So employees should be able to do raunchy stand up comedy about farts and sex then? Some topics are unprofessional in a work environment. Politics has become one of them.
Back in the day when you forked a repo on Github, it said "intense forking action". Sometimes people don't TRY to be offensive, they just want to be funny. Mix in immaturity and stir. But, given my example, should we never ever use Github again?
Let’s take a recent polarizing topic: whether trans people should use the bathroom corresponding to their gender identity. Which bathroom do trans employees use? How can Basecamp possibly avoid that issue?
People are upset about the policy because it gives cover to treat people’s identities (such as using they/them pronouns) as forbidden political speech.
I mean, it's a workplace, not a school. You don't get to choose how you call other people, period. Other people's pronouns and names don't really matter to your day to day job, just call them whatever they want and go on with your life.
Someone saying that name/pronoun choice is "shoving a lifestyle down their throats" is not being reasonable and is being an unreasonable asshole on purpose just to make a point. At this point you tell this person to shut the fuck up or get the fuck out.
Telling someone how you should be called is not unreasonable. You're still allowed to roll eyes in your head, but calling them anything else is behaving like a petulant schoolchildren. There's no place for that in a professional environment. Just accept and move on with your life.
Imagine that a coworker keeps misgendering you, and that commenter is your manager. Your workplace has a “no politics” rule. Who do you think will be told to stop being “political”?
I also don't think that someone politicising something makes the "other side" political automatically.
If Basecamp hired a retrograde sexist that called unmarried women "whores" in the hallway, the women would have all the right to complain, and it wouldn't be a political discussion. It would be just be (in a perfect world) HR vs Asshole.
EDIT: Also I'd like to say that I'm not condoning banning politics at work. We probably agree on most things. I'm just saying that co-workers, managers and the company being reasonable makes way more difference than politics/no politics. Unfortunately there's no perfect solution to the problem of people being unreasonable, other than those sociopaths ceasing to exist.
The retrograde sexist thing sounds obvious because public opinion there is so one-sided. But that's not true for all issues. It was legal to fire employees simply for being gay or trans less than a year ago.
I think we're mostly on the same page here. I agree that ultimately, assholes will find a way to be assholes regardless of the policies in place. But we should still be wary of policies that give them cover to do so.
What I am saying is that someone forcing an issue doesn't make "both sides" political by decree. A person being misgendered can still bring the issue with HR without it being political in a way that's against any kind of political conversation.
Or at least, there have always been those who think that their belief system is obviously basic human decency and those of their opponents pure evil outside the bounds of civic discourse. Then they can pat themselves on the back and have their liberal pluralist cake while eating it too. Usually these people exist on both sides of a given topic simultaneously!
Telling someone who you want to be called in terms of a name, is reasonable. But asking them to reconsider what gender you are, what pronouns to use, etcetera is asking them to participate in an ideology or religion. Rather than asking people to blindly obey pronouns but “roll eyes in your own head”, we could just as easily ask those demanding different pronouns to “keep it in your own head”. What makes one stance more legitimate than the other?
I believe trans people deserve safety and legal protections but I don’t see altering genders or pronouns as being the same as being guaranteed basic rights. I would say the neutral position for a workplace might be that someone can claim a different gender or pronoun for themselves, but others could choose whether to go along with it or not, per their own individual choice and ideology. Neither side should let that deter from their work responsibilities.
Gender is completely meaningless when it comes to do real work. This should be similar to filling a form with preferred title "Mr", "Ms", "Mrs", "Dr", whatever. It doesn't make a difference in the final output of my work.
It's the same as religion, for example. Someone wearing a Hijab or a Kippah, or a Dastar shouldn't and doesn't affect anyones capacity to work. And it doesn't. I don't need access to the hair of my co-workers.
Even if you dislike someone's life choices, you're not being asked of anything other than to behave as neutrally and as professional as possible. You don't need to love them or spread their gospel. You're just being asked for a bare minimum of respect.
Just because some people want to turn this into a political crusade doesn't mean that the trans people or religious people are. They are just living their own lives and those things we're discussing so far are completely harmless.
But having political discussions is also not a panacea, and I've seen it also being weaponised in the name of the same oppression. For instance a very publicly racist CTO I worked under was kept because the CEO claimed "we want diversity, even diversity of opinion". Of course it was bullshit and both of them were ousted by the board.
I guess I'm just trying to be pragmatic and say we should solve the pronouns issue in a more pragmatic and humane manner (HR) rather than let people weaponise it with alt-right politics (or by claiming that trans people are being political).
Honestly I just wish those people had other hobbies other than picking on others.
In the workplace, respect for others is an expected part of the role of each person. If a person asks to be identified by a particular name, or by the use of particular pronouns, then no other person in that workplace has the right to argue that they can't/won't because of their personal beliefs.
Again, the point is that banning "politics" creates space for the company to say "leave the pronouns at home; engage in social issues on your own time".
2 is frankly a terrible solution. You're keeping a "missing stair" employee whom you need to carefully ensure doesn't interact with any coworkers they'd misgender. If someone can't respect a coworker, especially after being directly told to, they should be let go.
It isn’t necessary to fire every employee because a dispute is intractable. If an employee makes a good faith effort to adapt but makes innocent mistakes that are very poorly received they may not be at fault.
Why must it be me who gives up my beliefs to accommodate the other?
Why is mutual respect not the other person understanding this is my religion?
Consider if the conflict was over one employee insisting on using racial slurs instead, and the victim being moved rather than the aggressor disciplined.
To me a stance like that would make me quit as a matter of principle, and I'd also avoid doing business with a company if I was aware of such a policy.
Good point about a racial slur. But invert that. Should I be forced to call some by a racial slur because they are reclaiming the word if it makes me uncomfortable?
These are not easy issues. We are talking about the mutual rights of others and the ability to force people to act. A posture of good faith compromise is warranted.
If I was being transferred due to a transgression someone else did, I'd consider suing or leaving the company as a matter of principle. The outcome of a policy that involves transferring someone rather than dealing with abuse is you over time get left with those who are fine with maintaining an abusive workplace.
If someone is trying to force you to use a slur, they're being abusive. A pronoun is not a slur.
But again, being able to even have that discussion about what is and is not acceptable is a political discussion. That Basecamp has now banned.
I for one would never consider applying to Basecamp after this because they've made it clear employees can not safely discuss issues that may affect them at work.
More importantly, I'd consider a place that cared so little about victims of abusive behaviours a horrible place to work that'd be worth leaving regardless. I'd start thinking about leaving such a please even if I just observed it happen to others, because it says something about the lack of fundamental respect for employees.
I find it hard to emphathise with someone making a big deal out of that.
I can sort of see how you’d like to be called differently if you are changing your gender, but at the same time I cannot really blame the person calling a boy a boy.
I’d try to, but probably find it exhausting to try and keep track of how people want to be called.
Do you keep track of people's names? Their partners' names? Their jobs?
Did you ever think someone was a different gender when you first saw them? What did you do after you realized?
I don’t. But generally, by the time someone is legally allowed to change their gender it’ll be fairly hard to call them anything else, so most of the issues come from the transitional phase.
> Do you keep track of people's names? Their partners' names? Their jobs?
Fair point, though the answer is somewhere in between. I suck at remembering names too :)
I don’t think I’ve ever had to deal with it, which is probably part of the reason I find it hard to imagine.
For what it’s worth, literally everyone I’ve ever met that requests specific pronouns is fine with occasional slip-ups as long as you make a good faith effort to get it right.
However, the rest of the company openly discussing another employee's bathroom dealings probably crosses lines outside of politics. I would be highly uncomfortable if that came up at my employer about some new hire.
Look, I really don't want to be confrontational, but I would like to know more about this evidence. Can you provide me with some sources?
My religious beliefs prevent me from accepting the frame of reference of the person requesting unconventional pronouns.
Their frame is “my identity is different to what society imposes on me, I will ask that you treat me in the way I request, not using the societal default”.
My frame is “God has made Adam and Eve, a man and a woman. They are not interchangeable, by asking me to accept interchanges, you are asking me to go again my religious beliefs and commit sin”.
I am asking this sincerely. Why must I give in to accommodate the other instead of the other way around?
Why must I commit sin instead of the other accepting my religion prevents me from indulging the request?
As a concrete example: if a woman gets married and takes her husband’s name, it would be inappropriate for a coworker who believes her religion’s marriage is immoral to continue referring to her by her pre-married name.
You mention “societal defaults”, but you must know that in the west those norms are heavily influenced by Judeo-Christian (especially Protestant) values. So frankly, it’s frustrating when a presumably Christian person asks why they should respect deviation from those norms. It kind of feels like playing a game with someone who has made up house rules to give themselves an advantage, and accuses others of unfair play for choosing not to follow them.
There is also the example with the married woman changing her name. I think it’s a very good argument. In fact this is perhaps the best argument I have seen so far surrounding the pronoun debate. In the example you give, I would agree completely, the judging person refusing to use the new name is in the wrong.
But, this argument makes a hidden assumption. One cleverly hidden in the parallel. You are assuming the two scenarios ( marriage name change and trans pronoun change ) are the same category, and thus it follows those two should be traded in the same way.
Here is why I believe the two are distinct categories. The marriage name change is language neutral while the pronoun name change is language altering. Language in part exists to establish labels for categories in order to facilitate communication. You cannot “hunt mammoth” if you don’t know what “hunt” and “mammoth” is and you cannot substitute different words expecting the same result. “Hunt mammoth” is not the same as “Hunt deer”. Categories are important. They make communication possible. In the example you give, the woman changing her name does not alter the language in any way. In the pronoun side however, the request makes an implicit language change. The request involves altering the category of men or women. “He”, and “she” loose their meaning if they are applied on request.
The discussion to be had at this point is weather those are categories worth having. But that is a separate discussion. For this discussion I don’t feel like the parallel holds.
> You’re free to retain your beliefs, but you can’t vocalize them in the office.
Why can’t we apply the same logic in reverse? The person believes they are a gender or a sex and they would like to be treated in accordance with their beliefs. They can retain that belief but can’t vocalise it in the office.
> Just as it would be disrespectful to publicly judge a coworker’s religion
But, here is the crux of it. By asking me to indulge the pronoun request, they are publicly judging my religion. My religion forbids me from accepting the interchangeably of men and women. They are judging this aspect and attempt to force me to change it. How do we handle this conflict in a way agreeable to everyone? And if we can’t find a way agreeable to everyone, why should one camp give in to the other?
> in the west those norms are heavily influenced by Judeo-Christian (especially Protestant) values
This is an irrelevant point. As a side note, I don’t believe “Judeo-Christian” is a thing. This is a strange, made up category originating from the bizzare melding of politics and religion in the souther US. This concept is devoid of any meaning outside the US. It’s certainly something foreign in Europe and other broadly Christian nations like those in South America. But, regardless, this point is irrelevant. If we were in an Arab country, the influence would be Islamic. In India it would be Hindu, in every place there are influences from the past.
Let me turn on the head your assumption, because again I feel like you are making unstated assumptions.
Why should the expectation be neutrality and not conformity to the historical norm? Why should the historical norm give in to new trends?
The point about Judeo-Christian (or just Christian, if you’d like) norms is actually the root of the matter here, if you’ll bear with me for a moment. It seems like we can agree that there is a significant Christian influence in the laws and culture of the US, so let’s go from there.
That influence is the lens through which we have to view your notions of “language neutral” and “language altering”. Language naturally evolves to accommodate human necessity, including culture and norms. The state you’re referring to as neutral is a norm that was created by Christians specifically to accommodate Christian beliefs. So asking to respect the norm in cases of conflict isn’t really “neutral”, at all — you’re actually asking to revert to a state that was created to privilege your belief system.
You’re right about an influence being present in any country, and we can probably find similar examples elsewhere. For example, some Muslim-majority countries harbor negative views about women in the workplace. Imagine a man saying that working with women is an affront to his religious beliefs, and why should the historical norm give in to new trends?
Ultimately, though, no one is being forced to change their beliefs — just to be accommodating of those who don’t share them. This brings us back to figuring out who must acquiesce to whom. But here’s another place where we seem to be on the same page: the pronoun issue and the marriage example are equivalent if we ignore the status quo.
Should the status quo matter? Here (and in most cases) I think the answer is no — definitely not without considering who created it and whom it benefits.
Which is what made some employees realize the boss didn't respect them and wouldn't tolerate dissent, so they didn't respect the boss anymore, so they took the buy-out (which was in fact very kind).
First, working remotely solves that problem for Basecamp. You use the bathroom at your home.
Second, if you are designing for an office, you have private, individual bathrooms. What happens behind a closed bathroom door, and what someone looks like behind a closed bathroom door, is nobody's business.
Unisex bathrooms?
Also, the very idea that any company is “above politics” is patently absurd. Is labor organizing political? It’s certainly about the workplace. Is advocating for a tax shelter in Delaware and Ireland political? How about advocating for removing the tax shelters? That’s certainly about the company.
Nah, banning “politics” is just a way to enforce the CEO’s politics and place them above question.
And well, sure, such as it ever was. They usually try to put a fancier face on it, because when you make it so blatant, well, people who have options will leave.
Edit: Like even ignoring for a moment how the employees felt about this how do you think customers and prospective customers felt? It's completely inappropriate no matter how you slice it, and DHH and Jason picked this as the hill to die on. Ridiculous.
> current employees were so mortified by the practice that none of them would give me a single example of a name on the list. One invoked the sorts of names Bart Simpson used to use when prank calling Moe the Bartender: Amanda Hugginkiss, Seymour Butz, Mike Rotch.
> Many of the names were of American or European origin. But others were Asian, or African, and eventually the list — titled “Best Names Ever” — began to make people uncomfortable. What once had felt like an innocent way to blow off steam, amid the ongoing cultural reckoning over speech and corporate responsibility, increasingly looked inappropriate, and often racist. [1]
[1] From the link dang shared, above: https://www.platformer.news/p/-what-really-happened-at-basec...