I don't care how downvoted I get, I'll never call someone a made up pronoun. There is no word as xir as xe or latinx and i'm not participating in what I'd consider alarming participation of a mental illness. If you want me to call you he, or she, or as pointed just they, I don't think that's asking much. And I'll probably make a mistake, just mention it and move on. But the second you force this crap onto me, I'm out, which I'm sure pleases both sides.
On the way to being the most downvoted post ever on StackOverflow:Meta
51–60 of 110 posts
Re: On the way to being the most downvoted post ever on StackOverflow:Meta
#52Wow, what a trainwreck in the comments. It's a shame that this is what happens whenever you remind developers to use common decency.
Almost as bad as the reaction when China "reminded" the NBA to respect China's views on Hong Kong.
Re: On the way to being the most downvoted post ever on StackOverflow:Meta
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
The visible outrage is not from people "complaining about people being upset about being misgendered", it is from people complaining about an actual policy change introducing compelled speech. If people complaining about being misgendered is as rare as you suggest then why does stack exchange feel the need to push through such a controversial policy change?
The policy is about recommending polite speech in a public forum where rules to this effect have been enforced for a long time. And it's articulating what that means to people who don't understand what pronouns are for. That some people may use a pronoun other than the one on their birth certificate is the way things are going in the modern world, so polite use of the language must take this into consideration. I hav…
> The policy is about recommending polite speech
The policy is not about "recommending" anything, it's about "requiring". That's the essence of most of the negative reaction. There are plenty of things that I will usually be happy to do voluntarily but will strongly oppose being required to do.
Re: On the way to being the most downvoted post ever on StackOverflow:Meta
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
They hamfist in their solution of using "x". eg. latina/latino -> latinx.
How does that work in the language itself? In English people say "latin-ecks". In Spanish do people say "latin-equis"?
It doesn’t. It’s a written-only solution. If you listen to a speech from someone who uses the latinx you will notice they don’t even try to speak it, and they just go with the “latino and latina”.
Re: On the way to being the most downvoted post ever on StackOverflow:Meta
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
I highly disagree. It isn't about cognitive overload. It is about sexism. People aren't gender neutral and don't want to be referred to by an offensive gender neutral pronoun when their gender is anything but gender neutral. It is absurd and insensitive to refer to things as neutral when they have a gender For example my gender is zygort bilop and the pronoun is zula. Referring to me as gender neutral is the ultimate…
sigh Imagine how much more productive conversations about gender identity and pronouns could be if we didn't have trolls.
Wait you are accusing me of trolling? That's offensive. I'm offended.
Re: On the way to being the most downvoted post ever on StackOverflow:Meta
#56It's really strange to me that a trans (or whatever) person would be offended at being called a standard pronoun. Seems like an easy mistake to make. I feel like the idea of choosing your own pronoun is fine and happy within an insular LGBTQ+ forum or venue. When it tries to take over the language everyone else uses, it's gonna do more harm than good. People that push it just seem to be selfish to me.
Some people do deliberately (misgender) to antagonize a person. Particularly people who feel their culture is being redefined without them. By the way, EVERY trans person I know has been EXCEEDINGLY kind and understanding when I've made a mistake with their gender. Now, if I don't know it already, I ask what they prefer to be called the same way I would ask how to properly pronounce someone's name. "Pardon me, what a…
> Some people do deliberately (misgender) to antagonize a person.
There's a difference between childish behavior in real life, versus an internet forum where someone's name and profile picture don't really say much.
Re: On the way to being the most downvoted post ever on StackOverflow:Meta
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
I highly disagree. It isn't about cognitive overload. It is about sexism. People aren't gender neutral and don't want to be referred to by an offensive gender neutral pronoun when their gender is anything but gender neutral. It is absurd and insensitive to refer to things as neutral when they have a gender For example my gender is zygort bilop and the pronoun is zula. Referring to me as gender neutral is the ultimate…
sigh Imagine how much more productive conversations about gender identity and pronouns could be if we didn't have trolls.
It seems like I'm trolling but within the rules of gender identity what I am doing is absolutely valid. Unless you can prove that I'm trolling definitively you can't accuse me of anything. The fact that you believe I'm trolling puts the whole argument of gender identity into question. If I'm trolling, how do you know the whole movement isn't trolling? The ambiguity possibly illustrates the absurdity of the whole argument.
Maybe a better way of thinking of productivity is thinking about the pointlessness of this debate. You are more productive if you don't care for this trivial stuff. But I wouldn't know, I'm too busy getting offended when people don't address me by my made up gender.
Re: On the way to being the most downvoted post ever on StackOverflow:Meta
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
What will happen with grammatically gendered languages, like Spanish?
Then you need to go look up how it's handled in Spanish. BTW, English is gendered, just not as much as Spanish, French, and Italian are.
What are you talking about? English is verifiably not as gendered as Spanish, at the very least.
All nouns in Spanish require a gender article (el/la or los/las). In English, you do not have to figure out whether "día" should be prefixed with el or la -- and in the case of "día" despite it ending in "a" which usually implies feminine and la, it's actually masculine and is properly "el día."
That doesn't even bring into it examples like ellos/ellas ("they" or "them" in English) referring to a male group or a female group where the standard rule is to use ellos if referring to an unknown group or even a group of 100 women and one man, the only application of ellas should be when you can verify every single member of the group is female.
Re: On the way to being the most downvoted post ever on StackOverflow:Meta
#59I don't care how downvoted I get, I'll never call someone a made up pronoun. There is no word as xir as xe or latinx and i'm not participating in what I'd consider alarming participation of a mental illness. If you want me to call you he, or she, or as pointed just they, I don't think that's asking much. And I'll probably make a mistake, just mention it and move on. But the second you force this crap onto me, I'm out…
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Re: On the way to being the most downvoted post ever on StackOverflow:Meta
#60I think the blowback is really just about cognitive load. There's only so much you can expend on social mores before the actual subject you're discussing gets eclipsed. Everyone deserves equal respect, but I understand that when I'm not in the majority in a situation that my perspectives/language may be alien to some of those in the majority- I don't hold it against them unless there is explicit hostility. I find mys…
That's the most reasonable explanation. Some of the reactions here are beyond absurd and make no sense except if they feel overwhelmed. I can at least empathize with that. Too much too fast can be hard to deal with.
Sometimes I forget I've spent a lot of time in a LGBTQ+-heavy community where this sort of basic respect for self-identity has been the norm for years. I think a lot of folks screaming bloody murder today will accept it once they acclimate and realize the requests were nothing extraordinary.
People who are used to he and she based on appearance and they when you don't know may need some time. They'll get there.