I’d be interested to see your answer to that question, too.
That’s fine, but I would prefer it gets asked as its own good-faith question, rather than a (mistaken) accusation of committing the excluded middle fallacy in a different conversation that was specifically at one end of the continuum. Fruit of the poison tree and all that.
Believe it or not, I don’t hang on every word of every post in this or any other thread. I asked a question I thought worth asking in the greater context of the OP, and I appreciate a response that doesn’t insinuate the questions was asked in bad faith.
And I prefer questions that don’t just assume obvious logical fallacies on my part as their starting premise, and that aren’t tacked onto completely separate conversation threads. You first. I’m happy to answer a respectful rephrased question.
No, there’s also blatant transphobic hatred on the menu.
Is it allowed for a poster to avoid the controversy by not using pronouns, but just names? i.e., rather than name hypothetical transgender “Mikayla” as a he or a she, just say Mikayla - as in, “Mikayla couldn’t decide whether Mikayla wanted to get coffee that afternoon or not.”
Grammatically awkward, but avoids offending either camp.
That’s not “avoiding the controversy”, that’s deliberately not using someone’s chosen pronouns, and very much taking a side. IMO, a jerkish side.
One could do so if, for example, one wanted to he a huge asshole about it.
I think that if you use pronouns normally for most posters, but do what you described for trans posters - and persist once said poster tells you what their preferred pronouns are - you are Being A Jerk.
First, why would it not be allowed?
Second, why do we need to prioritize the risk of offending bigots?
I agree.
What about using gender neutral pronouns which the person has not explicitly say they prefer? Some people independently refer to other people using gender neutral pronouns like zim, sie, em and ver even though the other person has not explicitly stated that those pronouns apply to them. For example, Page’s announcement listed he/they as the preferred pronouns. Are forms those pronouns the only acceptable pronouns to use? Can someone say “Page auditioned for the part and zie got it” instead of “…he/they got it”? And it is acceptable for me to admonish someone for using gender neutral pronouns for me rather than the gender specific ones I prefer?
Context matters. If you use “they” for everyone on the internet, that’s one thing. If you use “he” or “she” 95% of the time, but when a poster says that they are Trans and prefer She/Her, and you insist on calling that one trans poster (and no one else) “they”, that’s pretty jerky.
IMO? Yes. Anything else is just plain rude.
Again IMO - yes, I think so.
It’s fine (if idiosyncratic and likely confusing at first) for someone to use their own made-up pronouns for people where there’s no known preference. But when they know the preference, they shouldn’t. Even if they’re using their neuter pronouns with what they consider good intentions.
I think it would be reasonable to ask the poster about why they insist on using their own pronouns instead of the ones for which a clear preference was stated. If you told me your name was filmore and I insisted on calling you fil after you clearly told me you preferred I use your proper name, I think that you could reasonably admonish me for refusing to honor your wishes, or at least reasonably assume I refuse to do so as a sign of disrespect.
That’s ridiculous. Folks aren’t compelled to have their perception of reality forced to meet someone else’s. Calling someone by their chosen name is surely fair enough.
Look, having to use words like zim and such is not going to work. It’s like Latinx. Just because some in the woke community think it’s a word doesn’t make it compulsory for anyone else to use it. Or capitalizing some adjectives such as black. You can’t dictate language like that and expect compliance.
Claiming the refusal to do so is so-called jerkitude does not make it so.
I didn’t tell you to use words like ‘zim’. Did you read the post you replied to or just turn to one of your go-to strawmen to attack?
No, it’d be jerkish when doing it in some silly pronoun version of “I’m Not Touching You”…it’d just be passive-aggressive bullshit.
You can if you’re the AP.
It’s not a strawman. If someone demands to be referred to as a word such as zim and I prefer to use the full name that’s fine. I am respectful, most of the time, when there is no reason not to be. I just have no compulsion to use language I choose not to.
Transgenderism is going to be a political and medical debate for quite awhile regardless of hurt feelings. There is no obligation in society or anywhere else that one’s feelings must be spared discomfort. Every contentious issue is highly personal to someone.
For the most part, I stay out of transgender discussions with the rare exception of participation in sport. My personal belief is each person’s brain is wired the way it is and people should for the most part be accepted and respected for who they are. When it comes to categorization I think that language and biology need to have specific meanings to have utility and to prevent Humpty-Dumptyism.