Comment by joshuamorton | Hacker News Reader

Comment by joshuamorton | Hacker News Reader

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> A trans-person can adopt the form of a male or female but can not actually become a male or female. It is impossible for that person to assume the reproductive function of the opposite sex. The characteristic is immutable.

You mistake my position. Perhaps disambiguation between sex and gender identity would clarify. Sex we can call chromosomal, and is mostly irrelevant to the rest of the discussion. Gender identity is what I perceive my sex should be. We should not discriminate on the basis of sex (the biological) or gender identity (the mental).

> The statement "trans-women are not female" is not hate speech under your definition. Correct?

Would be hate speech based on gender identity, the immutable trait.

> If so you are in an interesting position. You have a direct line of communication to our censor. I would encourage you to post on your company's discussion board "it is not possible for a trans-person to change their sex". Or "trans-women are not female". Or "sex-change operations can not change a person's sex".

Ultimately, of those three statements, I would consider the second hate speech, the third unambiguously true (and mostly uncontroversial, it neither changes biological sex nor does it change gender identity, it changes only presentation), and the first a generally true statement, though perhaps phrased badly: speaking strictly biologically, the answer is obviously no, speaking in terms of gender identity, the answer is still probably no because the question is malformed. One need not change your gender identity. It's immutable. One is free to change your physical appearance to better match your identity, and for some people a (to use the medical term) "Gender Confirmation Surgery" helps to better align their physical appearance with their identity.

Ultimately, we should neither discriminate based on what chromosomes a person has, nor based on someone's immutable mental image of how they should be. I don't really think I need to spend any time responding to the rest of your post, since it is based on faulty assumptions.

> Would be hate speech based on gender identity, the immutable trait.

Are gender fluid people considered under this definition? Having a gender identity might be immutable but gender identity is not static. It can change. That by definition is not immutable.

Are you saying that the identity "genderfluid" is invalid, and one must pick one of the binary genders to identify with?

> Are you saying that the identity "genderfluid" is invalid, and one must pick one of the binary genders to identify with?

Not at all. I think you've just misunderstood what gender fluidity is.

Gender fluid is a class of non-binary gender expression. Non-binary is a spectrum of gender identities. Gender fluidity by definition is the ability to fluidly transition between different gender identities.

Gender identity is itself a personal sense and how you sense your gender can change if you are gender fluid.

So I ask again:

> Are gender fluid people considered under this definition?

And now I have a few more questions:

Are you willing to admit your previous statements can marginalize people and strip them of their identity? Are you willing to accept that your previous statements are, in fact, hate speech according to the social morays of our time? Should your innocent mistake be removed from the internet for fear of harming a gender fluid person?

> Not at all. I think you've just misunderstood what gender fluidity is.

This is certainly possible! But if someone is genderfluid today, and genderfluid tomorrow, they are genderfluid immutably, are they not?

I could be wrong, but from the genderqueer people I know, identifying as male one day and female the next isn't normally how they describe it, instead they wish to present as (note: this is not the same as "be". Gender expression vs. identity) one or the other, or even wish to present as more masculine or feminine. It's not "I am a man" or "I am a woman", but "I am neither but I'm left with three choices: present as (more-)man, (more-)woman, or put in a lot of effort to present as explicitly neither".

Like I said though, I could be wrong. I'd love to hear about some people who view their gender identity the way you describe (or documentation thereof), it sounds interesting and would certainly be something for me to think about.

> Are you willing to admit your previous statements can marginalize people and strip them of their identity?

Not specifically, but for the purposes of discussion, absolutely, I can certainly agree that things I've said in the past have done the same.

> Are you willing to accept that your previous statements are, in fact, hate speech according to the social morays of our time?

No. Innocent mistakes do not a hate speech make. This indeed relies on context. Stating, apropos of nothing "trans-women are not female" is probably hate speech since the context doesn't really support it being anything else. But the same sentence, in the context of an example, stops being hate speech. I generally believe people are intelligent enough to use context clues to guide the decision making process. You're correct that this leaves us without a completely objective way of making decisions about hate speech, but that's no worse than any other system. We have no objective way of making really any decision when humans are involved in the loop. The idea that we can define perfect rules that will be able to objectively discern someone's motives and whether or not something is "good" or not is a programmers fantasy. But that doesn't stop us from having a legal system, for example, even if that system is full of context clues, human judgement, imperfection, inaccuracy, and much, much higher stakes than keeping online fora polite.

Great. This seems like a good place to wrap up then.

I think we can both conclude that automated censorship systems will fail because they fail to capture "context clues, human judgement, imperfection, inaccuracy".

And, I think you'll agree, proactive censorship systems are authoritarian by default (even if that authority is private). Their purpose is prevention not resolution. In that sense, there can be no trial, no jury, no judge, not even a plaintiff to accuse you.

So we move on from the corporate world and enter the legal world. The world of government. How best to determine and punish hate speech? Does intent matter if the offense was deep and damaging? Do you jail the author? Fine them? Destroy their works? I think no matter which path you choose you can draw comparisons to every totalitarian government that has ever graced this earth.

If I am nothing else I am a humanist. I believe in the progress of humanity -- all humanity. You, your friends, and the white supremacists who post pepe memes to scare and annoy them.

Time is long. Systems that we put in place now will be with us for generations. Society's attitudes will shift -- for better or worse. The only thing protecting us from each other are the systems we agree to. The systems that permit the most freedom at the least harm.

In my mind, there is no censorship device that can withstand time.

That's all I have to say. Best of luck to you.

The system only fails if it doesn't do what it intends to do. If the system reduces harm in the long run, even if it is imperfect, it may be successful.

I believe humanity will progress faster if we're able to prevent certain classes of ideology from continuing to cause harm.

I never said anything about the government. We've been engaged in a discussion about YouTube comments, I'm not sure when the government got involved.

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