Non-binary identities are valid

[HansMustermann]

I'd like some evidence that anyone is issuing commands about their pronouns.

The moment I get accused of being a "bigot" if I don't comply, I'd rather say it's blatantly obvious that the underlying assumption is that it's a command that I don't have the right to refuse.

 

[caveman1917]

Nope, you've still got the wrong end of the stick. I put "forcing" into quotes for a reason. You're not forcing me to behave in certain ways by using the wrong pronouns, but you are forcing me to hear you do it.

Clearly false, there is nobody forcing you to read my or anyone else's posts and nobody is stopping you from using the ignore function.

Also, I think you're grabbing the wrong end of another stick by framing it as a "command" rather than a request.

A request, when it comes with enforcement, is a command. Enforcement is what determines whether something is forced or not, in our little corner of the internet that meaning the mods. Ask yourself: Have the mods told you that you have to put "she" in your bio? No. Have the mods told you that you are required to read everyone's posts and are not allowed to use the ignore function? No. Have the mods told others that they are required to use "he" in their posts instead of "she"? Yes.

It's one thing to promote and agree with certain enforcements of certain rules, but stop pretending as if someone else's refusal to obey your command constitutes that someone forcing anything on you.

 

[d4m10n]

All this talk about sexual anatomy and what-not has me wondering: Why?

If you exhume a well-preserved frozen human corpse from a glacier, you can figure out whether the individual in question was male or female or (perhaps with further testing) intersex. No amount of testing will tell us whether the individual in question was masculine, feminine, or somewhere in between. Those facts are lost to time, since they were aspects of subjective lived experience rather than objectively observable features of human bodies.

Whatever it is that makes someone non-binary, it's nothing to do with their primary or secondary sexual characteristics. While I oppose tabooing the topic (as we might should around the water cooler) it's difficult to see why it's relevant to the core questions here.

 

[theprestige]

I'd like some evidence that anyone is issuing commands about their pronouns.

I can't oblige you with evidence, but I'm pretty sure my employer will consider it a career-limiting maneuver if I don't use the pronouns requested by my colleagues. In fact, I'm pretty sure said colleagues would speak to HR about it, even if they didn't bother trying to command me directly.

 

[arthwollipot]

The moment I get accused of being a "bigot" if I don't comply, I'd rather say it's blatantly obvious that the underlying assumption is that it's a command that I don't have the right to refuse.

As has been pointed out before, it's only bigotry if you continue to misgender someone after being repeatedly asked not to. It's bigotry when you persist in the problematic behaviour even when you know it's problematic. It's okay to slip up occasionally, but it's not okay to persist against someone's wish.

I know analogies are fraught with danger, but here's one anyway. My name in meatspace, it might surprise you to know, isn't Arthwollipot but Andrew. But I detest the name Andy. If you call me Andy, I will politely ask you to call me Andrew. If you forget and accidentally call me Andy, I will forgive you. I will remind you, but I will forgive you. But if you clearly and deliberately persist in calling me Andy despite the fact that you know I don't like it, that's not okay. In this particular case I would probably stop short of calling it "bigotry" but no analogy is perfect.

Am I "commanding" you to call me Andrew? No, I'm not. I'm asking you, and by not complying you are being an ass. Do you care that I now consider you an ass? If not, how is that a command? A command that is not complied with carries consequences. The only consequence that I can see for your not complying with my request is that I will consider you an ass, which you might not care about.

Clearly false, there is nobody forcing you to read my or anyone else's posts and nobody is stopping you from using the ignore function.

A request, when it comes with enforcement, is a command. Enforcement is what determines whether something is forced or not, in our little corner of the internet that meaning the mods. Ask yourself: Have the mods told you that you have to put "she" in your bio? No. Have the mods told you that you are required to read everyone's posts and are not allowed to use the ignore function? No. Have the mods told others that they are required to use "he" in their posts instead of "she"? Yes.

It's one thing to promote and agree with certain enforcements of certain rules, but stop pretending as if someone else's refusal to obey your command constitutes that someone forcing anything on you.

This discussion is not about this forum. If you want to join the discussion as it specifically relates to this forum, it's over here in Forum Management.

 

[arthwollipot]

I can't oblige you with evidence, but I'm pretty sure my employer will consider it a career-limiting maneuver if I don't use the pronouns requested by my colleagues. In fact, I'm pretty sure said colleagues would speak to HR about it, even if they didn't bother trying to command me directly.

I think it's a bit of a stretch to frame a Code of Conduct or a Harrassment Policy as a command.

 

[caveman1917]

As has been pointed out before, it's only bigotry if you continue to misgender someone after being repeatedly asked not to. It's bigotry when you persist in the problematic behaviour even when you know it's problematic. It's okay to slip up occasionally, but it's not okay to persist against someone's wish.

I know analogies are fraught with danger, but here's one anyway. My name in meatspace, it might surprise you to know, isn't Arthwollipot but Andrew. But I detest the name Andy. If you call me Andy, I will politely ask you to call me Andrew. If you forget and accidentally call me Andy, I will forgive you. I will remind you, but I will forgive you. But if you clearly and deliberately persist in calling me Andy despite the fact that you know I don't like it, that's not okay. In this particular case I would probably stop short of calling it "bigotry" but no analogy is perfect.

Am I "commanding" you to call me Andrew? No, I'm not. I'm asking you, and by not complying you are being an ass. Do you care that I now consider you an ass? If not, how is that a command? A command that is not complied with carries consequences. The only consequence that I can see for your not complying with my request is that I will consider you an ass, which you might not care about.

I think it's a bit of a stretch to frame a Code of Conduct or a Harrassment Policy as a command.

Are you saying that not complying with a Code of Conduct or a Harassment Policy does not come with consequences other than someone "considering you an ass"?

 

[theprestige]

I think it's a bit of a stretch to frame a Code of Conduct or a Harrassment Policy as a command.

I think you've spent a lot of time in this thread trying to frame things so narrowly as to avoid addressing pertinent issues. "Command", like it's not problematic if it's not literally an order as from a military officer. "Genitalia", like the only relevance of sexual dimorphism is in sexual intercourse, which is conveniently out of scope for you.

 

[arthwollipot]

Are you saying that not complying with a Code of Conduct or a Harassment Policy does not come with consequences other than someone "considering you an ass"?

No, I'm not. If you've got a Code of Conduct, there can be serious consequences if you do not comply. But I don't feel that framing a Code of Conduct as a "command" is an appropriate use of that word and why are we still talking about this anyway?

 

[arthwollipot]

I think you've spent a lot of time in this thread trying to frame things so narrowly as to avoid addressing pertinent issues. "Command", like it's not problematic if it's not literally an order as from a military officer. "Genitalia", like the only relevance of sexual dimorphism is in sexual intercourse, which is conveniently out of scope for you.

You'll notice I've stopped referring to genitalia exclusively.

 

[caveman1917]

No, I'm not. If you've got a Code of Conduct, there can be serious consequences if you do not comply. But I don't feel that framing a Code of Conduct as a "command" is an appropriate use of that word and why are we still talking about this anyway?

Because you framed refusal to obey your command request with consequences as someone forcing something on you, as opposed to the absence of you forcing something on someone else. As for why we're still talking about this, good question, it's obvious you'll double down on your framing ad infinitum and with increasing lack of coherence ("it's not a command if there are no consequences" and then "there are consequences but I just don't feel that it's appropriate to use the word command").

 

[arthwollipot]

Because you framed refusal to obey your command request with consequences as someone forcing something on you, as opposed to the absence of you forcing something on someone else. As for why we're still talking about this, good question, it's obvious you'll double down on your framing ad infinitum and with increasing lack of coherence ("it's not a command if there are no consequences" and then "there are consequences but I just don't feel that it's appropriate to use the word command").

Are you suggesting that it would be better for me to stick with my guns, even when I'm wrong?

 

[caveman1917]

Are you suggesting that it would be better for me to stick with my guns, even when I'm wrong?

Just because I observe you do it doesn't mean I think it would be better for you to do so. It would definitely be better to at least stay coherent though, if what makes a request into a command is consequences for disobedience then a request with consequences is a command. You can't have it both ways. And that's not even considering that, while failing to see any "command" in your request with consequences, you do see yourself as having something "forced on you" in the mere refusal of someone else to obey said command.

Again, it's one thing to argue that some requests should be enforced, and hence become commands, but it's quite another to turn reality upside down about who is arguing to force who to do or not do something.

 

[Roboramma]

No, I'm not. If you've got a Code of Conduct, there can be serious consequences if you do not comply. But I don't feel that framing a Code of Conduct as a "command" is an appropriate use of that word and why are we still talking about this anyway?

Do you think "request" is the right framing?

 

[arthwollipot]

Just because I observe you do it doesn't mean I think it would be better for you to do so. It would definitely be better to at least stay coherent though, if what makes a request into a command is consequences for disobedience then a request with consequences is a command. You can't have it both ways. And that's not even considering that, while failing to see any "command" in your request with consequences, you do see yourself as having something "forced on you" in the mere refusal of someone else to obey said command.

Again, it's one thing to argue that some requests should be enforced, and hence become commands, but it's quite another to turn reality upside down about who is arguing to force who to do or not do something.

Ah, well my definition of "command" is not "request with consequences". It's an order, or an instruction that is expected to be obeyed. When the Lieutenant commands you to go over the top, that's not a request with consequences. That's an order, soldier.

Do you think "request" is the right framing?

No. "Expectation of behaviour" is better.

 

[LondonJohn]

Here it is again:

Doesn't seem to me that "the boundaries/limits are 'man' at one end and 'woman' at the other end" is a remotely sufficient response, since it gives us no way to tell what's real from what's made up.

And therein lies the problem with your approach to this.

After all. you can (if you so desire) apply this "can't tell what's real and what's made up" approach to pretty much every internalised human condition:

"She tells me she loves me, but does she really mean it or is she making it up?"

"My housemate tells me he enjoys my choices of DVD on our movie nights, but does he really mean it or is he making it up?"

"My best friend tells me they have a non-binary gender identity, but do they really mean it or are they making it up?"

 

[arthwollipot]

And therein lies the problem with your approach to this.

After all. you can (if you so desire) apply this "can't tell what's real and what's made up" approach to pretty much every internalised human condition:

"She tells me she loves me, but does she really mean it or is she making it up?"

"My housemate tells me he enjoys my choices of DVD on our movie nights, but does he really mean it or is he making it up?"

"My best friend tells me they have a non-binary gender identity, but do they really mean it or are they making it up?"

"Brittany Higgins told me that she was raped, but does she really mean it or is she making it up?"

 

[caveman1917]

Ah, well my definition of "command" is not "request with consequences". It's an order, or an instruction that is expected to be obeyed. When the Lieutenant commands you to go over the top, that's not a request with consequences. That's an order, soldier.

No. "Expectation of behaviour" is better.

Still not doing so well on the coherence front, I'm afraid.

 

[LondonJohn]

And across about a dozen threads now that's where we've gotten to and gotten stuck.

"Is it good enough if I treat you the way you want to be treated without conceptualizing you the way you want to be conceptualized?"

"Is it good enough that, since you tell me you're gay, I treat you (?) as gay.... but at the same time I fundamentally disagree with the validity and reality of homosexuality (and I have no problem sharing my fundamental opinion on the invalidity/non-reality of homosexuality with you and others)?"

(No, it's not.)

 

[LondonJohn]

All this talk about sexual anatomy and what-not has me wondering: Why?

If you exhume a well-preserved frozen human corpse from a glacier, you can figure out whether the individual in question was male or female or (perhaps with further testing) intersex. No amount of testing will tell us whether the individual in question was masculine, feminine, or somewhere in between. Those facts are lost to time, since they were aspects of subjective lived experience rather than objectively observable features of human bodies.

Whatever it is that makes someone non-binary, it's nothing to do with their primary or secondary sexual characteristics. While I oppose tabooing the topic (as we might should around the water cooler) it's difficult to see why it's relevant to the core questions here.

And if you exhume that well-preserved corpse, can you tell whether the individual in question was homosexual or heterosexual? Or whether they had ever fallen in love or not? Or if they identified strictly with the gender which is usually attached to their biological sex?

And does the fact that you wouldn't be able to tell those things... make any difference at all as to whether those things were real and valid within the lived experience of that person when they were alive?