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Comment by LaGrange | Hacker News Reader

> It is not painless: it is dissonant

You'll get used to it in about 5 minutes.

> and takes another syllable.

Seriously, the amount of time people who pretend to be hard and rational loose their minds over things like "one syllable."

> Persian, for example, is a genderless language: it has no 'he' or 'her,' no 'waiter' or 'waitress,' no 'actor' or 'actress.' And yet I think most folks would say that Iran is far less gender-neutral than any English-speaking country.

That's a straw man. Asking for gender-neutral terms when referring to groups of people does not equate to asking for gender-neutral culture. Take it from a trans person, that is _not_ what most of us are asking for.

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>Take it from a trans person, that is _not_ what most of us are asking for.

statements like this are not useful for building understanding.

rather than speaking in negatives and stating what it is that you're not looking to achieve, tell us what is being sought.

Being disconnected from the struggle/lifestyle/issue, I do not know what to take from your statement.

What, in your opinion, are most trans people asking for, and what makes you sure that the majority seek that?

For what it's worth, I already use 'dev-hours', but not from any gender/rights perspective, it just sounds better and correlates the specific industry to the metric. It's also about the same amount of verbal effort as 'man-hours', so the change was easy.

> What, in your opinion, are most trans people asking for, and what makes you sure that the majority seek that?

We're asking to simply feel included (this includes women as well as trans people; I'm both). When so much of your life is being told you don't belong or that people like you don't / shouldn't exist, it's a big deal. It's 1) more accurate and 2) more reflective of the wide variety of experiences a person can have. I'm not being glib here, but of course the need for gender neutral language seems irrelevant: it is to you because you were already included. It's doubly important in heavily male-dominated industries.

I, too, prefer using "dev" or "employee" in place of "man" in these cases simply because it's more accurate. But it's really not a lot of effort and it actually means something when someone corrects themselves because it's basically "wow I feel seen and like I have a place here". When you've never seen someone like you in a position of success above you because you're one of the first, it really, really matters to feel accepted in any way you can.

Like, you don't have to do it. But these days it really does sound a bit anachronistic to use "man-hours" -- language changes along with the culture and it always has.

I'm totally with you on the inclusion part, everyone in a diverse team needs to feel included.

However, on the solution part, if you say dev-hours, I as a designer would have a huge problem :-), or even as a PM I would have same problem. 'Employee' comes close, but then it precludes estimating for consultants, freelancers etc. 'Person Hours' does not seem to have any of above problems, but then as mentioned it is awkward to use.

Well, maybe perfect solution does not exist, or maybe the perfect solution is being more accepting - accepting gender diversity AND also accepting that many times things that we do is out of laziness or choosing easier path or just out of habit - people in professional work environment do not do things with ill intention.

There is no ill intention behind using certain phrase and doing so does not spread any harmful stuff around.

> There is no ill intention behind using certain phrase and doing so does not spread any harmful stuff around.

I agree; very few people use male-centered language with ill intentions. But it's still a choice people can make if they choose to, and it means a lot to those of us who often feel marginalized. You're not a jerk if you don't, but it's pretty much all upside if you do.

Anecdotally, I would say I hear gender-neutral language used about 2/3 of the time in the Fortune 500 world. While I don't hide the fact that I'm trans, I'm fortunate to pass for cisgender so most people I work with outside my immediate team don't know -- I'm pretty sure they're not altering their language for me. Maybe it's because I'm a woman, but it was a trend I noticed before I transitioned as well.

> statements like this are not useful for building understanding.

I don't ask you to "understand," honestly I'm not sure if I even particularly want you to. I want you to _respect_ us, and others. And no, understanding is not a precondition to respect. By insisting on using exclusive language, or even by framing otherwise inclusive language as exclusive, you are showing lack of such respect.

And true understanding is a huge amount of work. If you need understanding for respect, there ain't going to be many people you'll respect.

> Being disconnected from the struggle/lifestyle/issue, I do not know what to take from your statement.

> What, in your opinion, are most trans people asking for, and what makes you sure that the majority seek that?

We ask you to say "humankind" and "employee-hours." Among other mostly practical, material things: don't exclude us and don't get in our way.

I do hope you know that it’s never intentional. I’m definitely not excluding any gender when I think of the concept of “man hours”—it’s just an abbreviation for “human” to me. I try to use gender neutral language where ever I can, whenever I think of it... I end my meetings with “thanks everyone” rather than “thanks guys”, even though “guys” just means people to me. But it can be stressful to always have to worry about the different intentions people can put behind words, even if none are meant. Basically I think trying to use more gender neutral language is a great thing, but we also shouldn’t criticize it every time it’s seen. I think it’s fair to assume we all have good intentions and that we’re not secretly sexist.

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