[kevhito]

I was just recently at a gender-inclusivity seminar. The speaker asked everyone in the room to give their name, but specifically asked for NOT everyone to state their [preferred?] pronouns. Why not? Apparently the speaker is currently in a community were certain transgender members feel quite strongly that stating pronouns is itself problematic and hurtful.

For those of us not quite up to date on social movements, and for slow-moving organizations, this is obviously tricky to navigate. My workplace is just starting to encourage everyone to state their "preferred pronouns" prominently when introducing themselves and on all correspondence (e.g. in email signatures), and to avoid gendered pronouns when possible in many situations or at least use "singular they" (e.g. in abstract examples or documentation). Last week I thought that was quite progressive. This week I have learned that "preferred pronouns" is no longer an acceptable phrase, that "singular they" is offensive to some, that avoiding pronouns itself is problematic (at least in SE's CoC, apparently), and that asking someone to give pronouns is problematic and hurtful to some. I don't know where that leaves me or my workplace.

[mcv]

Just do the best you can, try to be respectful of everybody, and be understanding when someone is not unhappy or offended. It's not something that needs to be a fight.

[anon12345690]

when its getting to the point that its turning into hr classes and laws that get you fired or jailed for being in the 99.9% of the population then yea people should fight back against it all

[koheripbal]

It's a unbelievable that we take the output of these seminars as gospel. They are just groups of people - with no more authority on what "proper behavior" is than the rest of us.

...and yet the community that supports them vehemently punishes anyone that strays from their constantly changing and often contradictory directives.

[mcv]

It's not gospel, it's a view. It's useful to understand people who have a different perspective. Their view may not be universal, but it's still a valid view.

[PhasmaFelis]

It is tricky, yeah. Everyone has their own preferences, and no one set of rules will apply 100% to everyone. And, unfortunately, some people are simply acting in bad faith.

There was a discussion a few days ago about how a few people say that the terms "assigned male/female at birth" should apply only to intersex people and the trans community appropriated them. But if you look into it, you find that the trans community invented those terms, and the people who originated the claim are outspoken transphobes who want to invalidate trans people in any way they can. And there's probably some well-meaning people who were taken by those assholes, unfortunately. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21139083

At the end of the day, all you can do is respect people's individual wishes when they express them, and when they don't, go with the consensus and try to extend the benefit of the doubt. Someone who's been hassled and harassed their whole life is gonna be high-strung about some things; you don't need to agree with them, but give them a little slack when you can.

Edit: I'm curious what their rationale for asking people not to state their pronouns was. I can't think of any way that could benefit anyone. Do you recall what they said exactly?

[anon12345690]

this is the problem cause 99.9% of us know how to get along just fine without these weird pronoun rules

theyre literally making EVERYONE work harder and waste time to not offend a single person who probably doesnt even agree with these rules

[test1235]

this article was posted here a while back:

https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...

I thought it was quite interesting.

[PhasmaFelis]

Calling people what they want to be called is not "enslaving your speech and thought."