>I don't keep up on the latest trends of vernacular [..] Out of curiosity, what is the current preferred nomenclature for what used to be "transexual"? The pre

>I don't keep up on the latest trends of vernacular [..] Out of curiosity, what is the current preferred nomenclature for what used to be "transexual"? The preferred term is "transgender", or just "trans (people)". Which might not seem like a huge distinction, but most of the people you'd be having a discussion consider "transexual" to be at least mildly offensive, due to various implications that aren't important to go over here. The point is that very few people use it except for much older trans people, aside from much older trans people who you likely won't find on the internet much. There's nothing inherently wrong with using the antiquated term - the euphemism tread is a real phenomenon, as you pointed out. But using a term that almost no one on the other side uses (and claiming no knowledge) is an indication that you haven't actually put in much effort at all in listening to and understanding the other side. Especially when your defense amounts to "I haven't checked for 10 years". When your specific criticism of liberals is that they don't "listen and consider and understand", if you and the peoples' arguments you view don't even spend enough time looking at the opposing viewpoints to be aware of which terms they'd generally prefer not to be referred to by, I would hope you can see why the people opposing them wouldn't be motivated to do the same. I didn't say these "shut down the conversation" (in fact, I think I spent enough words elaborating on everything else that that is a particularly unfair and non-understanding accusation), but rather to illustrate the reasons why you're saying the polarization you do. That being said, I am shutting down the conversation here, since I don't want to get into another HN comments flame war, and I've already pushed that line an unwise amount. You're welcome to reply further and get in the last word, if you'd like. If you're interested in continuing this topic, I'd urge you to read Scott Alexander's blog posts on Steelmanning and the culture war, as he has much smarter and more articulate things to say about it than I do. I linked one of them elsewhere in this thread, I think it's the most relevant: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anythin... or any of his other top posts https://slatestarcodex.com/top-posts/ https://slatestarcodex.com/top-posts/