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[wierd]

There's always the singular they. Works in every situation. Hell, even works if you don't remember whether someone told you on the internet if they were a guy or girl- just use they, and you're set!

Nope, not true. To wit:

You see a person that is new to your care, and you have not been introduced to. This person looks male, but is transgender. They clearly have dementia, because they are wandering abound lost, and are pulling off their pants and doing the pee dance.  Unbeknownst to you, a family member is in earshot.

You ask the person, quite earnestly, "sir, do you need the bathroom?", because you are trying to avoid their public embarassement about incontinence.

Again, do no underestimate frayed nerves in others about touchy subjects, and where that can take things, quickly.  Let's say the family member is the DPOA, and they have been trying hard to get this resident placed in a facility that will respect their gender preferences, and they hear this.

This is just toxic shit all around. You cannot just shout "hey you!" at the new resident, you are required by state regulations to address them with dignity and respect. You fucked up, but did so accidentally.

This DPOA has had negative experiences at other homes, and goes right for the nuclear option. (Going straight nuclear is very common.) we are talking full Facebook hate post, and all that.

"They"  cannot be applied here.  Unless you are told about the preference, (and communication is often very poor among staff), or you somehow develop telepathy to just KNOW, You have a 50% chance of getting it wrong.  You also are doomed by trying to determine gender from body morphology, so your chances of getting it wrong are much higher.

It would get even worse, if there are more than two choices to pick from.   Eg, if there were two additional gender pronouns, you have a 75% chance of getting it wrong at random, and with the above setup, that drops to even less.

[Karnewarrior]

I'm with wierd here. It's fine if you want to be called Xim or Xer when addressed, but applying legal recourse to it is far too much and foists a crapton of added social complexity onto individuals with no particular care one way or another. And there should definitely be an "other" slot like there is for ethnicities, but I think a full page like New York is doing is overkill.

And I think everyone needs to stop screeching strawman while they set up their own scarecrows. I expect better of the Bay 12 community, as you're all intelligent and gentlemanly individuals, not cavemen trying to beat each other over the head over perceived bigotries.

[Starver]

You is only capitalised if you want to highlight your respect for the other person. The more formal way of showing respect is to use plural "you".

Thou art forgetting "ye", I tell thee.

[Il Palazzo]

I remember chatting with a fellow via Omegle who capitalized "You", but not "i", claiming that this was how it was done in Polish etiquette.

You is only capitalised if you want to highlight your respect for the other person. The more formal way of showing respect is to use plural "you".

That's some weird kind of Polish you're speaking and/or writing.

[SalmonGod]

Ok... yeah, this is interesting and all... but I still don't understand why the general thread response to this post

While this stuff is interesting, the core of the issue is people caring far too much about other people's innocent behaviors.  I personally don't care how someone chooses to identify themselves.  So long as they can function reasonably in society without harming anyone, it doesn't matter.  Anyone who can't accept this is overstepping their bounds by any metric.

Which was in response to discussion about whether gender identification has its roots in biology or sociolization, had to be several pages of ranting about pronouns.  And yes, it started from this post, because the first post initiating the discussion of pronouns was explicitly directed at me.

@SalmonGod: you have to recognize though, that while one doesn't want to live under the tyranny of the majority, one doesn't want to live under the tyranny of the minority either. So while a minority shouldn't be forced to do X to alleviate the discomfort of the majority - such as pretending to follow traditional gender roles, the majority similarly shouldn't be force do do Y to alleviate the discomfort of the minority - such as having to refer to each person by one of 120 different gender pronouns.

It's a non-sequitor that has a very strong "yelling at clouds" vibe to it. 

In the context of being the path of discussion that is chosen in response to the assertion that "whether the roots of non-standard gender identification are in biology or socialization has no bearing on what legal status they should enjoy" perhaps isn't exactly a strawman, but it's something that feels very close to it. 

Imagine we just happened to be discussing scientific studies of the differences between black people and white people.  In a politics thread.  Someone chimes in "I don't know what's going on here, because whatever those studies find is irrelevant to the context of this thread.  Black people are human beings and deserve the same civil rights as any other human being."  And in response to that, I initiated several pages of discussion about "Have you heard how some black people get hyper sensitive about use of the n-word.  There's even been a couple legal cases where people got in trouble for it.  I shouldn't have to worry about getting in trouble for using the n-word!  They even use it to refer to each other and it's really confusing to me that they can and I can't!  Imagine how many people could suffer for the innocent mistake of trying get along with them by using their own language if this took off as legal precedent!"

Ask yourself... what would I be making myself look like there?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

inb4 several pages of desperately picking apart the rhetorical anatomy of this analogy to prove that it doesn't 100% perfectly match in order to avoid acknowledgement of the point

So... I'm just going to repeat the same things I did yesterday when I woke up and saw this exact same stuff going on (notice how I acknowledge that I basically agree that legislating a million pronouns is kind of ridiculous and shouldn't happen, but that it's not an appropriate response to the point that was being made)...

*went to sleep after last post and just woke up*

I can't say I'm surprised that the following page and a half or so focused completely on pronouns.  Good grief.  That is the *one* point where anyone can argue that people with non-binary gender identities ask something of anyone else beyond being left alone.  I agree that it can get kind of ridiculous, and is not a point that should be legislated, beyond maybe ensuring an "other" option on official registration forms for passports and stuff like that.

But in my opinion, the pronoun issue is a small outlier as compared to most debate on the topic, which amounts to some people asking for permission to exist openly as who they are, and everyone else going "No!  We think you're icky and weird!  CONFORM OR BE CRUSHED!"

Like seriously, I'm associated with some extremely progressive social circles, such that I know at least a dozen trans people, many gay/bi/poly people, and I even have a family member who is a gay furry.  But I have yet to personally encounter a single person ever who earnestly wanted to be referred to as something off the wall.  I know they're out there.  But their existence is blown up into such a ridiculous boogeyman, and that boogeyman is used as a bludgeon against all the aforementioned who are far more common and generally asking only for reasonable permissions to exist.

And that is where my previous argument is most relevant.  Freedom does not include freedom from ever being weirded out by anyone.

1.  Discussion of whether gender identification has stronger roots in biology or socialization in a politics thread, where presumably the only relevance of the discussion is as relates to the legal status of being trans or non-binary
2.  Pointing out that it isn't politically relevant what the root cause of gender identification is, because no one has any justifiable cause to restrict anyone's self-identification/lifestyle regarding gender that is compatible with the foundations of our professed cultural values and guiding principles of our legal system.
3.  But some people want to force others to use weird pronouns, and there's a couple examples of them gaining legal traction.
4.  Yeah, that's kinda silly, but that has nothing to do with the original point.
5.  Yes, but we have to call out the left on their bullshit, too!  And the real problem is everyone thinking they're right all the time!

Seriously, wtf...

[Folly]

Imagine we just happened to be discussing scientific studies of the differences between black people and white people.  In a politics thread.  Someone chimes in "I don't know what's going on here, because whatever those studies find is irrelevant to the context of this thread.  Black people are human beings and deserve the same civil rights as any other human being."  And in response to that, I initiated several pages of discussion about "Have you heard how some black people get hyper sensitive about use of the n-word.  There's even been a couple legal cases where people got in trouble for it.  I shouldn't have to worry about getting in trouble for using the n-word!  They even use it to refer to each other and it's really confusing to me that they can and I can't!  Imagine how many people could suffer for the innocent mistake of trying get along with them by using their own language if this took off as legal precedent!"

Ask yourself... what would I be making myself look like there?

inb4 several pages of desperately picking apart the rhetorical anatomy of this analogy to prove that it doesn't 100% perfectly match in order to avoid acknowledgement of the point

It's not an apt analogy because of the disproportionate population ratios. When 12.5% of the population demands that everyone change the way they use our language to avoid hurting their feelings, it carries a bit more weight compared to when 0.5% make the same demand.

[Kagus]

I don't really care about any of this.

[SalmonGod]

You're completely missing the point of the analogy.  It's not about whether it's right or wrong to demand people adjust their language.  It's that it's really fucking weird to respond to the assertion that X people deserve the same rights to exist as who they are and engage in their own private lifestyles as everyone else enjoys with a bunch of ranting about how a minority of that minority demographic make some unreasonable demands about language.

It's not even been presented as a tangent or parallel discussion.  This discussion was initiated as a direct response to my assertion about the basic nature of freedom and human rights.  The first post that brought it up looks to me like it was even framed as an objection.

@SalmonGod: you have to recognize though, that while one doesn't want to live under the tyranny of the majority, one doesn't want to live under the tyranny of the minority either. So while a minority shouldn't be forced to do X to alleviate the discomfort of the majority - such as pretending to follow traditional gender roles, the majority similarly shouldn't be force do do Y to alleviate the discomfort of the minority - such as having to refer to each person by one of 120 different gender pronouns.

Which from my perspective elicits the same impression as someone saying something rabble-rousing about black people in response to a statement about how they deserve equal rights.  Can't have them getting too uppity, right?

Note once again that I basically agree with everyone on the point that pronouns shouldn't be legislated.  I've stated this 3 times already.  That's not the point.

[Il Palazzo]

Oh, hey, that's my thing there. Are you waiting for me to respond personally, SG? Because quite honestly, I can't be bothered.

[SalmonGod]

No, and I was trying to be polite about not calling you out personally.  Because while that's your post, plenty of others dogpiled in with it, with more conviction, even.  And I think the context applies the same to everyone.

[Hanslanda]

Ameripol is smelling like it did in 2016 over here. Take deep breaths, calm the fuck down, and review how many entries in the moderation log can be attributed to politics threads.

Maybe it's time to move on folks. I love you all, don't make me lose friends please.

[SalmonGod]

Sure.  How about some data in favor of eating the rich?

100 Companies Are to Blame For 71% of The World's Greenhouse Gas Emissions

[smjjames]

Ameripol is smelling like it did in 2016 over here. Take deep breaths, calm the fuck down, and review how many entries in the moderation log can be attributed to politics threads.

Maybe it's time to move on folks. I love you all, don't make me lose friends please.

Yeah, seems like a good idea since it's starting to get into a recursive loop and going nowhere good.

[Doomblade187]

Sure.  How about some data in favor of eating the rich?

100 Companies Are to Blame For 71% of The World's Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Further proof that replacing coal with natural gas would help save the planet.

[Hanslanda]

Sure.  How about some data in favor of eating the rich?

100 Companies Are to Blame For 71% of The World's Greenhouse Gas Emissions

The top 1% are the problem.