Sometimes I have a hard time believing that this gender stuff is really happening. That there are really people who want to divorce the words "man" and "woman" from a person's sex, and instead make them about personal identity. That they have enough political power to force changes like this with no discussion and no dissent allowed.
It is not in any way bigoted or transphobic to believe that a person being a man or a woman, and therefore the pronouns used to refer to that person, are determined by that person's sex at birth. This was the accepted belief of the vast majority of the human race up until about 20 minutes ago, when it suddenly became a bannable offense.
StackOverflow going all-in in support of social engineering on behalf of political activists is baffling to me. Where does this end? Is the goal really to force all of society to change to placate a small group of activists? A reasonable compromise would have just been to allow "they" to refer to someone in a neutral way, but I understand that this is actually not allowed if the person being referred to has stated they would like "he" or "she". This is what makes me think it's more about social engineering than actually protecting anyone from harm.
The presumption of malicious intent is what's off putting. Plus its a fool's errand, you cannot retrain a few billion people by public shaming. I'm a liberal, and this is stupid.
> you cannot retrain a few billion people by public shaming
There have been many cultural revolutions throughout history where a group tries to retrain millions through shaming, reeducation, force, policy, banning, censorship, etc.
I am not surprised. In the last few hundred years one of the more important social etiket was to use the correct title and social gesture. People could get lynched/beaten if incorrect behavior was given to an important enough person or group. Unproportional and often extrajudicial in their application of violence, but far from unprecedented.
From a historical perspective all that has change is which group is important enough and what titles are deemed socially required.
The claim that requiring pronouns be based on assigned sex not being transphobic is akin to claiming Prop 8 wasn't homophobic. Judging that a e.g. a trans man cannot possibly be a man and use he/him pronouns is transphobic by definition. It sucks because the day of a trans person can be ruined by someone being an asshole and then feeling justified that they weren't "because biology".
Because the reality is, I'm trans and I don't feel safe participating on Hacker News anymore. If I try to ask someone to be respectful towards me, I know I'll be attacked because this is the top comment. And that sucks.
>It is not in any way bigoted or transphobic to believe that a person being a man or a woman, and therefore the pronouns used to refer to that person, are determined by that person's sex at birth.
It is bigoted, because the implication behind this belief that all trans people are delusional, mentally ill or liars.
Mind you, I agree that "they" is an acceptable pronoun unless it's being exclusively used to avoid the chosen pronouns of trans people (in other words, it's fine to me if applied neutrally) and I think SO is going overboard here, but your comment has a lot of anti-trans bigotry in it you may not recognize.
Saying “He’s got a penis, we’re going to have a boy!” when taking an ultrasound is in no way comparable to the examples of racism and chauvinism that you’ve described.
The comparison here is utterly absurd. Why not throw something about Hitler in there too?
Can you clarify how "X are [optionally, Z] inferior to Y" is the same thing as saying "a person being a man or a woman, and therefore the pronouns used to refer to that person, are determined by that person's sex at birth."? I don't agree with OP, but am disturbed by your comment.
From the above, "The available evidence suggests that the size of the gender-nonconforming or gender-variant population may be twice as large as our best estimate for the transgender population size."
That pushes the estimate to 0.6% of which non-binary or andogynous is a subset.
I'm not LGBTQ unfriendly at all so don't go there. I am, however, going to question stats that appear questionable, regardless of my personal beliefs.
Hermaphrodytes (more recently called “Intersex”), who have both male and female genetaila. Sometimes, those who were born with both had assignment surgery done as a baby to give them only one set of genetalia.
And according to the SO 2019 survey, "only" 91.7% of people on SO identify as male (do keep in mind that not everyone who identifies as male uses he/him too), yet most people default off to he/him when referring to others.
This can alienate the 8.3%+, and is probably one of the reasons why that percentage is that low.
This change isn't just about trans people, but about anyone who doesn't use he/him or isn't male.
> This can alienate the 8.3%+, and is probably one of the reasons why that percentage is that low.
That "probably" there isn't justified, in my opinion.
As others in that FAQ thread have pointed out, StackOverflow isn't a place where a lot of third-person interaction is taking place, so I'd consider it a stretch to make that out as a reason that non-males are lacking there.
Maybe it's just that women often have better things to do than to ask strangers for help on why their Haskell state monad is acting up.
A new user will typically arrive at SE for asking or answering specific questions. Even most of the users with accounts rarely seem to go near meta and chat.
When I was active on SE (I gave up logging in a few years ago), meta was the afterthought to bitch about some policy or detail and the annoying habits of questioners. The chat usually empty or quiet enough that even looking to see if it was active seemed mostly pointless. I'm sure it's grown since, but that's not really where new people are going.
Moderating it and encouraging the community to run around policing each other seems like it is a bit too much.
No matter how gently you moderate a person many take it harshly and I suspect the response will be to push back at the moderator, moderation, and ultimately the rule.... and it ends up being more counterproductive than anything else.
Very very generally I would compare the response to say police detaining someone as far as a someone's response goes. It is hard to do so no matter how lightly it is presented and not get a strong response.
Another issue is that moderators can't know if two people know the correct pronoun unless clearly stated in that conversation, so they are going to be guessing the vast majority of the time...
The FAQ clearly states that if you don't know then you're free to use they/them, and only are required to use their preferred pronouns if you're asked to do so by the person or if you very clearly knew before (say that you wrote 10 answers to someone over a week, if you defaulted back to they/them on each, then it could be seen as intentional).
It seems like the rule changes boil down to three points:
* Use gender neutral pronouns in most prose
* When directly addressing a user, use their pronouns, as configured on the user profile
* Specifying your own identity is optional, intentionally ignoring the identity specified by others is not
On the one hand, SE can be esoteric enough as it is, more rules will make for less ease of use.
I absolutely think that there should be some level of natural resistance to all new (and existing) barriers to entry.
On the other hand, this new rule isn't particularly difficult to understand (imo) and aligns fairly well with current best practices.
I feel that it's particularly disingenuous to foist this issue as the straw that will break the camel's back, given how thoroughly declawed this rule is. Most infractions won't even constitute an official warning (though I am certain there are people who will test this rule to the limits, which will certainly be interesting to watch unfold).
> Q9: Do I have to use pronouns I’m unfamiliar or uncomfortable with (e.g., neopronouns like xe, zir, ne... )?
>
> Yes, if those are stated by the individual.
Yikes.
I’m 100% in support of all gender identities, sexual orientations, races, etc., and I’ll fight for everyone’s rights and well-being, but this is insanity.
It’s one thing restrict offensive language but it’s a whole different beast to mandate specific language.
Not doing what? Being 100% supportive as stated and addressing people respectfully? Seems strange to express displeasure with a corporate policy about a website by being disrespectful to unrelated individuals.
> Seems strange to express displeasure with a corporate policy about a website by being disrespectful to unrelated individuals.
What are you even going on about? Whom have I disrespected?
Allow me to repeat myself: It’s one thing restrict offensive language but it’s a whole different beast to mandate specific language.
If, e.g., you tell me to not refer to a certain group of folks using a particular racially offensive term, that’s fine and pretty reasonable, but if you tell me that I must refer to a certain group of folks using a term that you or they chose simply because you or they said so, as far as I’m concerned, we’re slowly walking ourselves into a dictatorship. For the first option, I can simply not do anything and avoid being a “bad” person, but for the second option, I’m implicitly a “bad” person if I don’t explicitly do as told (in this case, aka, ordered).
There’s no way I could ever accept that. Nope. No way.
I think the argument boils down to fundamentally restructuring the syntax of our language to the point where pronouns are now individual identity-level constructs. I won't take a position, but I will say that this restructuring is expensive and confuses the hell out of me.
I really have problems following through this complex discussion. But if pronouns are such an issue, this proves that too many discussions on StackExchange are about people and not about technical issues.
They should focus again on technical issues and also find ways to reward questions and answers about really specific issues. It could be observation bias but it seems that questions/answers on very generic topics get most upvotes, although these things can usually also be found on other websites easily and with more detail.
> this proves that too many discussions on StackExchange are about people and not about technical issues ... They should focus again on technical issues
StackExchange is a network of Q+A sites covering a diverse range of topics, many of which are non-technical by design.
I think you might be confusing StackOverflow, the original and most popular technically-focused programming Q+A site, with the broader collection of Q+A sites this policy is addressing.
Unless you're suggesting that all non-technical StackExchange sites should be shut down, which is a bit more drastic.
The problem isn't that people should be referred to in the way they want. The problem is trying to mandate it from above.
Ideally, it would be perfectly "allowed" to insult someone by referring to them in a way they explicitly asked not to be referred to. And it would then also be perfectly allowed to call that person out for being a jerk. That's how a naturally formed community would handle such trolling -- but here, the idea is that the "right behaviour" has to be enforced by rules from above, and that's really not a good idea if you're dealing with anything other than a group of pre-schoolers.
I really wish people would stop using that argument and link, for several reasons:
1) The first amendment has been applied to companies which hold a position which similar to that of a town center. To be fair court decisions has gone both way, but the argument in favor is that when a company operate a space which is indistinguishable from a government operated space then it should be treated equally under the law.
2) When people in the US sue companies and talk about free speech or freedom of religion they usually don't win under the First Amendment ruling but rather under anti-discrimination laws. They will talk about freedom of speech to the media, but as a practical matter will raise anti-discrimination law in court as those have a much larger scope than the first amendment. In places anti-discrimination law can do more or less anything the first amendment do, except the first amendment restrict the government and anti-discrimination restrict companies.
3) In eu both freedom of speech and freedom of religion protects against governments, companies and people. Freedom of religion is particular broad and covers political and world views, and do not require any official religion or belief. EU law impacts many international companies. EU also has it own set of anti-discrimination and in 2000 added "any discrimination based on any ground such as sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth, disability, age or sexual orientation shall be prohibited".
One of those three can likely be used when people bring up freedom of speech. Just because you think someone is an asshole for holding an opinion does not mean you can discriminate against the person saying it. The technicality of the first amendment is not a license for others to restrict speech.
> Q9: Do I have to use pronouns I’m unfamiliar or uncomfortable with (e.g., neopronouns like xe, zir, ne... )?
> Yes, if those are stated by the individual.
As with some replies in the sourced thread, I take issue with this, because it gives a way for trolls to request to be referred to in a humiliating or offensive way, and to prove bad faith is a waste of limited resources.
I say that it is a waste, because singular they/them is gaining currency, and has been used in many contexts as a gender-neutral third-person pronoun, and it is never interpreted as offensive or disrespectful afaict; at best somewhat awkward by some people in some contexts.
I don't get the backlash either, I think it's a combination of genuine bigotry and the "nice" feeling of being on the side of everyone. In the end, it does feel weird to upvote a post that is at -700 or to speak positively when most people's reactions that you see are negative.
I'd absolutely love a way to display pronouns next to a username when configured. It's not required to follow the rules though. It's actually pretty simple: use they/them unless you find out otherwise. You're not required to seek out someone's pronouns.
So, I wonder if the most likely result of this is that SO just becomes more of a "place I look stuff up", and less of a "place I post things"?
Also, I wonder what happens the first time somebody says their preferred pronoun is "God", or something 127 characters long? or Little Bobby Tables? or...?
> Also, I wonder what happens the first time somebody says their preferred pronoun is "God", or something 127 characters long? or Little Bobby Tables? or...?
It isn't. If one accepts the premise that gender is separate from biological sex, one accepts chosen gender-based pronouns as acceptable descriptors of a person's gender identity, but the premise of gender-based pronouns is that they describe gender. As the set of human genders is not infinite, the set of valid pronouns to describe human gender is also not infinite.
"I identify as an attack helicopter" is obviously stated in bad faith, as "attack helecopter" is not a valid human gender. "God" or a base64 hash are also obviously not valid genders. The only people who would do so to begin with are trolls who want to mock trans identity.
Though where is the line drawn about what is a valid gender/pronoun? For instance, are all the pronouns listed on https://askanonbinary.tumblr.com/pronouns acceptable or not?
99% of this issue is about the validity of calling someone either "he" or "she" when their gender identity is not the same as their biological sex. The use of such "nounself" gender identifiers[0,1] is uncommon and controversial even with the LGBT community[2].
Personally, if I know someone is sincere and wants me to use such a pronoun, I probably would, even though I'd find it odd.
So let's draw the line here: at the very least if someone wants to be called "he" or "she" that should be respected regardless of their biological sex, and agree that it gets "complicated" from there.
> bad faith actions like having a 127 character pronoun means that it must be reported:
Why is that assumed bad faith? What if someone has a legitimate 127 character pronoun and that is how they identify themselves? Are you not refusing their identity? Would it not be bigoted to not refer to them as their 127 character pronoun(s)?
The people that don’t understand why this is awful concent to speech regulations. I can’t see how this differs from homophobia enforced by law. Both limit a person’s freedom. It is totally different to mispronounce and to make racist remarks. The former can be solved by asking the other person the latter won’t be solved because the other person is an asshole. One is a mishap directed towards a single person and the latter towards a group of people.
And this is the beginning of the end of SE. They should never have gotten anywhere near involved in such a controversial topic. Especially, given their site is _international_ and I'm assuming a huge amount of their customer base is coming from conserved, third-world countries, who are simply not ready to change to make a first-world minority feel better of factually correct wording.
Save yourself the burden:
$ echo "127.0.0.1 stackoverflow.com www.stackoverflow.com stackexchange.com www.stackexchange.com" >> /etc/hosts
Somehow I feel StackOverflow is preparing itself to be bought. Part of contract is for SO to deal with these hard problems before the it is made public.
When I write my question, answer, or comment, allow me to add markup such as <pronoun @CaesarM />.
And then StackOverflow will display the pronoun in the correct way.
---
Or StackOverflow could take it one step farther. If I write a question, answer or comment with a pronoun, a dialog pops up asking me which username the pronoun refers to. The software does the rest.
It is not in any way bigoted or transphobic to believe that a person being a man or a woman, and therefore the pronouns used to refer to that person, are determined by that person's sex at birth. This was the accepted belief of the vast majority of the human race up until about 20 minutes ago, when it suddenly became a bannable offense.
StackOverflow going all-in in support of social engineering on behalf of political activists is baffling to me. Where does this end? Is the goal really to force all of society to change to placate a small group of activists? A reasonable compromise would have just been to allow "they" to refer to someone in a neutral way, but I understand that this is actually not allowed if the person being referred to has stated they would like "he" or "she". This is what makes me think it's more about social engineering than actually protecting anyone from harm.