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Deferring to how people want to be called seem like the non-asshole default.If you prefer to go by "Ty": people ought to call you Ty- it may be inconvenient loo

Deferring to how people want to be called seem like the non-asshole default.If you prefer to go by "Ty": people ought to call you Ty- it may be inconvenient looking you up in AD (is it Tyler, or Tyson?) If someone who's pregnant wants me to address them as "sir" or "them", that's exactly what I'll do, even if the author of TFA may be offended.

tablespoon 4y ago
> Deferring to how people want to be called seem like the non-asshole default.If you prefer to go by "Ty": people ought to call you Ty- it may be inconvenient looking you up in AD (is it Tyler, or Tyson?) That only really makes sense on an individual basis. The OP article (which I can't read due to a paywall), appears to be talking about pregnancy literature, and your solution can't really apply to literature. If you have group of 1000 people, where 999 want to be called "pregnant women" and 1 who wants to be called a "person experiencing pregnancy," what term do you use in your literature to refer to the group? If you defer to the one, you fail to defer to the 999.
- adastra22 4y ago
  Weird. It wasn't paywalled when this first hit HN. They must have noticed the traffic. Anyway, you're on the right track but the article was actually far worse than your example. There was a chart showing "recommended gender-neutral language" for pregnancy literature which had some real head-scratchers on it. For example, instead of "penis" you should say "erect erogenous zone." That's almost bad enough, as if I had encountered it in the wild it would take me a moment to figure out what they are talking about (erect penis? erect nipples?). But it gets better! Guess what they recommended you replace "vagina" with? Also "erect erogenous zone"! (wtf?!) Now beyond the fact that its is anatomically wrong, I can't even know if they're talking about male or female genitalia. If I am on a medical website reading something about changes to my "erect erogenous zone", does it apply to me? Heck if I know! That's part of what the article covered and what I was responding to in my above comment. This goes way, way beyond the relatively harmless change of "mother" -> "birthing person."
bradleyjg 4y ago
> Deferring to how people want to be called seem like the non-asshole default. Lots of women don’t want to be called menstrators, a tiny number of transmen do. To whom should we defer?
cluedos 4y ago
Your personal choice is just that. The more important conversation is about what gets imposed on everyone else via law and organisational policy.

tablespoon 4y ago

> Deferring to how people want to be called seem like the non-asshole default.If you prefer to go by "Ty": people ought to call you Ty- it may be inconvenient looking you up in AD (is it Tyler, or Tyson?) That only really makes sense on an individual basis. The OP article (which I can't read due to a paywall), appears to be talking about pregnancy literature, and your solution can't really apply to literature. If you have group of 1000 people, where 999 want to be called "pregnant women" and 1 who wants to be called a "person experiencing pregnancy," what term do you use in your literature to refer to the group? If you defer to the one, you fail to defer to the 999.

adastra22 4y ago
Weird. It wasn't paywalled when this first hit HN. They must have noticed the traffic. Anyway, you're on the right track but the article was actually far worse than your example. There was a chart showing "recommended gender-neutral language" for pregnancy literature which had some real head-scratchers on it. For example, instead of "penis" you should say "erect erogenous zone." That's almost bad enough, as if I had encountered it in the wild it would take me a moment to figure out what they are talking about (erect penis? erect nipples?). But it gets better! Guess what they recommended you replace "vagina" with? Also "erect erogenous zone"! (wtf?!) Now beyond the fact that its is anatomically wrong, I can't even know if they're talking about male or female genitalia. If I am on a medical website reading something about changes to my "erect erogenous zone", does it apply to me? Heck if I know! That's part of what the article covered and what I was responding to in my above comment. This goes way, way beyond the relatively harmless change of "mother" -> "birthing person."

bradleyjg 4y ago

> Deferring to how people want to be called seem like the non-asshole default. Lots of women don’t want to be called menstrators, a tiny number of transmen do. To whom should we defer?

cluedos 4y ago

Your personal choice is just that. The more important conversation is about what gets imposed on everyone else via law and organisational policy.