• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Moderated Using wrong pronouns= violence??

Hercules56 said:
And yes, in NYC you can be heavily fined for misgendering someone, if you are a boss or landlord.
Click to expand...
If someone decides to call effeminate cisgender men "she/her" at the office, they can be fired for harassment. Is that a problem?



Sent from my SM-G996U using Tapatalk
 
theprestige said:
I guess my question is, should the intentional use of the "wrong" gender pronoun to identify someone be seen not only as an act of oppression, but an act of violence?

Should it even be seen as an act of oppression?

I would argue that imposing preferred pronouns is itself an act of oppression.

ETA: I mean, obviously any words can be "fighting words" with the right context and delivery. I have no problem with the idea that someone can incite violence by mis-pronouning them. Or even by correctly pronouning them. My question is whether there should be an a priori assumption that misgendering someone must be a violent act.
Click to expand...

Must? Nope. The article clearly says "can be", and I'd agree, it can. But the article goes on at great length to talk about making mistakes and how that is not a big deal at all.

My question is whether we should take one mildly hyperbolic word use in an aside and distort it to a Quixotic Strawman of Wokeness.
 
Hercules56 said:
Calling someone a name, is not a provocation justifying violence.

This is not the Wild West, and we no longer accept the concept of "fighting words".
Click to expand...

Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire has been overturned?

As for the OP question, yes, particularly if you use the pronouns ze/zir/zirs for someone whose pronouns are actually xe, xir and xirs.
 
Before this thread turns into That Thread, pronouns are used to describe others in the third person. They are not a form of address. In that sense, if you described a guy as short and he personally identified as tall, is that also picking a fight?
 
Thermal said:
Before this thread turns into That Thread, pronouns are used to describe others in the third person. They are not a form of address. In that sense, if you described a guy as short and he personally identified as tall, is that also picking a fight?
Click to expand...

Barbara refers to herself as a "she".

Mike does not believe that he is indeed a woman but is instead a man dressed as a woman, so he refers to Barbara as "he".

Mike has therefore committed an act of oppression and violence against Barbara??? An act of violence that justifies physical self-defense???

******* ridiculous.
 
Thermal said:
Must? Nope. The article clearly says "can be", and I'd agree, it can. But the article goes on at great length to talk about making mistakes and how that is not a big deal at all.

My question is whether we should take one mildly hyperbolic word use in an aside and distort it to a Quixotic Strawman of Wokeness.
Click to expand...

Fair enough. But this is not an article. It's an official guideline of the university.

So why is this "mildly hyperbolic" term being used at all? Why is the university telling students this hyperbole, that misgendering can be considered violence?

Why even bring it up?
 
Hercules56 said:
Barbara refers to herself as a "she".

Mike does not believe that he is indeed a woman but is instead a man dressed as a woman, so he refers to Barbara as "he".

Mike has therefore committed an act of oppression and violence against Barbara??? An act of violence that justifies physical self-defense???

******* ridiculous.
Click to expand...

No, Mike has not. Nor does the article say so, nor anyone in the thread. It's an entirely imaginary position.
 
theprestige said:
Fair enough. But this is not an article. It's an official guideline of the university.

So why is this "mildly hyperbolic" term being used at all? Why is the university telling students this hyperbole, that misgendering can be considered violence?

Why even bring it up?
Click to expand...

Good point. At a guess, I'd think that they were clumsily saying that words can hurt, or provoke/escalate a confrontation more easily than the casual misgenderer might realize.
 
Thermal said:
Before this thread turns into That Thread, pronouns are used to describe others in the third person.
Click to expand...
Not so much describe as refer. The fact that you have to know somebody's gender before you can refer to them correctly is just one of those weird things about a language that eliminated grammatical gender but, for some reason, retained gendered pronouns. In retrospect, it was a mistake to develop masculine and feminine genders at all. We were better off with an animate-inanimate gender system.
 
Last edited:
Thermal said:
No, Mike has not. Nor does the article say so, nor anyone in the thread. It's an entirely imaginary position.
Click to expand...

The policy of the college states that misgendering someone is an act of oppression and violence.

If we drive that message into kids heads enough times someone is going to say "well you committed violence against me therefore I have the right to slug you".
 
Hercules56 said:
The policy of the college states that misgendering someone is an act of oppression and violence.
Click to expand...

It does not, and I've called that out more than once. It says "it can be". It also says it can be entirely innocent.

If we drive that message into kids heads enough times someone is going to say "well you committed violence against me therefore I have the right to slug you".
Click to expand...

A) That ship done sailed millennia ago
B) If these adult "kids" are that stupid, they are in for much bigger problems anyway
 
mumblethrax said:
Not so much describe as refer. The fact that you have to know somebody's gender before you can refer to them correctly is just one of those weird things about a language that eliminated grammatical gender but, for some reason, retained gendered pronouns. In retrospect, it was a mistake to developed masculine and feminine genders at all. We were better off with an animate-inanimate gender system.
Click to expand...

I dunno. They seemed to work great for centuries, giving brevity and often clarity to the language. Wouldn't it be easier to abandon the concept of gender, as it serves no purpose anyway other than to cause confusion and offense?
 
Another thread where I disagree with most everyone and regret saying anything.

The notion that words are violence is stupid and dangerous.

On the other hand, what's so bad about being polite enough to address someone in they way they wish to be addressed?

On the other hand, I almost never use a gendered pronoun to address someone within in earshot, so who cares? Its an insult on the order of mispronouncing someone's name.

Another thread where I disagree with most everyone and regret saying anything.
 
Thermal said:
I dunno. They seemed to work great for centuries, giving brevity and often clarity to the language. Wouldn't it be easier to abandon the concept of gender, as it serves no purpose anyway other than to cause confusion and offense?
Click to expand...

They are working on that diligently--what do you think "bodies that menstruate" is, but an attempt to get around saying "woman." BTW, good luck with language as gender is baked into French and Spanish (and probably lots more).
 
Thermal said:
I dunno. They seemed to work great for centuries, giving brevity and often clarity to the language. Wouldn't it be easier to abandon the concept of gender, as it serves no purpose anyway other than to cause confusion and offense?
Click to expand...
I don't see how she and he provide more brevity than hän does. It might provide more clarity in certain contexts. Hardly seems worth it, though. If I were designing a language from scratch, adding gender or gendered pronouns would strike me as a boondoggle (which is my way of saying Esperanto sucks).

Meanwhile, I think eliminating sociological gender would be more or less impossible without eliminating human beings.
 
Thermal said:
Must? Nope. The article clearly says "can be", and I'd agree, it can.
Click to expand...

How? You haven't said yet. I don't see any way it can be. Declarations of an imminent attempt to commit physical violence can constitute assault, and one can do that while using the "wrong" pronouns, but it's not the pronouns which would make it assault. Under what possible scenario is the use of the wrong pronouns violence?

My question is whether we should take one mildly hyperbolic word use in an aside and distort it to a Quixotic Strawman of Wokeness.
Click to expand...

It's not mildly hyperbolic. It's absolute nonsense. And it's very much part and parcel of wokeness. Note also that according to that page, intentional use of the "wrong" pronouns is always an "act of oppression".

That link also makes the following declaration:

Pronouns are one of the ways we portray our identities.​

Not really. The author is confused about the purpose of pronouns and why they are gendered.

Pronouns serve as labels for communication, so that a speaker can convey the identity of third party they are talking about to a second party in a way that the second party can understand the reference, without having to use the third party's name. What is important for pronoun usage is that the first and second parties can understand who is being referred to. Pronouns should match the shared conception between the first and second parties about the identity of the third party in order for communication using pronouns to work, but none of that is dependent upon the third party's self conception. Pronouns are gendered because sex is one of the most fundamental characteristics of a person, it is correctly identifiable immediately in the vast majority of cases, and referring to someone by their sex is an incredibly concise way to help identify the third party being referred to. The purpose of gendered pronouns is not to portray your identity, but to facilitate communications between parties other than the person being referred to. Much of the time, the third party will not even be a participant in the exchange and won't even be aware of pronoun usage in reference to them.

Now, I get why people have preferred pronouns that may not match their sex. Basically, they want to be thought of as if they were that sex. And the polite thing to do when in such a person's presence is to use that person's preferred pronouns. But even when it's insulting to use the "wrong" pronouns, it's not violence, it's not oppression. If someone can tell you're not actually a different sex than your biological sex, and they don't want to refer to you as being a sex other than your actual sex, that doesn't make you a victim. It's only an insult at worst, and not necessarily even that. If you're a male walking around in jeans, a t-shirt, and a beard, making no attempt to look feminine but demanding people call you "she", it's not an insult to call you "he". It's just linguistic clarity, because that's a better identifier than "she".
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom