Comment by michannne | Hacker News Reader

Comment by michannne | Hacker News Reader

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Empathy and courtesy have nothing to do with referring someone by generic pronouns. No one is being unempathetic by refusing to call "Joey", Joe, or not referring to Nat by their full name, Natalie. These are all personal issues that one must deal with on their own, either by disengaging from the situation or escalating however they desire and finding a resolution amongst themselves.

Pronouns are no different - if you want me to refer to you as her, and I don't, then you and I will have a problem, not you, me, the mods, my boss, the government, etc.

> The ideological high horse isn't very high if one knowingly goes about hurting people to stay on it.

I have heard this time and time again. If misgendering someone is hurting them in any way, I'm suspecting the solution is for that person to disengage from society, not for society to cater to that person's needs, because they will be misgendered day in and day out for the rest of their life. If someone believes they are being gangstalked, society doesn't modify itself to ensure no one within 500 meters of them has a predictable schedule.

> No one is being unempathetic by refusing to call "Joey", Joe, or not referring to Nat by their full name, Natalie.

I thought not calling people nicknames they dislike had something to do with courtesy and empathy. (I'll also note that you picked very mild nicknames for your example)

> if you want me to refer to you as her, and I don't, then you and I will have a problem, not you, me, the mods, my boss, the government, etc.

Insisting on some level of courtesy is the moderators and the bosses job. As is enforcement if insistence isn't enough. What that level is, and what's appropriate enforcement, that's the tricky part.

> because they will be misgendered day in and day out for the rest of their life. If someone believes they are being gangstalked, society doesn't modify itself to ensure no one within 500 meters of them has a predictable schedule.

That's no good reason to go out of your way to misgender someone or pretend to stalk someone who has that phobia. Yes, there will be problems interacting with society overall, I have no good answer for that. But I do know that knowingly and actively hurting people "because society does it too" when you could trivially avoid it is reprehensible.

> But I do know that knowingly and actively hurting people "because society does it too" when you could trivially avoid it is reprehensible

My argument isn't "do it because society does it too", it's we already have systems in place to give people the therapeutic treatment they need to get past issues like this, which are issues, because it is unfeasible to expect society to shape itself around coddling that person's beliefs.

So let me get this straight:

- You meet Gabrielle, and call her Gabbi.

- She says "I don't like that nickname, could you use Bree?"

- You say, "No, I'm going to call you Gabbi, because you should not expect society to shape itself around coddling your beliefs, GABBI."

Honestly, you probably wouldn't do that, right? I mean, maybe you would, but it'd... kind of make you a jerk. It would be a stupid, stupid hill to die on.

So why is it different with pronouns?

> stupid hill to die on

Of late I've been saying not the mole hill I'd choose to die on. Also the question what's in it for me if I'm right? If the answer is 'nothing' we're done here.

> Honestly, you probably wouldn't do that, right?

No, and I never said I would, and that example does nothing for or against my argument. So making up a scenario, saying it'd make me <some negative term nobody wants to be associated with>, and asking me "If you wouldn't do X, why would you do Y?" does not sound like it will progress this discussion whatsoever

It won't progress this discussion because you avoided engaging with the question at the end. If I ask you to use a pronoun for me that in your judgement is "incorrect," why is your judgement more important than my request? If you say, "You asked for 'he,' but you look like a 'she' to me, so I'm going to use 'she,'" then why aren't you the one being the jerk just as much as the person who insists on calling someone the wrong name?

Pronouns are different from names because there is a very strong correlation between pronouns and certain physical aspects of people.[0] What is being asked of people in the gendering debate is to go against this correlation sometimes. Our minds are built on pattern matching and working with such correlations, so it really shouldn't be a surprise that asking people to go against it is going to tick some of them off: you're asking them to enter into a state of cognitive dissonance, which can be unpleasant.

Names, on the other hand, are really quite arbitrary and independent of physical attributes. So yes, there's an important difference.

[0] I believe these kinds of correlation are what people intuitively mean when they talk of biological gender and the like, which make most of the responses against this argument miss the point...

In civil society we forgo our intuitions all the time - our moral intuitions are frequently superseded by law, our intuitions about what atoms look like are superseded by a university Physics course, etc. - but your response I see repeatedly, you don't say we should give into intuition, you say that some people would be "ticked off" by being asked to do something against intuition.

Part of the movement to get people to use the correct pronouns to refer to someone is really just the movement against the epistemic authority of some forms of intuition.

As an aside, in Western society names are generally not independent of physical attributes, and most names are gendered as well. I know very few people with unisex names.

This shouldn't be downvoted; it's a very good point addressing a basic problem with the "call 'em as I see 'em" side of the argument.

"What is being asked of people in the gendering debate is to go against this correlation sometimes."

Yes. Exactly. That's what's being asked of them. To follow someone's request out of courtesy. Again: why is this difficult?

In your quote, you conveniently left out the part about cognitive dissonance. That's what answers your question. It's possible that you personally don't feel this cognitive dissonance, or that you feel it but it simply doesn't bother you. People's subjective experiences can be quite diverse, though, and you need to accept that.

Let me put it another way. Person X asks person Y to take person Z's feelings into account. Sounds reasonable, right? But what if, in doing so, person X doesn't take person Y's feelings into account?

I'd say that'd make person X a hypocrite. There are different goods that need to be weighed against each other here, and person X pretends that this isn't the case.

This is what's happening here. Z = (some) transgender people, Y = (some of) the people expressing concern about pronoun enforcement, X = people taking your current position in this discussion.

In the weighing of different goods against each other, you can reasonably come to the conclusion that person Y should just suck it up because person Z's feelings are simply more important in this case. That's fine, stuff like that happens all the time in society, though you'd be wise to use more reconciliatory language when talking to an actual person Y.

You need to be honest about what you're doing. What isn't fine is to essentially "erase" Y's feelings by pretending that you aren't overriding them for Z's benefit. Because that is what you're doing. (Or maybe you aren't even aware of person Y's feelings. I'm not sure what to consider worse...)

(And yes, the hypocrisy is genuinely what I find most grating about the position you're taking here: the position is often taken by people who claim to champion diversity, inclusiveness, and the equal validity of people's subjective experiences -- but then turn around and selectively decide to not take into account others' subjective experiences when they happen to be inconvenient, and in doing so essentially exclude those others.)

The choice here is:

(1) Bob suffers cognitive dissonance when he calls Angela, a transgender woman, "she".

(2) Angela, who has suffered the cognitive dissonance of gender dysphoria for years, has that revisited on her by Bob's insistence on calling her "he".

So, yeah. I'm privileging Angela over Bob here, because it is his mild discomfort versus her lived-in experience.

Bluntly, nobody has been driven into lifelong therapy and suicidal depression by having to refer to someone by a different set of pronouns. If you want to insist I'm a jerk for denying that these two experiences of "cognitive dissonance" are equivalent, you know, so be it.

I neither wrote nor meant that those two experiences are equivalent. I specifically wrote that one can reasonably draw a conclusion like yours. What I did write is that both experiences are real -- and you denied even that in your earlier comments!

I'd also point out that your example is rather uncharitable. I personally do think Alice is quite justified in asking Bob not to use "he" as a pronoun, but I also think it's acceptable for Bob to prefer using a gender-neutral pronoun such as singular "they". If that had been the example (which it might well have been, especially given the context of this thread overall), your point would be quite a bit weaker, and you ought to feel quite a bit less righteous indignation. After all, if somebody has a problem because of non-neutral pronouns, it'd be rather reasonable to expect them to accept it when people contribute to reducing their use overall -- especially when that also helps to reduce the discomfort of those other people.

Anyway, thank you for acknowledging that other people's feelings exist. Maybe next time you can even use that reconciliatory language I've mentioned.

you realize nobody really has a problem with that right?

this isnt a case about a specific person wanting a different pronoun. its about changing ALL language in the site to be gender neutral. that part is dumb. we dont need to worry about using she and he to talk about alice and bob because "they might be trans"

first, yes you can call her whatever you want. its called freedom.

second, yea pronouns are different. they are actual nouns in the language used to describe people by what they are. theyre exactly the opposite of names which are completely random things you can claim

third, you know most people use pronouns that match a name and looks? so if you change gender and change your name then people are probably gonna be using the right pronoun anyway

> it is unfeasible to expect society to shape itself around coddling that person's beliefs

What indication do you have that a majority of the "society" in question (Stack Overflow) has a problem with addressing people in the manner they prefer?

In other words, have you considered the possibility that you are the one with an opinion or belief that runs contrary to what this "society" expects of its members?

If so, are you expecting to be coddled?

Judging from the overwhelming negative response to what SO did, I'm confident that I am not the one with the controversial beliefs.

You're seeing what you want to see. The controversy has little to do with that. How SO treated the moderator and handled the issue publicly is what's raising flags.

You know, it's possible to support the pronoun policy while still being against how the moderator was treated.

It seems to be an opportunistic vocal minority that is trying to make this political.

It is already political. I raised this point to another user - changing policies is political. If by, political you mean dealing with government policy, not sure what that has to do with this discussion.

the fact that 99.999% of people throughout history have gotten along just fine without worrying about different pronouns that dont match their gender

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