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Moderated Using wrong pronouns= violence??

Someone wants me to refer to them as "them." It means a lot to them and costs me next to nothing.
Failure to comply could cost you your scholarship or professorship at CU Boulder, so it is a bit facile to pretend these are low stakes choices made voluntarily between consenting adults with no institutional coercion involved.
 
Why would it mean a lot to them if it really doesn't mean anything? People don't really see themselves as not a he or she, if we are being honest here. They know whether or not there is any point to scheduling with a gynecologist. The rest is a ride on the Imagination train. Why would you make others partake in that for any reason?

Who cares why it means a lot to them? It clearly does, and costs me next to nothing. The only thing I'm "partaking" in is being a considerate person.
 
Failure to comply could cost you your scholarship or professorship at CU Boulder, so it is a bit facile to pretend these are low stakes choices made voluntarily between consenting adults with no institutional coercion involved.

Only if the failure to comply reaches the level of harassment.
 
A decent part of skepticism ...snip...

A decent part of being a nice human is to not intentionally upset your fellow humans, and when being nice doesn't cost you anything the only reason for not being nice is because you are not a nice person.
 
Why would it mean a lot to you?

It doesn't. But that doesn't mean I will indulge in pointless fantasy.

If I told you I wanted to be called God or My Lord or Thermal the Well Hung, it's no skin off your nose either. Little weird tho, no?
 
A decent part of being a nice human is to not intentionally upset your fellow humans, and when being nice doesn't cost you anything the only reason for not being nice is because you are not a nice person.
What makes you believe it is entirely costless to play along with the notion that people can change their sex? Plenty of costs have been pointed out in the other thread, most of them falling upon natal females.

Only if the failure to comply reaches the level of harassment.
How many failures to comply ought to get (CU Boulder) students sent home, in your view?
 
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That's the kind of decision that belongs to a committee or HR dept, not a single person, IMHO.
Imagine you are on the committee, deciding the fate of a serial misgenderer. This student seems to believe that pronouns refer to sex rather than gender and also seems fairly incorrigible in their belief. How bad does it have to get before you decide to kick them out for holding this belief and acting accordingly?
 
Imagine you are on the committee, deciding the fate of a serial misgenderer. This student seems to believe that pronouns refer to sex rather than gender and also seems fairly incorrigible in their belief. How bad does it have to get before you decide to kick them out for holding this belief and acting accordingly?

I don't know. I don't have the expertise to decide that.
 
It doesn't. But that doesn't mean I will indulge in pointless fantasy.
I can relate. There's no way I'm referring to a man as she, or a woman as he. That's a fantasy I won't participate in. But they works for all parties.
 
I think we can agree it is not an act of physical violence, but I haven’t seen anything that indicates that is what the author of the article was referring to, nor have I seen the claim disproven for all other forms of violence.

Care to clarify?

What other kinds of violence are there, besides physical??

Violence= "behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something."
 
Who cares why it means a lot to them? It clearly does...

Are you sure about that? Means a lot to them, I mean. A lot of people just like to browbeat with the woke stick and correct others. Some just like the little power play.

No one "feels" like a "they"or a "xe". That doesn't even mean anything. It's a game, and I'd rather not play.

and costs me next to nothing. The only thing I'm "partaking" in is being a considerate person.

Ok. Does it cost you anything to call some random guy My Lord? Is it any skin off youn nose to lower your eyes when speaking to His Lordness?
 
I'm still a bit surprised to see skeptics—speakers of uncomfortable truths in so many other contexts—easily swayed by arguments which boil down to the idea that we ought to be catering to feelings (avoiding the linguistic violence of misgendering) rather than plainly acknowledging facts (avoiding the linguistic confusion of missexing). It certainly is not obvious to me why we should invariably choose the former path over the latter, especially since the arguments provided thus far are basically appeals to authority and/or majority.

Despite the name of the board, we rarely praise skepticism by itself. It is the combination of skepticism and critical thinking that is important. Not only questioning what we believe to be true but also why we believe it is true.

Now, what you're having a hissy about here is nothing objective. It is a determination based on an ever changing social construct. Depending on the premises, there are multiple valid conclusions. But those premises are always open to questioning and review. Take, for example, your premise that linguistic "sexing" is confusing. That's a textbook appeal to personal incredulity. Just because you find something confusing or difficult doesn't mean it's invalid or even all that confusing and difficult.
 
I don't have the expertise to decide that.
It seems to me that shifting this convo from institutional norms which may be enforced by an educational institution (e.g. CU Boulder) to a matter of simple interpersonal politeness between friends constitutes a retreat from the bailey to the motte. The controversial position, in this case, is that pronouns must be taken to refer to gender identity on pain of institutional sanction. The much more defensible position is that it is nice to be polite to your colleagues and friends.
 
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I don't know. I don't have the expertise to decide that.
Ultimately, questions of public policy must be decided by the public. Especially in a representative democracy, your answer constitutes an abdication of one of your fundamental responsibilities as a citizen.

Even in the case where special expertise is needed, the experts only ever advise the policy-makers (i.e., us and our elected representatives (who are also not experts (in anything other than getting elected, and graft))).
 
Are you sure about that? Means a lot to them, I mean. A lot of people just like to browbeat with the woke stick and correct others. Some just like the little power play.

No one "feels" like a "they"or a "xe". That doesn't even mean anything. It's a game, and I'd rather not play.

Transgender rates of depression, anxiety and suicide. It means a lot to them.

Ok. Does it cost you anything to call some random guy My Lord? Is it any skin off youn nose to lower your eyes when speaking to His Lordness?
That implies subservience. It's not the same thing.
 
Ultimately, questions of public policy must be decided by the public. Especially in a representative democracy, your answer constitutes an abdication of one of your fundamental responsibilities as a citizen.

Even in the case where special expertise is needed, the experts only ever advise the policy-makers (i.e., us and our elected representatives (who are also not experts (in anything other than getting elected, and graft))).

I was considering the question as it relates to an institution's policies, such as a college.
 
Well, aside from my daughter's friends and their short lived "xe" phase, none of this impacts most of us a bunch IRL, I'd venture but the OP article is giving guidelines that kind of assume it. As a discussion point, I think it's fair to assume we will actually run across this stuff and at least our hypothetical positions regarding them.



Sex is binary, though. It doesn't really have subgenres that are significant enough to warrant new or inapplicable pronouns or terminology. I guess the irksome point for me is that it bothers me when people's imaginations are pushed on others and demanded to be treated as reality. It's like talking to a Trump supporter and they demand that J6 be taken as a peaceful protest.

Sex may be (mostly) binary, but isn't it the case that in social interactions, when we refer to someone's gender, we're talking about mostly things besides their anatomy and genetics? Those less objective matters certainly have plenty of room for "subgenres." My point is that very few are likely to ask you to stay familiar with the fine details beyond your interest level, and so the potential difficulty is not a good argument for insisting that gender and sex should be in alignment.
 
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