This thread on Trans Ettiquette. What the fucking fuck.

[The_King_of_Soup]

@Martini_Enfield

Of course. I’m sure you (or someone else) is about to tell me that it’s terribly offensive to ask an obviously pregnant woman when she’s due, or if she knows the baby’s gender, though…

Well, mostly you’re just off-topic, but it’s my fault. It honestly didn’t occur to me that you would pursue the discussion by doubling down on being rude and tactless. However, for the sake of any woman who doesn’t escape in time: the reasons normal people don’t try to discuss pregnancy with a pregnant person unless she brings it up are (1) if she’s far enough along that you think the pregnancy is obvious, she’s far enough along to be sick of the topic; (2) sharp as you are, lots of sharp people have guessed wrong about someone being pregnant; (3) pregnancy is often a source of stress and anxiety for the woman so it is polite to wait for her to begin any talk about it, and be alert for any signal that she wants to change the subject; (4) many women continue to look obviously pregnant for a while after an abortion or miscarriage.

…Similarly, if someone I know has clearly had plastic surgery or a breast enhancement, of course I’m going to ask them about it - just as if they’d changed their haircut or were trying out a new fashion style.

Not sure I even believe you, but (1) yeah, incredibly boorish; but (2) at least slightly more analogous in the sense that it’s something the person’s more recent acquaintances may not know about, and noising it about makes you a horse’s ass.

Of course, mostly, you’re just off-topic: we’re talking about what you say to other people, or allow them to overhear, more than about what you say in private to a person you think is transgender, because while the latter is apt to be hurtful and rude, the former is much worse.

…Feel free to elaborate, since I’m honestly not sure how “stating the obvious” qualifies as “harmful”.

Here I don’t believe you at all, but that’s okay. First, off, it’s not obvious to everyone. Not to the person’s recent personal acquaintances, not to those with whom she or he interacts less often or at a distance, and not to those with whom the person has decided not to share his or her status. Second, it’s rude because discussing people who are not present is rude. Third, the circumstances surrounding and leading to a person’s transgender status are liable to be unhappy, if not traumatic, and it is wrong to create a situation in which the person will certainly have to fend off more curiosity (well-meaning and not). Fourth, spreading the information increases the likelihood that it will come to the attention of people who will seek to harm the transgender person. This is not an inconsiderable risk (cite is in your native Australian for your convenience). Even if violence does not occur, any number of other kinds of discrimination, large and small, are suddenly a greater danger.

As long as you hang on to the idea that it is not cool, and not okay, to contradict a person’s chosen, legal identity, and act accordingly, and err on the side of quietude whenever in doubt, you probably won’t do any harm. But strive not to draw analogies and think in terms that basically just exist to construct a mental framework in which it’s okay to do bad things that might harm other people. For example, you dropped the Orwell analogy: positive step.

[raventhief]

@Martini_Enfield

Of course. I’m sure you (or someone else) is about to tell me that it’s terribly offensive to ask an obviously pregnant woman when she’s due, or if she knows the baby’s gender, though. Similarly, if someone I know has clearly had plastic surgery or a breast enhancement, of course I’m going to ask them about it - just as if they’d changed their haircut or were trying out a new fashion style.

Feel free to elaborate, since I’m honestly not sure how “stating the obvious” qualifies as “harmful”.

As a woman who tends to carry excess weight in the abdomen, let me tell you right now. Just because you think it’s " obvious" that said woman is pregnant, keep your mouth shut. If you are wrong, you have just been incredibly insulting.

[Gatopescado]

What did I just read? :smack:

[Pantastic]

Yeah, I dropped out of that thread because I saw it becoming stupid, but I really liked the irony of Darren Garrison accusing other people of being Orwellian for using a word in a sense that it’s been used for centuries, while he was engaged in the actual 1984 style practice of rewriting history by pretending that the use of ‘violence’ in regards to words is something that was recently invented. Conservatives seem to do a lot of saying “we should stick to the old way of doing things” “but that meaning is older than you are!” “by old way, I meant my way, not the actual old way”.

[Kimstu]

@Martini_Enfield

I’m sure you (or someone else) is about to tell me that it’s terribly offensive to ask an obviously pregnant woman when she’s due, or if she knows the baby’s gender, though.

Well, more “kind of rude” than “terribly offensive”. It is conventionally considered rather poor manners to ask a stranger personal questions about her pregnancy just because you can see she’s (apparently) pregnant.

Natch, it’s not impolite if this is someone you know personally and discuss personal matters with as part of your acquaintance. But do yourself a favor and lay off asking strangers personal questions about their reproductive systems and the contents thereof. Not everything that’s physically obvious is an appropriate topic for strangers to comment on or inquire about (see also: wheelchairs; birthmarks; exceptionally unusual height or weight; any physical characteristic typically referred to as a “defect”, “deformity”, or “condition”; etc.).

[QUOTE=Martini Enfield]
Similarly, if someone I know has clearly had plastic surgery or a breast enhancement, of course I’m going to ask them about it - just as if they’d changed their haircut or were trying out a new fashion style.
[/quote]

As other posters have already pointed out, that’s conventionally considered rude too (especially the breast enhancement one, fer chrissakes :eek: )—unless you know the person intimately enough for your medical histories and sex lives to be matters of routine discussion between the two of you.

In terms of etiquette, asking a casual acquaintance about her sudden change in breast size is NOT equivalent to asking her where she got her smashing new haircut.

@Martini Enfield

while I admit I haven’t met many transgender folks (because there really aren’t a huge number in Australia), the few I have met have fairly clearly been transgender

Actually, what you mean is that the few folks you’ve met whom you’ve known or suspected to be transgender have seemed to you to be fairly clearly transgender.

You have no way of knowing how many not-out transgender folks you’ve met whom you never even considered as possibly transgender. (Though I agree with you that it’s probably not a large number just on statistical-incidence grounds.)

[Darren_Garrison]

@Pantastic

Yeah, I dropped out of that thread because I saw it becoming stupid, but I really liked the irony of Darren Garrison accusing other people of being Orwellian for using a word in a sense that it’s been used for centuries, while he was engaged in the actual 1984 style practice of rewriting history by pretending that the use of ‘violence’ in regards to words is something that was recently invented. Conservatives seem to do a lot of saying “we should stick to the old way of doing things” “but that meaning is older than you are!” “by old way, I meant my way, not the actual old way”.

Take a look at all your examples that you gave here.

When, however, in connexion with the quarrel about the archbishopric of Cologne (1837), political Catholicism raised its head menacingly, Leo turned against it with extreme violence in his open letter (1838) to Goerres, its foremost champion.

In this one, violence is used to describe metaphorically the rebutting of a text.

                  2. Action intended to cause destruction, pain, or suffering.

4. (figuratively) Injustice, wrong.
   The translation does violence to the original novel.

In this one, violence is used to describe metaphorically the rebutting of a text.

                  3 Distortion of meaning or intent: do violence to a text.

In this one, violence is used to describe metaphorically the rebutting of a text.

                  4. great force or strength of feeling, conduct, or expression; vehemence; fury

5. a twisting or wrenching of a sense, phrase, etc., so as to distort the original or true sense or form: to do violence to a text

In this one, violence is used to describe metaphorically the rebutting of a text.

Can you supply old examples of “violence” being used to describe words doing literal harm to a person and not as a metaphor for rebutting a text? Ones that do not come in modern times from the “all sex is rape”, “all whites are racist” idiot extremist clown posse? And do you really think that diluting the meaning of words so much that they can describe virtually anything in any way makes people more sympathetic to your cause, or if it causes people who haven’t already drank the Kool-Aid to roll their eyes at you and dismiss you as a nut?

[raventhief]

The translation does violence to the original novel does not refer to “rebutting” of an argument. It means that the original is mangled, not rebutted. In fact, that is the case with many of your examples. No arguments are being rebutted.

Vehement reaction may well be violent as well as verbal. And vehemence is directly listed above.

great force or strength of feeling, conduct, or expression; vehemence; fury

Expression. Not necessarily physical.

[Crazy_Canuck]

Yeah, ZPG is disturbed, and not the good kind. I’ve hate putting anyone on ignore, because that leads to living in a bubble. With that thread … she is now the second person on my ignore list here after 12 years. I have had more rational conversations with an actual real-life genocide promoting neo-nazi than ZPG, which really blows my mind.

@Spiderman

When ½ of your workforce if officially told how is it not public knowledge?

This is a silly argument. Over 3/4’s of my coworkers know my bosses visa number. We use it pay for stuff all the time. Despite that fact, that number is still not public knowledge. The fact that some people need that number to do their jobs doesn’t mean that I just give it to anyone who asks me for it, and I definitely don’t share it with non-employees to prove how in-the-know I am.

And Martini, I checked with my Aussie former-sister-in-law, and she agreed that it’s not a uniquely north american thing that you don’t talk about a stranger’s pregnancy, regardless of how pregnant you think she looks. Both of us agree that if you do this, you are being rude.

[Darren_Garrison]

@raventhief

The translation does violence to the original novel does not refer to “rebutting” of an argument. It means that the original is mangled, not rebutted. In fact, that is the case with many of your examples. No arguments are being rebutted.

Vehement reaction may well be violent as well as verbal. And vehemence is directly listed above.

great force or strength of feeling, conduct, or expression; vehemence; fury

Expression. Not necessarily physical.

Yes, but this is coming off the claims that mentioning the “deadname” of a trans person is “an act of violence” against them (and my own addition that I had seen earlier, that a copy-editor of a manuscript changing “they” to a gendered pronoun is an “act of violence.”) Do you really think that using such dramatic, hyperbolic, histrionic, eye-rollingly over the top terms means someone is likely to be taken more seriously? Violence against someone is a crime punishable by prison. Do you think that mentioning the name someone went by for decades, or editing a manuscript merits prison?

[raventhief]

5. a twisting or wrenching of a sense, phrase, etc., so as to distort the original or true sense or form: to do violence to a text

Are you saying that this definition is invalid?

[Kimstu]

@Darren_Garrison

Do you really think that using such dramatic, hyperbolic, histrionic, eye-rollingly over the top terms means someone is likely to be taken more seriously?

ISTM that you’re rather dramatically overreacting to a fairly unremarkable linguistic shift that most people are sufficiently aware of to interpret correctly. The word “violence”, like the word “assault” before it and the word “attack” before that, is expanding its meaning to include verbal as well as physical infliction of damage. As “hyperbolic histrionics” go, that’s not really a big deal.

[Knowed_Out]

@ZPG_Zealot

My uncle never molested me. Where did you ever get such an idea?

So of all the outrageous things I listed, this is the only one you have an issue with?

[TokyoBayer]

@Crazy_Canuck

Yeah, ZPG is disturbed, and not the good kind. I’ve hate putting anyone on ignore, because that leads to living in a bubble. With that thread … she is now the second person on my ignore list here after 12 years. I have had more rational conversations with an actual real-life genocide promoting neo-nazi than ZPG, which really blows my mind.

I’ve only got two people on my ignore list as well, and she is one of them.

Besides the batshit crazy part, she’s on for her dishonesty. She represents the handshake equals rape as Roma culture where apparently it’s not, unless there is some super small group with no information about it on the entire web.

[The_King_of_Soup]

@Darren_Garrison

Yes, but this is coming off the claims that mentioning the “deadname” of a trans person is “an act of violence” against them…

Kid. Pay attention. There are lots of people who are grotesquely and uniquely bigoted against transgender persons (your posts indicate you’re familiar with the type), and therefore will visit discrimination and violence against them if they are intelligently or stupidly informed of their existence and location. Therefore, your “mentioning” may visit undue harm on someone else, and that is why (as has been explained to you enough times to satisfy a toddler) your idiotic insistence that using mere words will keep you out of a prison cell is meaningless. Enabling or inciting violence, or discrimination, is ill-defined in criminal statutes. But it’s wrong, and if in your [proclaimed](Darren Garrison;20311103) inexperience (which seems to be merely designed to keep you from criticism, as your posts show familiarity, as well as willful disengagement with, the issues) you insist on doing it, you are violating every persons’ duty to take care not to cause undue harm to another.

So, as I said before, if you know as much as you pretend to when you’re trying to be taken seriously, join the serious side of the argument. If you want to continue to search for some basis to be an asshole, quit. The rest of us have already been there, and you won’t get ahead.

[Martini_Enfield]

I do enjoy the unusual filter through which so many SDMB posters see things, that’s for sure.

[The_King_of_Soup]

@Martini_Enfield

I do enjoy the unusual filter through which so many SDMB posters see things, that’s for sure.

And I enjoy watching someone abandon every previous supposedly rational argument in favor of their personal prejudice in order to try to preserve a sort of bigoted stalemate, and fail.

There is no longer a Martini Enfield for purposes of this discussion. Too bad: s/he might have led other lost souls toward the truth.

[raventhief]

@Martini_Enfield

I do enjoy the unusual filter through which so many SDMB posters see things, that’s for sure.

You mean like it’s perfectly polite to approach a strange woman who is “obviously pregnant” to ask about her due date?

My filter is my experience.

I neither know nor trust your experience. Sorry about that.

[Guinastasia]

Why is it so important to mention that someone’s trans in casual conversation? I mean who cares if they’re trans – how the hell does it affect you? Unless it’s someone you’re in a romantic relationship with, or plan to be, it’s none of your business.

[Martini_Enfield]

@raventhief

You mean like it’s perfectly polite to approach a strange woman who is “obviously pregnant” to ask about her due date?

Not randomly (like at the supermarket or whatever) but in a social setting? Yeah, absolutely.

@Guinastasia

Why is it so important to mention that someone’s trans in casual conversation? I mean who cares if they’re trans – how the hell does it affect you? Unless it’s someone you’re in a romantic relationship with, or plan to be, it’s none of your business.

This is a true and important point.

[Kimstu]

@Martini_Enfield

@raventhief

You mean like it’s perfectly polite to approach a strange woman who is “obviously pregnant” to ask about her due date?

Not randomly (like at the supermarket or whatever) but in a social setting? Yeah, absolutely.

See above: “it’s not impolite if this is someone you know personally and discuss personal matters with as part of your acquaintance.”

But if this isn’t someone you know personally, even if you’re at a party together or in some other social setting, it’s not considered polite to ask her about her (apparent) pregnancy. Any more than it’s polite to initiate social chat with a stranger about their wheelchair, or their birthmark, or their weight, or anything else about them that’s a personal matter even though it may be physically obvious.

If she wants to talk to you about her pregnancy, she’ll bring it up. If she doesn’t, just talk about something else. Are you really so bereft of conversational ideas that you can’t think of anything to say to a stranger in social circumstances except to comment and inquire about characteristics of their physical appearance?

And no, this is not some kind of “unusual filter”. This is standard manners and customs of polite society. As Crazy Canuck pointed out, civilized Australians know this just as well as civilized North Americans do.