"Misgendering" is now a federal offense

[Thermal]

When they started kissing..

I think he means that if you thought you were talking to a male, then a female walked up and they started kissing, what made you think that the first person was a woman? Wouldn't it still look like a guy kissing his lady? It's presumably not like they started scissoring in front of you.

 

[d4m10n]

Over six hundred posts now; has anyone given an argument for upgrading the taboo against "misgendering" from a social norm to an offense sanctioned by universities or any other institutions dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge?

ETA: Asking because the OP in this thread brings up a specific set of issues that haven't been focused on very much in That Thread(TM).

ETA2: Honestly I'd be happy with just a link to an argument on point.

 

[Darat]

Yes, sadly some folk fail at the standard social contract and need bad behaviour spelt out and codified.

 

[Thermal]

Over six hundred posts now; has anyone given an argument for upgrading the taboo against "misgendering" from a social norm to an offense sanctioned by universities or any other institutions dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge?

ETA: Asking because the OP in this thread brings up a specific set of issues that haven't been focused on very much in That Thread(TM).

ETA2: Honestly I'd be happy with just a link to an argument on point.

The gist of the policy seems to be "hey maybe you don't think of this as harassing, but we want to assure you that *we* do." So not so much an upgrade as clarification.

 

[theprestige]

Frankly I'm more interested in a principled argument for why mocking the policy is something that needs to be reported to the administration.

Not this milquetoast "it shouldn't need explaining" nonsense that Darat and others are trying to foist. An actual, from axioms, here's why it's a net good thing, explanation. I don't care if it's an argument from humanism, from utilitarianism, from nihilism... I don't even care if it's an argument from theism. I would just like to see it. If it exists, for anyone here.

 

[Thermal]

I can't come up with one. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, and considering it's only a memo, maybe poor wording on their part? It's not like it lists penalties for noncompliance

 

[smartcooky]

Yes, sadly some folk fail at the standard social contract and need bad behaviour spelt out and codified.

Please define "bad behaviour". You see, just because you think something is bad behaviour doesn't mean that everyone else has to agree. Whether a person's behaviour is good, bad or normal very much depends on the lens through which you view that behaviour.

For example, if I were to mock a religious figure, such as Jesus or God (the way you often do) most atheists such as I wouldn't have any problem with it, but a devout catholic could be offended and consider that to be "bad behaviour"

 

[smartcooky]

I can't come up with one. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, and considering it's only a memo, maybe poor wording on their part? It's not like it lists penalties for noncompliance

Just because a school policy doesn't list penalties for transgression doesn't mean there aren't any. Just ask Kathleen Stock, Colin Wright, Selina Todd, Kathleen Lowery, Laura Tanner, Stephen Gliske, Sheila Jeffreys, Maria José Binetti, Jessica Miranda, or Nathaniel Hiers for example.

If you don't know who these people are or what happened to them for transgressing school and university policies (some of which were not even written) I am prepared to enlighten you!

 

[Orphia Nay]

If someone wanted to harrass/insult but get around the misgendering policy they might mock the policy itself in front of the trans person instead of misusing their pronouns, hence the need for the policy about the policy.

 

[Thermal]

Just because a school policy doesn't list penalties for transgression doesn't mean there aren't any. Just ask Kathleen Stock, Colin Wright, Selina Todd, Kathleen Lowery, Laura Tanner, Stephen Gliske, Sheila Jeffreys, Maria José Binetti, Jessica Miranda, or Nathaniel Hiers for example.

If you don't know who these people are or what happened to them for transgressing school and university policies (some of which were not even written) I am prepared to enlighten you!

Well yeah, but "there might be, or not" doesn't clarify much, and lends credibility to the position that it is worded poorly at best.

 

[Thermal]

If someone wanted to harrass/insult but get around the misgendering policy they might mock the policy itself in front of the trans person instead of misusing their pronouns, hence the need for the policy about the policy.

Right, and I'm certain that was the intent. But if someone's policy is to use forms of addressin a way the recipient doesn't like, does the school have to have a policy about their policy of policy? What if someone's name is Paul and they involve police? The hearing will be a tongue twister.

 

[The Atheist]

I think he means that if you thought you were talking to a male, then a female walked up and they started kissing, what made you think that the first person was a woman?

She'd been out as exclusively lesbian for all the years I'd known her.

Hell, she turned me down, you can't get more dyke than that!

 

[smartcooky]

If someone wanted to harrass/insult but get around the misgendering policy they might mock the policy itself in front of the trans person instead of misusing their pronouns, hence the need for the policy about the policy.

Indeed. The first step in silencing dissent - "it ist verboten to question ze rulez - ve vill ask ze questions!!"

So that person could mock the policy about the policy - so you'd need a policy about the policy about the policy, and then a policy about the policy about the policy about the policy. Where would it end .... is it turtles all the way down!?

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Please define "bad behaviour". You see, just because you think something is bad behaviour doesn't mean that everyone else has to agree. Whether a person's behaviour is good, bad or normal very much depends on the lens through which you view that behaviour.

Maybe. BUTT

1. In the meantime we have had SOME way to codify good or bad, via the philosophy of ethics. Granted, it's not perfect, eg, if you go full utilitarian, if you could torture a kid for all eternity to make everyone, all 8 billion people, happy, it would be a GOOD thing, but it's a start and such extreme edge-case examples don't happen in real life. So, yeah, we'll burn that bridge when/if we ever actually cross it. But I haven't seen any attempt to see that argued in ANY philosophy of ethics, anyway.

2. Nor in any traditional idea of ethics, either, or not in a coherent and consistent, much less valid way.

Like, seriously, going by the idea that a new minority is automatically right and worthy of support, then you could use the exact same argument to offering all your empathy to the minority of slave owners in Haiti, and not to the majority slaves. (For our butthurt fanboy whargl friends, no, that's not putting words in your mouth or anything, it's a valid reductio ad absurdum)

3. I'd still be ok with the activists actually showing any empathy to either side, regardless of whether it's group A or group B, and regardless of what their definition of good is. But I haven't seen them giving a flying f-bomb about either the group A they're supposed to be supporting, or group B they're abusing. They only seem to care about scoring thumbs up and retweets from other activists, at the expense of BOTH groups. Which, say what you will about the fallibility of ethics philosophy, it's failing HARD to qualify as good in ANY.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

If someone wanted to harrass/insult but get around the misgendering policy they might mock the policy itself in front of the trans person instead of misusing their pronouns, hence the need for the policy about the policy.

You could apply the EXACT same reasoning to why it's ok to forbid speaking about Stalin's policies, lest you offend someone who actually believes in them. Like, literally, even if you wanted to talk against slavery or serfdom, you might hurt the sensibilities of the nobles or slave-owners respectively. Or if you wanted to support women's rights in Iran, it might be hurtful to some imams and males oppressing them.

I'm sorry, but that's the polar opposite of free speech. People wanting to be able to talk about why the king's policy is wrong, is exactly why we ended up wanting such rights.

The idea that you can forbid talking about policies, just because you could accidentally hurt the sensibilities of those believing in them, has got to be the absolute dumbest rationalization for curtailing speech. Not just to human rights, but even to logic, that's the equivalent to what absolute zero kelvin is for entropy.

 

[angrysoba]

She'd been out as exclusively lesbian for all the years I'd known her.

Hell, she turned me down, you can't get more dyke than that!

Still, if I was convinced the first person was a man, a woman coming up and kissing her would just make me assume that she wasn’t that exclusive a lesbian after all. But no matter, probably one of those situations where you just had to be there.

 

[angrysoba]

I can't come up with one. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, and considering it's only a memo, maybe poor wording on their part? It's not like it lists penalties for noncompliance

My assumption would be that if someone turns up in class and says that they identify as an attack helicopter, and their pronouns are lol and roflmao, then that would be seen as mockery of trans people with “plausible deniability”. That said, we can obviously see where this can get difficult to adjudicate. Someone taking the piss and claiming they are the opposite gender to how they appear might not be any different from someone who really doesn’t pass but wishes they did. And someone with idiosyncratic pronouns poses some problems.

Coming to think of it, has that battle ended? I know there were some who insisted on using them, but I don’t hear much about xir, ze, ver, vim any more. Did that idea fly too close to the Sun?

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Coming to think of it, has that battle ended? I know there were some who insisted on using them, but I don’t hear much about xir, ze, ver, vim any more. Did that idea fly too close to the Sun?

Dunno, they're still listed on, for example, the human rights campaign site: https://www.hrc.org/resources/understanding-neopronouns

And really, many other sites.

Along with such stuff as "fae". Like, really, you couldn't have just gone for "elf"?

I mean, admittedly it's last been updated about 2 years ago, but on the flip side, it's also not been updated to say that's no longer the case, either.


Edit: TBH I think it's just that a lot of the outright trolls, along with anyone who wasn't terminally in the most dysfunctional side of the autistic spectrum, eventually realized that going to HR over "but he called me 'they' instead of 'hir'" would not just lose them any friend they've ever had, but also get them flagged on a list of people prioritized for the next downsizing. Companies may like to virtue signal all the way, but an employee who's always in conflict with everyone else, and regularly escalates over such drivel, probably isn't actually a net positive to the company. If there's one thing corporations love more than virtue signalling, it's employees who just do their flippin' job, and aren't constantly in a conflict with the rest of the team. Or worse yet, with a client. And even those who may have said otherwise, are gradually waking up to that reality. So the tail end seems to be still going on, but as just that: the tail end.

 

[Thermal]

Dunno, they're still listed on, for example, the human rights campaign site: https://www.hrc.org/resources/understanding-neopronouns

And really, many other sites.

Along with such stuff as "fae". Like, really, you couldn't have just gone for "elf"?

I mean, admittedly it's last been updated since about 2 years ago, but on the flip side, it's also not been updated to say that's no longer the case, either.

I haven't heard one "in the wild", except for one kid like 8 years ago who screamed LOOK AT ME with her every word and action, who wanted to be called "xe" or something for like a week.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Well, still, 2 years ago the human rights campaign was, well, campaigning for that. So it couldn't have been completely dead by then.