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Comment by swores | Hacker News Reader

Unless you're personally trans or transphobic, what is it about those words that make them the most important thing to you when it comes to freedom of speech?

They're not remotely what comes into my head for that subject, and I can think of many things where freedom of speech is far more important to me than which words are used in which ways to define sex/gender/etc.

Is it possible that you too have allowed minority interest groups to convince you that trans people are the next big threat, just as gay people were decades ago, and that's why it's the first thing you think of? (Not a rhetorical question, I don't know anything about you and hopefully you're completely not transphobic! But many transphobic people don't consider that word to describe them yet do fall for and repeat explicitly transphobic agendas...)

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You keep framing this issue as if it only affects trans people.

The biological definition of man and woman is a category that's pretty relevant to everyone. And pulling the rug out from under a biological concept, and then saying "Oh how strange that you all are thinking about this, it must only be because you are a transphobe, or a pervert" is an extremely disingenuous argument at best.

I asked a genuine question of why it matters so much to you (and explained that it was a genuine question because I dont feel it matters to me) and you haven't answered, instead you've just accused me of not caring about your view.

Please enlighten me if there's a non-transphobic reason to care what pronounces my next door neighbour uses.

And nobody is talking about pulling the rug from biological concepts - they're remaining the same regardless of what language we all use. "Male-born" and "penis-having" for example are (and I've no idea if these are the best / commonly accepted terms, this isn't an area I know much about) and I'm sure plenty of other related terms can still describe exact situations if you're wanting to think about someone's genitals while using their pronouns.

But unless you're a doctor about to operate on me or somebody I want to have sex with, I probably don't care if you know what genitals I have or don't have nor do I understand why you'd think it important to know.

There are many good reasons why one might want to refer to a person's biological sex in conversation.

For example:

"Why is that man being allowed to compete in a women's sporting event?"

"Why is that man flashing his penis in the women-only area of the nude spa?"

"Why is that man calling himself a lesbian and haranguing actual lesbians for not being sexually interested in him?"

And so on.

It's not about genitals per se! Genitals are mentioned as a proxy for the concept of biological sex. I think you know that, but are pretending not to. So, by all means engage in debate with us about whether it's reasonable to use the words "man" and "women" to refer to the biological sex concepts; but please don't pretend the argument is about genitals: it's the concept of biologically-defined sex that's been attacked, not the concept of genitally-defined sex.

I'm not saying all this talk about genitals is a great idea; it's perhaps a bit inflammatory and juvenile. But that's not the point here.

Reposting the comment by daft_isnt_it which was flagged and is marked as dead (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30908306):

Dear fellow HN users: please do not flag things simply because they are representing a stance that you disagree with; we should use down-voting for that if we have the karma. This post does not violate our guidelines:

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There are many good reasons why one might want to refer to a person's biological sex in conversation. For example:

"Why is that man being allowed to compete in a women's sporting event?"

"Why is that man flashing his penis in the women-only area of the nude spa?"

"Why is that man calling himself a lesbian and haranguing actual lesbians for not being sexually interested in him?"

And so on.

You repeatedly attempt to put words into people's mouths.

GP never said those words were "the most important thing to (them)". If anything, they seem more concerned that if they "state the simple biological definitions" will bring up people exactly like you, accusing them of the transphobia and potentially getting them banned (on a platform like Twitter).

You are not well-intentioned at all in this discussion: there was no reason to go on the banter to the extent you did.

I'd understand it if you said that we are at a time where we are challenging those definitions as they used to stand, as long as you recognize that "definitions", by definition, are prescriptive and need to be agreed between people to make them widely accepted. So I can define whatever terms I want the way I like them, it does not make them so unless I can get enough people to start using them that way, or ideally included in one of the well-known dictionaries of a language.

> what is it about those words that make them the most important thing to you when it comes to freedom of speech?

As ramblerman says, it's because it's a fundamental biological concept that's central to my existence as a member of Homo sapiens. It's absolutely unacceptable to me that I or anyone might not feel comfortable stating that we (surprise!) adhere to the traditional definitions of the words "man" and "woman". I don't really understand why you think something so fundamental doesn't matter.

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