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Split Thread Pronouns and expectations

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Gulliver Foyle said:
Do not placate them for being evil, blacklist them, punish them, make their lives sheer misery until they learn how to act at the bare minimum level expected of human beings.

If they cannot accept others for being harmlessly different, we should not allow them to be destructively hateful.
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This is not a winning strategy though is it?

This confirms an impression that I have that when it comes to politics there are basically two modes: persuasion and coercion.

I think the former is preferable to the latter, but not only that, if your only course of action is coercion and you have no means of doing it then you are going to look foolish.

By attempting to blacklist and make people suffer until they do as you say, you have abandoned any idea of appealing to reason including your own. You will no longer have any arguments for why people should adopt your ideas and because you have attempted to impose your values by authoritarian means you will have assisted in creating an environment that makes you vulnerable to it when the wind changes.
 
angrysoba said:
This is not a winning strategy though is it?

This confirms an impression that I have that when it comes to politics there are basically two modes: persuasion and coercion.

I think the former is preferable to the latter, but not only that, if your only course of action is coercion and you have no means of doing it then you are going to look foolish.

By attempting to blacklist and make people suffer until they do as you say, you have abandoned any idea of appealing to reason including your own. You will no longer have any arguments for why people should adopt your ideas and because you have attempted to impose your values by authoritarian means you will have assisted in creating an environment that makes you vulnerable to it when the wind changes.
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Exactly, it isn't. Homosexuals have been discriminated against for thousands of years. It's only in the last 55 years has it begun to being acceptable in the US. The Stonewall riots occurred in New York in 1969. Homosexuals have been arrested for homosexual conduct as recently as 1998. Same sex marriage was legalized only a decade ago.

Homosexuals is a minority of around 10% of the population. Transgender individuals make up maybe 1/2 of 1 percent. And this is kind of a new minority. I mean these individuals have always been around. But the first sex reassignment surgery wasn't performed in the US until the middle 1950s. Still, only a few thousand individuals undergo sex reassignment yearly.

So the idea of trans individuals is a very new idea to the majority of people. It takes time to change minds. I don't think it's a wise idea to force it.
 
acbytesla said:
They're not required even to do that.

That is what they think they see. But sexuality is far more complex than what one's genitalia is.

I don't get homosexuality either. It makes no sense to me. But I can't deny that some people, even a lot of people are not attracted to the opposite sex. But are attracted to the same sex. Who are we to tell them their lifestyle is unacceptable? IMV, the same goes for gender identity.

It's their life. Let them live it. We shouldn't make their life, or anyone's life harder, just because we don't understand them or their choices.
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Thus being polite but not engaging the parts that don't make sense. Saves a call to the police and hurt feelings.

I have a full plate of my own. Don't need the drama of a run in with someone that thinks I intended to be offensive.
I don't care about thier choices most of the time. It's not my business.
 
Or let this pronouns thing fade away so nobody has to deal with the silliness.
 
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8enotto said:
Or let this pronouns thing fade away so nobody has to deal with the silliness.
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It's never going to fade away. There have been people with (let's call it "gender dysphoria" to be polite to your beliefs) throughout history, and unless you're a close acquaintance or health professional to them, it's polite to call them what they ask you to, and confrontational to oppose them to their face.

Or do you usually go around starting fights?
 
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Nobody has asked nor demanded I use a pronoun yet. Not likely in my area.

Thus no conflicts.
 
Orphia Nay said:
It's never going to fade away. There have been people with (let's call it "gender dysphoria" to be polite to your beliefs) throughout history, and unless you're a close acquaintance or health professional to them, it's polite to call them what they ask you to, and confrontational to oppose them to their face.

Or do you usually go around starting fights?
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I don't have an issue with any human volunteering to me their preferred pronouns. I will respect their wishes. The mistake from my perspective is the need of anyone asking what mine is. It is for the most part, unnecessary to ask 99 out of a hundred people. It seems silly to ask us.
 
acbytesla said:
I don't have an issue with any human volunteering to me their preferred pronouns. I will respect their wishes. The mistake from my perspective is the need of anyone asking what mine is. It is for the most part, unnecessary to ask 99 out of a hundred people. It seems silly to ask us.
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I've never been asked for my pronouns. Have you? If so, in what circumstances?
 
Pr
Orphia Nay said:
Would you use the pronoun you consider "wrong" if asked in person? How about online?
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Probably, but online I know most by a screen name. I am most likely use that for better clarity.

Also keeps others calmer should I get it wrong without knowing there was a preference. Seen too many get jumped for that already.
 
Orphia Nay said:
I've never been asked for my pronouns. Have you? If so, in what circumstances?
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Thinking far back the nearest for me is when I was in retail we had to take people's names and other personal details. We would say something like "is it Mr, Mrs, Ms" to everyone, no one batted an eye, an occasional joker would say something funny about the question, and we'd get a "it's Lord", so we would put that down, most would laugh and get us to correct it. (Since we did have Lords, Ladies and Sirs as customers we erred on the side of taking what a customer said at face value). The nearest to offended would be those that wanted "Dr", for some reason they were quite prickly if you assumed. Then the most recent for me would be about 4 or 5 years ago when I noticed applicants that came from recruitment agencies would usually have a "preferred pronoun" note, whether that came from the applicants or the recruitment agencies I don't know.
 
Darat said:
Thinking far back the nearest for me is when I was in retail we had to take people's names and other personal details. We would say something like "is it Mr, Mrs, Ms" to everyone, no one batted an eye, an occasional joker would say something funny about the question, and we'd get a "it's Lord", so we would put that down, most would laugh and get us to correct it. (Since we did have Lords, Ladies and Sirs as customers we erred on the side of taking what a customer said at face value). The nearest to offended would be those that wanted "Dr", for some reason they were quite prickly if you assumed. Then the most recent for me would be about 4 or 5 years ago when I noticed applicants that came from recruitment agencies would usually have a "preferred pronoun" note, whether that came from the applicants or the recruitment agencies I don't know.
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I thought about that. You use to see that on forms. Not sure those are pronouns. Those are titles.
 
I agree that we shouldn't have to declare our pronouns since most of us needn't, just as we needn't declare our orientation. But unfortunately, too many people these days equate this not only with not accepting, but openly reviling, minority choices. It would be nice to imagine a world in which casual assumptions of the default are simply corrected and accepted, and life goes on.

I don't quite see how that is going to happen when so many are convinced that deviation from the norm is sin or mental illness, and that attitude is reinforced by the administration. I can well support the idea that people should not be so upset by misattribution, but I can see why they can be when it is so often a matter of contention in which their very identity is at stake.

I suspect that much of the coercive and inconvenient issue of pronouns and such would be irrelevant if people simply accepted each others' differences and could count on others to do the same.
 
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