Moderated Using wrong pronouns= violence??

[Sherkeu]

I'm sure the 'tired of hyperbole' people, as well as the 'I'm actually in the middle you Tumblr follower' people will be along any second to object to this.

I have read this several times...and come back to it to make sense of it.
I admit that I do not know what it means.

 

[d4m10n]

I have read this several times...and come back to it to make sense of it.

They are saying that those of us who critique the case for deferring to preferred pronouns (i.e. "Be nice!") ought to critique the "Pronouns are Rohypnol®" argument as well.

I don't get the sense that Ms. Kerr was making an argument that we have to conform our usage to hers, though:

If you do this experiment you may still decide to accept or use female pronouns for male people, perhaps a little wiser, but cognisant of their influence on you and others. That’s a choice you may make. At least now you understand that you may be voluntarily suppressing your own natural response. Your eyes are more open.​

Instead, she was arguing that females ought not be expected or coerced to change the way they use pronouns, for various reasons. I'd say there is a significant difference between asking for tolerance and demanding conformity to "correct pronouns" but don't expect others will see it that way.

 

[tyr_13]

No one here has even gone so far as to even argue that the process of social transition does more good than harm. All you've got is a raw assertion that these are the new norms and people need to get behind them or else face social backlash. It's Mean Girls meets Clueless, only less witty.

The argument from "this is how we do things here" works for literally anything. Good things, like Zakat^WP. Bad things, like blasphemy laws. If you want people who are openly skeptical of your new pronoun heuristic to get on board, you're going to need something more than peer pressure.

People who are properly skeptical don't do the denialist thing of just flat out lying about what has been presented.

Now your first line goes to show that you're not just taking the 'neutral skeptical' position, but regardless of that, I've given far more argument than just 'peer pressure' and 'that's how we do it around here'. (And isn't Tumblr like a picture sharing thing? WTF does it have to do with anything?) P0lke presented more reasoning than that. TomB did. Even Thermal provided some really solid reasoning even if I don't completely agree where he ends up on transgender people (which again is only a subset of people misgendered).

Your insistence that it's just bullying is so wrong that I know you're aware it isn't true. The only way it can be rule's lawyered into almost seeming true, and it fails even then, is in direct response to your hypothetical. Again though, even then it isn't reasonably nor technically true.

I have read this several times...and come back to it to make sense of it.
I admit that I do not know what it means.

They are saying that those of us who critique the case for deferring to preferred pronouns (i.e. "Be nice!") ought to critique the "Pronouns are Rohypnol®" argument as well.

I don't get the sense that Ms. Kerr was making an argument that we have to conform our usage to hers, though:

If you do this experiment you may still decide to accept or use female pronouns for male people, perhaps a little wiser, but cognisant of their influence on you and others. That’s a choice you may make. At least now you understand that you may be voluntarily suppressing your own natural response. Your eyes are more open.​

Instead, she was arguing that females ought not be expected or coerced to change the way they use pronouns, for various reasons. I'd say there is a significant difference between asking for tolerance and demanding conformity to "correct pronouns" but don't expect others will see it that way.

'Misgendering can be violence.' Ridiculous and unacceptable!

'Pronouns will get us raped.' This is fine.

Yeah, y'all, that's the 'neutral skeptical' take.

 

[Thermal]

I got hate with a side of straw men.

You were also ridiculed for saying something ridiculous, then trying to sweep it under the rug.

There is so much moral panic around transgenderism right now, I’m not sure an actual discussion can be had. There were a few starts, here and there, of an actual dialogue, but then the peanut gallery comes bustling in with their fingers in their ears and waving their flags.

meh.

For a lot of us, there are no real moral issues here. Some people feel like they are the opposite sex from what they are. OK, I'll work with them on that if they are cool (ie: unlike theprestige's example of an aggressive transwoman who expects me to be into dick because I'm into women).

For some of us, there are interesting angles here that come up, like whose reality trumps whose and reasonable behavior. But when something crazy gets said...like there are 64 genders, and neopronouns that you can't actually identify as because they are meaningless, or that you can't reliably identify someone's sex visually...you create your own ridiculous sideshow, and that's on you.

 

[p0lka]

I would not say that, no, because that is incoherent.

What I would say is this: In almost all examples of human interaction, what someone's biological sex is makes no difference. It is irrelevant. There are a very few circumstances, like for example in the case of sexually active relationships, where it does matter. Most of the time it does not.

If you treat someone differently depending on whether they are a man or a woman, then you are a misogynist or a misandrist.

It would be interesting to see a female that identifies as a man, being charged with misogyny because they were picking on a male that identifies as a woman, made me chuckle.

 

[Sherkeu]

People who are properly skeptical don't do the denialist thing of just flat out lying about what has been presented.

Now your first line goes to show that you're not just taking the 'neutral skeptical' position, but regardless of that, I've given far more argument than just 'peer pressure' and 'that's how we do it around here'. (And isn't Tumblr like a picture sharing thing? WTF does it have to do with anything?) P0lke presented more reasoning than that. TomB did. Even Thermal provided some really solid reasoning even if I don't completely agree where he ends up on transgender people (which again is only a subset of people misgendered).

Your insistence that it's just bullying is so wrong that I know you're aware it isn't true. The only way it can be rule's lawyered into almost seeming true, and it fails even then, is in direct response to your hypothetical. Again though, even then it isn't reasonably nor technically true.





'Misgendering can be violence.' Ridiculous and unacceptable!

'Pronouns will get us raped.' This is fine.

Yeah, y'all, that's the 'neutral skeptical' take.

What is your take as a female gendering males in their spaces with female pronouns. Shall we validate them all or use some discretion sometimes?

Oh, perhaps you arent female? Well then.... Maybe don't assume things you know nothing about.

Most of the time is really is a non-issue....but dont lay some hard and fast locked-in rule for us lest you seem to be some ignorant male waving away any female concerns. Just learn a bit, ok?

 

[d4m10n]

I've given far more argument than just 'peer pressure' and 'that's how we do it around here'.

Which post? Remember I was asking for an argument for why someone naive ought to change how they map pronouns to nouns. Where did you ever go beyond asserting that there is a new social norm of what counts as polite?

ETA: Grepped back a bit through the thread, best I could find was that Carl should change his language usage in order "[t]o be respectful, polite, and kind to the people who get misgendered a lot." Seems like you're just invoking a new social norm to me, but maybe you believe it is something more.

'Pronouns will get us raped.' This is fine.

I actually quoted the specific bit which I actually thought was fine, and that wasn't it. People who are properly skeptical don't do the denialist thing of just flat out lying about what has been presented.

 

[tyr_13]

What is your take as a female gendering males in their spaces with female pronouns. Shall we validate them all or use some discretion sometimes?

Oh, perhaps you arent female? Well then.... Maybe don't assume things you know nothing about.

Most of the time is really is a non-issue....but dont lay some hard and fast locked-in rule for us lest you seem to be some ignorant male waving away any female concerns. Just learn a bit, ok?

I've learned quite a lot from many wonderful women (and 'females' as some have taken to privileging above all others) so there is zero reason to just take your assertions. Tell me, do my nephews get a say?

Especially when it comes down to 'men bad, women good'.

Which post? Remember I was asking for an argument for why someone naive ought to change how they map pronouns to nouns. Where did you ever go beyond asserting that there is a new social norm of what counts as polite?

ETA: Grepped back a bit through the thread, best I could find was that Carl should change his language usage in order "[t]o be respectful, polite, and kind to the people who get misgendered a lot." Seems like you're just invoking a new social norm to me, but maybe you believe it is something more.

I don't know which is worse; that that was the only thing you could find or that 'being nice to people who would otherwise suffer' is a new social norm. As Thermal says, even if you think those people are 'delusional' (again, and I can totally see this being ignored again, a lot of those people will be cisgendered), then it's not asking a lot to not make them suffer needlessly. Did you not read his posts? Or p0lka's? Just mine I guess?

I actually quoted the specific bit which I actually thought was fine, and that wasn't it. People who are properly skeptical don't do the denialist thing of just flat out lying about what has been presented.

As I pointed out the part I objected to, the part that based on your previous reasoning you should also object to, and in response to that objection you decided to address another part does in fact indicate you're fine with the part I objected to. Your response was a red-herring that doesn't actually address the ridiculousness of calling pronouns a rape drug.

This has become pointless. You've gone into the weird warp12 games.

 

[Sherkeu]

I've learned quite a lot from many wonderful women (and 'females' as some have taken to privileging above all others) so there is zero reason to just take your assertions. Tell me, do my nephews get a say?

Especially when it comes down to 'men bad, women good'.

It's definitely not 'men bad, women good' I have NEVER even suggested that was the case. Strawman. I like men!! Hi guys!!

The right for adult male bodies to go into my daughters swim locker rooms and showers? No. HARD NO. Absolutely not.

The word 'female' is not a dirty word, despite what you think I may mean by it. For example, when I say here that I am concerned about the rights to single sex spaces for women and girls, everyone, including advocates for transwomen, seem to know who I am talking about. Those 'women' have a group that people recognize as a separate thing from transwomen.

There simply needs to be an acknowledgment that there are some fundamental differences.

Bring your nephews here! (plural?)...I assume they are females? Let's hear from some females that have a different view. From what I know, many transmen also avoid the male private spaces for safety and they stay in the womens spaces. I'm open to any discussion.

(unless it comes to what I said before, like males sharing showers/locker room with my daughter or competing against her on the HS teams...then nope. Male body, male advantage. That's why we have girls sports in the first place.)

 

[jimbob]

I am putting this on moderated status as I have moved another 17 posts to AAH. And that was a quite generous interpretation of the subject.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: jimbob

 

[d4m10n]

I don't know which is worse; that that was the only thing you could find or that 'being nice to people who would otherwise suffer' is a new social norm.

When I was taught pronouns, it was considered not nice to use pronouns to misattribute sex, a property of someone's body. Your argument to folks like Carl is that they are wrong to think of it that way, nowadays it is not nice to misattribute gender, a property of someone's mind. That is the new social norm, that "being nice" actually requires deprecating sex in favor of gender when using language generally and and pronouns in particular. You are smuggling in metaphysical and ethical commitments under the guise of everyday politeness.

...it's not asking a lot to not make them suffer needlessly...

If it makes Sam Smith and Demi Lovato suffer to be referred to as male and female, respectively, their beef is with reality itself, not with the people perceiving it. Skeptics should know that sometimes people suffer when you tell them the truth, especially if they've been leaning on comforting lies.

 

[d4m10n]

It wasn't about Carl having to use the stickers, it was more about informing him that they're just stickers and he can use stickerless words like them they their they're etc and not have to deal with all these arguments about stickers.

As I said in before, this strikes me as a fairly workable solution, but I don't think the HR folks at UC Boulder would agree.

 

[p0lka]

As I said in before, this strikes me as a fairly workable solution, but I don't think the HR folks at UC Boulder would agree.

I would like to see them try to disagree, the irrationality would be hilarious.

 

[Thermal]

Personally I'm pretty strongly motivated by not to be a jerk. It's one reason that I don't tend to talk about politics or religion with friends. When you start contradicting people, they often take offense. A couple of days ago I was having dinner with some friends and I made an offhand comment about homelessness in San Fransisco being related to high housing prices. Another friend started in about how it's really just lowlifes coming in from out of state to take advantage of California's good weather and soft on crime policies. Rather than offend him, I just changed the subject. A week before that at another dinner one guy brings up how impressed he was by RFK Jr. and how we should be worried about vaccines, etc. I have pretty strong opinions about that, but rather than be a jerk, I just left the subject alone, and we quickly started talking about other things.

I'm still wrestling with this as a solution. I have a half brother who is the warmest, most loving guy around, but he has some inconsistently far right beliefs (anti-vaccines, AGW, BLM, etc). So we basically have to shut down certain irreconcilable topics. It's hurting us, but we don't have enough family to slam too many doors shut. I mean, nobody has to agree on everything, but isn't there a line in there somewhere where we shouldn't be sweeping important stuff under the rug between people we care about?

While I'm motivated by not wanting to be a jerk, I'm also motived by the truth. There's a part of me that wanted to get into an argument about those subjects, but in the end I decided not to offend anyone. But I'm still not entirely sure what the right reaction is.

In a similar vein, I'd probably use someone's preferred pronouns even when they seemed to be contrary to fact, but the part of me that's motived by wanting to state the truth would recoil slightly.

Well put. I don't want to hurt anybody who is not picking a fight, but it stings to have to sort of...be less than honest.

 

[d4m10n]

I would like to see them try to disagree, the irrationality would be hilarious.

The argument runs something like this:

Fundamentally, a move toward gender-neutral pronouns ignores the important work that gendered pronouns perform in everyday life. For many trans/GNC people, gender is an important part of their identity and actively avoiding the act of gendering manifests as another form of violence—a violence that trans/GNC people have been fighting against throughout the long history of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual and two-spirit (LGBTQIA2S) experience.​

Basically misgendering is violence but so is ungendering. As someone wrote upthread, everyone has a moral right to their own pronouns and thus everyone has a moral duty to use them.

 

[JoeMorgue]

I don't get upset by changing usage or definition of words. After all, the word "girl" was apparently gender/sex neutral until the late 1500s.

I don't either. Trying to maintain the consistency of language is fool's errant, and trying to maintain the purity of language like it's your virginal daughter you're keeping away from the neighborhood boys is a pretentious fools errand and all of that goes 10x for English.

What I object to, not get upset by, is removing the definition from a word and still trying to use it and worse yet police it.

My other issue is if it were as simple as calling everyone them/they and going on with my life I'd embrace it, but we all know that isn't simple and at this point 99% of them actions in life have been reduced to just running a cost benefit analysis on each of them to determine which one is going to generate the least amount of insufferable "discourse" and I'm just so tired of that.

I don't know how many people here are old enough to remember when Ms/Mrs/Miss was still a distinction that anyone cared about but it was the same thing. It was another "Can't win, can't lose, can't quit the game, can't flip over the table." that worked along the same lines. A linguistic distinction that some people thought was unnecessary existed and the "solution" was to use a neutral term except as a backlash people though the neutral term was offensive.

We have to be able to speak to people without having them fill out a demographic questionnaire first.

 

[tyr_13]

It's definitely not 'men bad, women good' I have NEVER even suggested that was the case. Strawman. I like men!! Hi guys!!

The right for adult male bodies to go into my daughters swim locker rooms and showers? No. HARD NO. Absolutely not.

You posted an article where they call pronouns a drug that facilitates rape because men are dangerous and women are safe.

And you think this isn't even implying what I said?

Hard no.

 

[Sherkeu]

You posted an article where they call pronouns a drug that facilitates rape because men are dangerous and women are safe.

And you think this isn't even implying what I said?

Hard no.

Changing the psychology of how women and girls use 'female' gendered language to perceived males is concerning. None of that means men=bad. However, of the population of persons that assault women, most are male. That is just statistics. We don't separate the sexes in certain situations just for giggles.

If you dont like the stats, then I dont know what to tell you to change it. I cannot, by some thought or language alteration, make it not so.

 

[p0lka]

The argument runs something like this:

Fundamentally, a move toward gender-neutral pronouns ignores the important work that gendered pronouns perform in everyday life. For many trans/GNC people, gender is an important part of their identity and actively avoiding the act of gendering manifests as another form of violence—a violence that trans/GNC people have been fighting against throughout the long history of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual and two-spirit (LGBTQIA2S) experience.​

Basically misgendering is violence but so is ungendering. As someone wrote upthread, everyone has a moral right to their own pronouns and thus everyone has a moral duty to use them.

That article was indeed both irrational and hilarious. As I got to the end of it I realised the author was basically having a tantrum about another article and oozing bias from every pore.

 

[d4m10n]

Interesting case out of the Seventh Circuit:

John M. Kluge brought a Title VII religious discrimination and retaliation suit against Brownsburg Community School Corporation (“Brownsburg”) after he was terminated from his employment as a teacher for refusing to follow the school’s guidelines for addressing students. Brownsburg requires its high school teachers to call all students by the names registered in the school’s official student database, and Kluge objected on religious grounds to using the first names of transgender students to the extent that he deemed those names not consistent with their sex recorded at birth. After Brownsburg initially accommodated Kluge’s request to call all students by their last names only, the school withdrew the accommodation when it became apparent that the practice was harming students and negatively impacting the learning environment for transgender students, other students both in Kluge’s classes and in the school generally, as well as the faculty.​

The Brownsburg leadership settled on the practice of requiring teachers to use the PowerSchool names and pronouns (“Name Policy”) as part of the larger plan to address the needs of transgender students.​

The tl;dr version is basically that if you aren't affirming your students' gender identities, then you aren't really doing your job as a high school teacher. This makes perfect sense to me, assuming the medical establishment is correct about the efficacy of social transition as a means of treating gender dysphoria.