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Moderated Using wrong pronouns= violence??

Hercules56 said:
People are murdered for all sorts of silly reasons all the time. Being a jerk, being silly, being trans.

I don't see why calling somebody the wrong pronoun is an act of violence but calling somebody a jerk is not. Please explain the difference.
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There is no difference. Either can be tolerable if it is once off, but either can escalate to the level of sustained harassment.

Please tell me that you understand what "harassment" means.
 
arthwollipot said:
There is no difference. Either can be tolerable if it is once off, but either can escalate to the level of sustained harassment.

Please tell me that you understand what "harassment" means.
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Haaa!!!! After the last few days I definitely know what it means.
 
Hercules56 said:
You're joking, right???

I have never argued that.
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Right, my mistake. You asked why calling someone a jerk would not be considered physical violence. Apologies for that.

Regardless, it does tend to indicate that you're missing the difference between a casual insult and sustained harassment. Casual insults are not violence. Sustained harassment is. It doesn't matter the form in which the harassment occurs - it can be repeatedly calling someone a jerk, or it can be misgendering them and refusing to use their pronouns. Regardless, it is the harassment that constitutes violence, not the insult.
 
arthwollipot said:
Right, my mistake. You asked why calling someone a jerk would not be considered physical violence. Apologies for that.

Regardless, it does tend to indicate that you're missing the difference between a casual insult and sustained harassment. Casual insults are not violence. Sustained harassment is. It doesn't matter the form in which the harassment occurs - it can be repeatedly calling someone a jerk, or it can be misgendering them and refusing to use their pronouns. Regardless, it is the harassment that constitutes violence, not the insult.
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I reached out to UC Boulder to get clarification on their position for this issue. But some in this thread seem to suggest that one single incident of using the wrong pronoun could be seen as an act of violence and I guess also harassment.
 
Hercules56 said:
I reached out to UC Boulder to get clarification on their position for this issue. But some in this thread seem to suggest that one single incident of using the wrong pronoun could be seen as an act of violence and I guess also harassment.
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Please provide an example of a post that led you to this conclusion. It's certainly something that I have gone out of my way to repudiate, and as far as I've been able to tell, it's not an idea that anyone else in the thread has been promoting either. But it's possible that I've missed something. This is a fast-moving thread.
 
arthwollipot said:
Please provide an example of a post that led you to this conclusion. It's certainly something that I have gone out of my way to repudiate, and as far as I've been able to tell, it's not an idea that anyone else in the thread has been promoting either. But it's possible that I've missed something. This is a fast-moving thread.
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30 pages, sigh its too much to go through.

It is my understanding that some folks here believe that even a single instance of using the wrong pronoun can be seen as a form of harassment, and therefore "violence".
 
Hercules56 said:
30 pages, sigh its too much to go through.

It is my understanding that some folks here believe that even a single instance of using the wrong pronoun can be seen as a form of harassment, and therefore "violence".
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Yeah, fair enough. It's a long thread.

So let's put the call out: Does anybody in this thread believe that a single instance of using the wrong pronoun constitutes violence? Please say so if you do.
 
I'd say it counts as "linguistic violence" in the usual academic sense of the phrase.

ETA: I do not believe people ought to be entirely protected from linguistic violence, because some/many/most of us are walking around with terrible ideas which genuinely hurt to be called into question, e.g. "It is profoundly immoral to make fun of the prophet who founded my religion," or "Respect for the bereaved requires that we do not question their attempts to talk to the dead."
 
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I think violence is an unnecessarily charged word for it, but I agree that you can use almost any word in a violent spirit or intent.
 
arthwollipot said:
A single occurrence? Okay.
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I will not name names but there seems to have been several people here who argued with me that one single instance can indeed be harassment and violence. Let's see if they step up. However if people are bored with this thread I don't blame them for staying away.
 
arthwollipot said:
I'm just trying to establish where other people draw their lines.
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Linguistic violence basically means that words can be used to hurt. I don't believe intent to harm is a requirement, but some people differ on this part.

One time I made fun of Brigham Young's tendency to sexually subjugate young women within earshot of a Mormon family at Panera Bread. Was I doing a linguistic violence? Yup. Do I feel bad about it? Nope. One major difference between linguistic violence and actual violence is that the latter is nearly always ethically proscribed.
 
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d4m10n said:
Linguistic violence basically means that words can be used to hurt. I don't believe intent to harm is a requirement, but some people differ on this part.

One time I made fun of Brigham Young's tendency to sexually subjugate young women within earshot of a Mormon family at Panera Bread. Was I doing a linguistic violence? Yup. Do I feel bad about it? Nope.
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Okay, fair perspective. Thanks.

What I'm getting here is that a one-off use of an insult can be regarded as violence, but not necessarily. Okay, I think I can get on board with that. What I said originally was that accidentally misgendering someone due to mistake or ignorance is not violence. Doing it out of malice is.
 
Hercules56 said:
I reached out to UC Boulder to get clarification on their position for this issue. But some in this thread seem to suggest that one single incident of using the wrong pronoun could be seen as an act of violence and I guess also harassment.
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No they don't.
 
d4m10n said:
Why not? Words can hurt even when not intended to hurt. You seem to be drawing lines somewhat arbitrarily here.
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Emotional "hurt" is not the same as physical trauma. At least not according to the law in most states.

Literally anything can cause emotional trauma. Silly to compare it to physical damage.
 
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