5 ms·
Waaaait a minute you’re making some enormous leaps here. You’ve read a comment where someone says “it seems like we can't say "mother" anymore…” and have then p
by smcl 4y ago
Waaaait a minute you’re making some enormous leaps here. You’ve read a comment where someone says “it seems like we can't say "mother" anymore…” and have then projected it into this scenario where the word “mother” is banned as hospital policy, and where nurses live in fear of not speaking it lest they be fired.
You’ve described your anxiety about using the wrong language when talking to people … and you’re referring to some third-hand accounts of random online interactions on social media. I think you might need to step back from the computer for a bit and use less social media, because this anxiety does seem a bit self-inflicted. You’re describing reading about a handful of things that happened to other people, have assumed they are bigger and more universal than they are and as a result it’s caused you to be anxious about speaking to people in real life.
I think if you take my original advice - speak to some people in good faith, don’t set out to trigger or “own” them - you’ll find that your assumptions about how much of a minefield these interactions can be are completely unfounded.
In particular if you take the time to listen to some of the perspectives of people who are the subject of some of these changes in language (for example, trans people) you’ll find that they’re just regular people like you or I, who just want to live with a bit of dignity and get treated with a normal amount of respect. They often have to deal with a lot of very explicit hatred, so they tend to be quite forgiving if you mistakenly flub a pronoun, or if you accidentally use their pre-transition name out of habit since you knew them for years prior. You still need to try, it might not come easily at first but it’ll be fine if you enter into a conversation with the best intentions.
- josephg 4y agoHow do you think a policy like that is implemented at a hospital? I can tell you what happens - HR pulls everyone into a compulsory meeting (or series of meetings). No trans people are present. The old language (“mother”) is named as trans phobic and new language (“birth parent”) is presented as company policy. The implication - explicit or implicit - is that anyone using the old language is a transphobe and will be sacked. Are there any questions? Do you want to get in line or risk being fired for transphobia? There are no questions. At universities they’re getting people to write “diversity and inclusion statements”. To get a job you have to write an essay talking about how hiring you will further the goals of diversity - at least how the woke mob has defined it. There is no polite conversation. Disagreeing with the policy is not a winning move if you value your career. Online it’s obviously a bloodbath. A Finnish traditional knitting magazine was torn apart by social media for being “nazis”. Apparently they didn’t have any black people interested in traditional Finnish knit ware. The magazine immediately disbanded. Do you think polite conversations would help in any of these situations? No. The politics of all this are not up for debate. Look at your own stance in this thread - you assume anyone who isn’t on board with the new language is transphobic. This is what I’m afraid of! I’ve spoken to my trans friends about this and had lovely conversations. They aren’t a club who speaks with one mind. One of my trans friends hates the woke movement. She feels singled out and awkward whenever people go around and ask pronouns. She wishes people assumed her gender. In her words: “I wish my gender could go back to being the least interesting thing about me”. She hates that non-trans people mis represent her views. Another trans friend goes by they/it and loves the new world the woke movement is creating. But it’s honestly not my trans friends I’m afraid of. It’s corporate HR. It’s university admissions. It’s crazy people on Twitter. And I’m not alone in being afraid of all this. Read the other comments in this thread. I’ve got dozens of upvotes in the comment when I mentioned being terrified. The fear is real. Half of US college students say they are afraid to sometimes speak their mind in class[1]. Fighting political correctness is the new rallying cry for the right, because feeling oppressed by this stuff is so common. I’m not afraid because I’m transphobic. (I’m not, and I adore my trans friends). I’m afraid because some people with your politics go around insisting anyone with a nuanced view is a monster and needs to be attacked and “educated” until they get in line. It’s awful. [1] https://www.intelligent.com/college-students-fear-expressing-ideas-in-classroom/ https://www.intelligent.com/college-students-fear-expressing...
- smcl 4y agoThere's honestly too much to go into here. I feel like you're just fucking around with me if I'm honest, if that's true then congratulations I've spent about ~30 mins typing out and reading comments :-/ > some people with your politics go around insisting anyone with a nuanced view is a monster People with these politics aren't calling me, with my nuanced views, a monster. If you're really afraid, maybe your views just aren't that nuanced? Look I commented because I thought you seemed like a nervous wreck, completely afraid to engage with my generation, and I figured I could reassure you a bit. If you really have a couple of trans friends, well maybe I misjudged, maybe you're not that insulated and in need of assistance after all!
- josephg 4y agoThanks for the conversation. I’m not a nervous wreck, thanks in large part to not being on Twitter. Sorry if I came across that way. And yeah, I’ve had a lot of conversations about this stuff. Thanks for trying to help. But It’s usually impossible to logic someone out of a feeling. To close, I think there’s more than enough reasons for feeling afraid of the woke mob if you look for them. Whether or not that’s a good idea? Hard to say.