Is learning someone's correct pronouns more difficult than learning a preferred nickname? If somebody comes into work and announces that they've gotten married and they have a different last name now, is that a major inconvenience to people? I had professors in college who wanted me to call them prof, and some who wanted me to call them doctor, and some who wanted me to call them Mrs/Ms/Mr. It's fine, you learn their preferences and you do it. Transphobia isn't manifested in messing up someone's pronouns or getting a tiny bit behind on something, or accidentally calling someone the wrong thing. When people start to get suspicious of transphobia is when they see someone acting like using a pronoun is a giant imposition rather than very simple sign of respect. Seriously, who the heck cares if someone wants to use a different pronoun? I don't have any validation criteria for that. Heck, if you want me to alternate pronouns every other day of the week, I'll do my best to accommodate that and I'll respond respectfully if I mess up and I'm corrected. I just don't see what the big deal is here. We have so many different inconsistent rules in modern society about how to politely refer to other people, asking people's pronouns doesn't seem much more inconvenient to me.
- docmars 5y ago
  I'll turn this around a little: I don't understand how people are so upset about people disliking it when others respond coercively, threaten legal action, cause job loss, or enact excommunication from society (if you're a celebrity) when somebody demands that you call them something unconventional in the grander scheme of societal norms. I don't think it's all that abnormal, at all, for a grand majority to push back on a vocal, disruptive, abusive, coercive, entitled group of activists sprinkled throughout the world who represent a slightly larger group of otherwise peaceful, passive people who have embraced a chosen (or inert) identity (or fad, for many) that flies in the face of society as a whole. Disclaimer: this next paragraph is wholly and entirely satirical, and I, with full sincerity, do not intend to take any of the actions portrayed in the following example: Dan, if you don't remember that I like my coffee with milk and agave nectar tomorrow, I'm unfortunately going to have you lose your job. Sorry man. That's just how I feel. You must remember, or I will continue to lose respect for you. I'm not going to just leave you alone and get over the fact that you won't remember -- I'm going to use social media to destroy your life and complicate your relationships at work, with your friends, family, and revel in any other damage I can do because you didn't remember the way I like my coffee. You must be my friend, but if you forget my coffee preference once, you're fully subject to my verbal and emotional abuse. See how that works? This is the reality. And people wouldn't be calling this out in droves if the news headlines, TV show skits mocking it, the endless reports & anecdotes of people's lives destroyed, etc. didn't already prove this phenomenon. Irrefutable. And it has to stop dominating everyone's minds. It is psychological torture on an unimaginable scale, to hold most of society hostage to an unmerited stigma for the sake of "respect" demanded of it. And what good is respect if it is not earned by demonstrating positive intent and action in everyday conversation? Activists on this front would do well to understand this, lest they continually fail in their mission to create a unified and equal society. Animosity, labels, and threats endorsed -- by proxy -- by the media, government institutions, and major corporations are the last thing that will unify people.
  - danShumway 5y ago
    > This is the reality. It's really not, as far as I've seen? At least not in the spaces where I'm active. If you came into work with me and started to call me George, and refused to call me Daniel, yeah, you might face consequences at work for that. If it became a really serious problem, you might get fired, partially just out of the confusion of why this was such a big issue for you. I'm a little more tolerant of stuff like this, I'm not sure I care if people use the wrong name for me, but I don't advise going around and trying it, you're probably going to run into issues. And I have definitely met adults and professors who would openly reprimand someone for using their wrong title. But you're not going to get thrown into jail for using someone's pronouns incorrectly, and you're certainly not going to get cancelled because you messed up one time. To the extent you are followed around by aggressive activists who are berating you for small errors, you can safely ignore them, society as a whole and the trans community as a whole doesn't think that way. That's not to say that purity spirals and cancellation isn't a thing, it's not to say that people don't get overzealous about stuff. And certainly, Twitter is gonna Twitter. But Twitter represents maybe 20% of the population. I think you're going a little overboard with this characterization. BUT... let's assume for a second that you're right. Let's assume that you are facing stigmatization for using the wrong pronouns, let's assume that enforcement is out of control and people are just getting canceled left and right for simple mistakes. We'll assume for the rest of this comment that literally everything you've said is accurate. > I don't understand how people are so upset about people disliking it when others respond coercively, threaten legal action, cause job loss, or enact excommunication from society (if you're a celebrity) when somebody demands that you call them something unconventional in the grander scheme of societal norms. What you are describing is the reality that trans people have faced for generations. Come out, get fired. Come out, get disowned by your family. Get shunned by society. Have politicians call you a menace, get told that you're dangerous to have around kids. Get evicted from properties, get used as a talking point. Have entire books written about how there's something wrong with your brain, that there's something wrong with you. Get attacked in prisons, get constantly accused everywhere you go that you are a fraud. Forget about having your online life ruined, have your regular life ruined. Get harassed as you're walking down the street, get thrown out of your church. Get told that you're a symptom of a decaying society. Do you understand why some members of that group might end up having a short fuse about being misgendered? Do you understand why they might start to get worried about transphobia, why they might start to read into incorrect pronoun usage, or get a little bit paranoid sometimes? What percentage of the US was openly disappointed that the Supreme Court ruled that sex discrimination laws applied to LGBTQ+ people? Look around you at the laws states are passing right now. Transphobia in the US is alive and well, and its agenda is actively being pursued today. That is why this stuff dominates people's minds. Because the trans community understands better than almost anyone else in this country what it actually means to be cancelled by society, and they recognize a vocal group of Americans who are not just refusing to use pronouns, but that are trying to demonize them and erase them from society. ---- Now, you are not obligated to pay attention to militant, bad faith, or unreasonable activists. Those people are a minority, you don't need to feel bad about ignoring them. And no reasonable trans person is going to get mad at you for accidentally messing up a pronoun. You are also not legally obligated to use anyone's pronouns. You might get fired or disinvited from some social groups, but if that's a big fear then you can vote to repeal fire-at-will laws. I can't control what a company does or who people associate with, I can't override someone else's freedom of association. In any case, you should not be losing sleep over whether you're going to get arrested for misgendering someone. But it is utterly disingenuous to argue that there's a completely new, novel plague of cancellations over trans people. That plague always existed, and in the past it was even worse. It just affected different people than you. The biggest difference we're actually seeing today is that more of society is realizing that refusing to accommodate trans people even in extremely trivial matters is kind of a jerk move. What we are seeing as cisgender people when we watch someone get cancelled is a very tiny portion of what many trans people have been living with throughout the majority of American history. So if the backlash people have against anti-trans rhetoric really is terrifying, or you really do feel that people are on a hair-trigger to cancel each other, then pass some equal rights legislation and maybe everyone will be less on edge. On the same thread that people are openly complaining that trans women are "erasing the identity of biological women", at the same time that states are literally banning affirmative care for kids, you have to understand why some trans people and activists are a little bit reserved and prickly about this stuff at the moment.
- nate_meurer 5y ago
  These aren't great examples. Names, nicknames, surnames, and professional titles are all things that typically make sense given the context. If your professor wants to be called "prof" or "Dr.", it's probably because they're a professor or a doctor. But a personalized pronoun is like someone informing you that they identify as a doctor, even though they have no degree, and you must therefore address them as Dr. This makes no more sense than when someone says they identify as a non-binary pan-sexual gender-fabulist (yes, I know such people), and you're now required to memorize their customized pronouns. Now, to your point, I used to work with a trans woman who was very obviously a biological male, but also very obviously identifying as a female in gender. She wore dresses and feminine hair styles. Her demand for female pronouns made perfect sense, and her overt appearance and behavior made it easy for everyone to remember her self identification. I have no problem with that. But I'm probably not going to put much effort into remembering anything beyond the traditional binary pronouns. Pick one of those and I'll stick to it, but if you expect me to call you xe/xim, you'll likely be disappointed.
  - danShumway 5y ago
    > make sense I don't personally run requests like this through an internal filter to figure out whether or not I agree with them or whether they make sense to me. To your point of titles: > But a personalized pronoun is like someone informing you that they identify as a doctor, even though they have no degree, and you must therefore address them as Dr. I don't think I've ever looked up someone's PHD after they asked me to call them doctor. I just do it, it's no skin off of my back. If I find out that they're not a doctor later, I might think that's kind of weird, but I'm probably not going to fight them over it. Same if someone says they got married, or if they're getting married and keeping their last name, or if someone gives me a pronunciation of their name that doesn't match phonetically with how it's spelled. I don't really know that I have a validation criteria for any of those things, I don't think I've ever needed one. I guess I can theoretically think of examples where it would be an issue, but I've never personally encountered them, and I don't think xe/xim rises to that level. Memorizing xe/xim isn't any harder to me than memorizing how a name is pronounced.
CRConrad 5y ago
> Stonewall UK, a prominent trans rights organization Yeah, we read the article -- where it was portrayed as over-zealous and at least somewhat discredited.
- nate_meurer 5y ago
  What article? I got this information directly from Stonewall's website: https://www.stonewall.org.uk/about-us/news/international-pronouns-day https://www.stonewall.org.uk/about-us/news/international-pro...
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    TFA that all these comments are commenting on. Didn't you read it?
    - nate_meurer 5y ago
      Oh right, that article! Sure, but if I'm making assertions about organizations like Stonewall, I'd rather cite them directly, rather than indirectly from an Economist story.
      - CRConrad 5y ago
        A) You weren't making a comment about Stonewall, but about some link that you'd found on Stonewall. B) I, OTOH, was commenting about Stonewall, pointing out that it seemed a crappy source. As such, quoting a known reputable source's judgement of them seems far more prudent than the primary source itself. They're not likely to say "We're a crappy source", are they? (Heeey, I think I may finally have figured out Wikipedia's obsession with explicitly secondary sources.)
        nate_meurer 5y ago
        I'm with you now, that makes sense.

danShumway 5y ago

So? I don't understand how people are so upset about this. Is learning someone's correct pronouns more difficult than learning a preferred nickname? If somebody comes into work and announces that they've gotten married and they have a different last name now, is that a major inconvenience to people? I had professors in college who wanted me to call them prof, and some who wanted me to call them doctor, and some who wanted me to call them Mrs/Ms/Mr. It's fine, you learn their preferences and you do it. Transphobia isn't manifested in messing up someone's pronouns or getting a tiny bit behind on something, or accidentally calling someone the wrong thing. When people start to get suspicious of transphobia is when they see someone acting like using a pronoun is a giant imposition rather than very simple sign of respect. Seriously, who the heck cares if someone wants to use a different pronoun? I don't have any validation criteria for that. Heck, if you want me to alternate pronouns every other day of the week, I'll do my best to accommodate that and I'll respond respectfully if I mess up and I'm corrected. I just don't see what the big deal is here. We have so many different inconsistent rules in modern society about how to politely refer to other people, asking people's pronouns doesn't seem much more inconvenient to me.

docmars 5y ago
I'll turn this around a little: I don't understand how people are so upset about people disliking it when others respond coercively, threaten legal action, cause job loss, or enact excommunication from society (if you're a celebrity) when somebody demands that you call them something unconventional in the grander scheme of societal norms. I don't think it's all that abnormal, at all, for a grand majority to push back on a vocal, disruptive, abusive, coercive, entitled group of activists sprinkled throughout the world who represent a slightly larger group of otherwise peaceful, passive people who have embraced a chosen (or inert) identity (or fad, for many) that flies in the face of society as a whole. Disclaimer: this next paragraph is wholly and entirely satirical, and I, with full sincerity, do not intend to take any of the actions portrayed in the following example: Dan, if you don't remember that I like my coffee with milk and agave nectar tomorrow, I'm unfortunately going to have you lose your job. Sorry man. That's just how I feel. You must remember, or I will continue to lose respect for you. I'm not going to just leave you alone and get over the fact that you won't remember -- I'm going to use social media to destroy your life and complicate your relationships at work, with your friends, family, and revel in any other damage I can do because you didn't remember the way I like my coffee. You must be my friend, but if you forget my coffee preference once, you're fully subject to my verbal and emotional abuse. See how that works? This is the reality. And people wouldn't be calling this out in droves if the news headlines, TV show skits mocking it, the endless reports & anecdotes of people's lives destroyed, etc. didn't already prove this phenomenon. Irrefutable. And it has to stop dominating everyone's minds. It is psychological torture on an unimaginable scale, to hold most of society hostage to an unmerited stigma for the sake of "respect" demanded of it. And what good is respect if it is not earned by demonstrating positive intent and action in everyday conversation? Activists on this front would do well to understand this, lest they continually fail in their mission to create a unified and equal society. Animosity, labels, and threats endorsed -- by proxy -- by the media, government institutions, and major corporations are the last thing that will unify people.
- danShumway 5y ago
  > This is the reality. It's really not, as far as I've seen? At least not in the spaces where I'm active. If you came into work with me and started to call me George, and refused to call me Daniel, yeah, you might face consequences at work for that. If it became a really serious problem, you might get fired, partially just out of the confusion of why this was such a big issue for you. I'm a little more tolerant of stuff like this, I'm not sure I care if people use the wrong name for me, but I don't advise going around and trying it, you're probably going to run into issues. And I have definitely met adults and professors who would openly reprimand someone for using their wrong title. But you're not going to get thrown into jail for using someone's pronouns incorrectly, and you're certainly not going to get cancelled because you messed up one time. To the extent you are followed around by aggressive activists who are berating you for small errors, you can safely ignore them, society as a whole and the trans community as a whole doesn't think that way. That's not to say that purity spirals and cancellation isn't a thing, it's not to say that people don't get overzealous about stuff. And certainly, Twitter is gonna Twitter. But Twitter represents maybe 20% of the population. I think you're going a little overboard with this characterization. BUT... let's assume for a second that you're right. Let's assume that you are facing stigmatization for using the wrong pronouns, let's assume that enforcement is out of control and people are just getting canceled left and right for simple mistakes. We'll assume for the rest of this comment that literally everything you've said is accurate. > I don't understand how people are so upset about people disliking it when others respond coercively, threaten legal action, cause job loss, or enact excommunication from society (if you're a celebrity) when somebody demands that you call them something unconventional in the grander scheme of societal norms. What you are describing is the reality that trans people have faced for generations. Come out, get fired. Come out, get disowned by your family. Get shunned by society. Have politicians call you a menace, get told that you're dangerous to have around kids. Get evicted from properties, get used as a talking point. Have entire books written about how there's something wrong with your brain, that there's something wrong with you. Get attacked in prisons, get constantly accused everywhere you go that you are a fraud. Forget about having your online life ruined, have your regular life ruined. Get harassed as you're walking down the street, get thrown out of your church. Get told that you're a symptom of a decaying society. Do you understand why some members of that group might end up having a short fuse about being misgendered? Do you understand why they might start to get worried about transphobia, why they might start to read into incorrect pronoun usage, or get a little bit paranoid sometimes? What percentage of the US was openly disappointed that the Supreme Court ruled that sex discrimination laws applied to LGBTQ+ people? Look around you at the laws states are passing right now. Transphobia in the US is alive and well, and its agenda is actively being pursued today. That is why this stuff dominates people's minds. Because the trans community understands better than almost anyone else in this country what it actually means to be cancelled by society, and they recognize a vocal group of Americans who are not just refusing to use pronouns, but that are trying to demonize them and erase them from society. ---- Now, you are not obligated to pay attention to militant, bad faith, or unreasonable activists. Those people are a minority, you don't need to feel bad about ignoring them. And no reasonable trans person is going to get mad at you for accidentally messing up a pronoun. You are also not legally obligated to use anyone's pronouns. You might get fired or disinvited from some social groups, but if that's a big fear then you can vote to repeal fire-at-will laws. I can't control what a company does or who people associate with, I can't override someone else's freedom of association. In any case, you should not be losing sleep over whether you're going to get arrested for misgendering someone. But it is utterly disingenuous to argue that there's a completely new, novel plague of cancellations over trans people. That plague always existed, and in the past it was even worse. It just affected different people than you. The biggest difference we're actually seeing today is that more of society is realizing that refusing to accommodate trans people even in extremely trivial matters is kind of a jerk move. What we are seeing as cisgender people when we watch someone get cancelled is a very tiny portion of what many trans people have been living with throughout the majority of American history. So if the backlash people have against anti-trans rhetoric really is terrifying, or you really do feel that people are on a hair-trigger to cancel each other, then pass some equal rights legislation and maybe everyone will be less on edge. On the same thread that people are openly complaining that trans women are "erasing the identity of biological women", at the same time that states are literally banning affirmative care for kids, you have to understand why some trans people and activists are a little bit reserved and prickly about this stuff at the moment.
nate_meurer 5y ago
These aren't great examples. Names, nicknames, surnames, and professional titles are all things that typically make sense given the context. If your professor wants to be called "prof" or "Dr.", it's probably because they're a professor or a doctor. But a personalized pronoun is like someone informing you that they identify as a doctor, even though they have no degree, and you must therefore address them as Dr. This makes no more sense than when someone says they identify as a non-binary pan-sexual gender-fabulist (yes, I know such people), and you're now required to memorize their customized pronouns. Now, to your point, I used to work with a trans woman who was very obviously a biological male, but also very obviously identifying as a female in gender. She wore dresses and feminine hair styles. Her demand for female pronouns made perfect sense, and her overt appearance and behavior made it easy for everyone to remember her self identification. I have no problem with that. But I'm probably not going to put much effort into remembering anything beyond the traditional binary pronouns. Pick one of those and I'll stick to it, but if you expect me to call you xe/xim, you'll likely be disappointed.
- danShumway 5y ago
  > make sense I don't personally run requests like this through an internal filter to figure out whether or not I agree with them or whether they make sense to me. To your point of titles: > But a personalized pronoun is like someone informing you that they identify as a doctor, even though they have no degree, and you must therefore address them as Dr. I don't think I've ever looked up someone's PHD after they asked me to call them doctor. I just do it, it's no skin off of my back. If I find out that they're not a doctor later, I might think that's kind of weird, but I'm probably not going to fight them over it. Same if someone says they got married, or if they're getting married and keeping their last name, or if someone gives me a pronunciation of their name that doesn't match phonetically with how it's spelled. I don't really know that I have a validation criteria for any of those things, I don't think I've ever needed one. I guess I can theoretically think of examples where it would be an issue, but I've never personally encountered them, and I don't think xe/xim rises to that level. Memorizing xe/xim isn't any harder to me than memorizing how a name is pronounced.

CRConrad 5y ago

> Stonewall UK, a prominent trans rights organization Yeah, we read the article -- where it was portrayed as over-zealous and at least somewhat discredited.

nate_meurer 5y ago
What article? I got this information directly from Stonewall's website: https://www.stonewall.org.uk/about-us/news/international-pronouns-day https://www.stonewall.org.uk/about-us/news/international-pro...
- CRConrad 5y ago
  TFA that all these comments are commenting on. Didn't you read it?
  - nate_meurer 5y ago
    Oh right, that article! Sure, but if I'm making assertions about organizations like Stonewall, I'd rather cite them directly, rather than indirectly from an Economist story.
    - CRConrad 5y ago
      A) You weren't making a comment about Stonewall, but about some link that you'd found on Stonewall. B) I, OTOH, was commenting about Stonewall, pointing out that it seemed a crappy source. As such, quoting a known reputable source's judgement of them seems far more prudent than the primary source itself. They're not likely to say "We're a crappy source", are they? (Heeey, I think I may finally have figured out Wikipedia's obsession with explicitly secondary sources.)
      - nate_meurer 5y ago
        I'm with you now, that makes sense.