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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026

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Well, there was, of course, an implicit "all else being equal" in the sentence you quoted.

No there wasn't. There really wasn't. You made an unqualified statement, which you now (apparently) concede to be incorrect.

I don't even know what you mean by "all else being equal" here. The phrase "all else being equal" normally comes into play when one is comparing two or more alternatives. I think the qualifier you are trying to insert retroactively is "absent extenuating circumstances"

So my next question is this: Under what circumstances is it NOT clearly correct to call someone by their chosen name?

No there wasn't. There really wasn't. You made an unqualified statement, which you now (apparently) concede to be incorrect.

I'm sorry, but I think this all kinds of an isolated demand for rigor and that no one reading my post in good faith would come away with the impression that I have some sort of reverse-Kantian objection to identifying a murderer in hiding. If I said "If a man knocks at your door, explains he's starving, and asks for a crust of bread, it's clearly the correct thing to do to feed him", and I later clarified that obviously this statement takes all kinds of common-sense assumptions for granted (eg: "you" have some food to spare; "the man" is a stranger to you rather than a wealthy personal enemy of yours trying to discredit you with a hidden camera; etc.), only a pedantic logician would call that disingenuous.

I'm sorry, but I think this all kinds of an isolated demand for rigor and that no one reading my post in good faith would come away with the impression that I have some sort of reverse-Kantian objection to identifying a murderer in hiding.

I think they would come up with the impression that you hadn't really thought things through carefully. That's the most charitable interpretation. A less charitable interpretation would be that you were aware your generalization was limited, but you knew that inserting a qualifier would make your argument a good deal weaker. Because to do so would be to implicitly concede that there may be circumstances under which it's okay (or even preferable) to NOT indulge a trans person's desires in terms of name, pronouns etc. So instead you just hoped nobody would notice.

In any event, my question stands: Under what circumstances is it NOT clearly correct to call someone by their chosen name?

(…) implicitly concede that there may be circumstances under which it's okay (or even preferable) to NOT indulge a trans person's desires in terms of name, pronouns etc.

I don't believe there are any such circumstances, unless you contrive a situation where their "desire in terms of name, pronouns, etc." is unrelated to their actual transness (e.g. a trans man happens to currently be impersonating a specific biological man for nefarious purposes).

Under what circumstances is it NOT clearly correct to call someone by their chosen name?

A variety of unrelated ones, much as there's a variety of unrelated reasons why you wouldn't feed the apparent starving beggar.

I don't believe there are any such circumstances, unless you contrive a situation where their "desire in terms of name, pronouns, etc." is unrelated to their actual transness (e.g. a trans man happens to currently be impersonating a specific biological man for nefarious purposes).

Under what circumstances is it NOT clearly correct to call someone by their chosen name?

A variety of unrelated ones, much as there's a variety of unrelated reasons why you wouldn't feed the apparent starving beggar.

Ok, let's see if I understand your argument correctly:

Your position is that:

  1. Generally speaking, it's clearly correct that people should be called by the name they prefer, although there are various exceptions to this principle which you decline to describe or enumerate.

  2. A trans person being treated by society as their preferred gender is analogous to calling a person by their preferred name.

  3. Therefore, generally speaking, a trans person should be treated by society as their preferred gender.

Do I understand your position correctly?

Well, I don't think it's fair to say I "decline" to describe the "various exceptions" when I outlined a few examples of what that might look like. I do decline to attempt to enumerate them exhaustively, because I think they look more like a literally infinite number of possible context-specific scenarios than like a list of simple rules.

And I'm a little uncomfortable with the "therefore" which gives the whole the appearance of some sort of logical deduction. I brought up the way we treat non-gender-related chosen names as an analogy for how I think we should think of trans people's chosen genders. I do not claim that you can rigorously derive trans rights from the practice of chosen names on its own; it's merely a good reference point for how I, as a pro-trans person, think of the former, which is what the OP was attempting to grok.

And I'm a little uncomfortable with the "therefore" which gives the whole the appearance of some sort of logical deduction. I brought up the way we treat non-gender-related chosen names as an analogy for how I think we should think of trans people's chosen genders. I do not claim that you can rigorously derive trans rights from the practice of chosen names on its own; it's merely a good reference point for how I, as a pro-trans person, think of the former, which is what the OP was attempting to grok.

As @Jiro pointed out, names are typically just arbitrary in the sense that they don't imply anything factual about the person being named. In situations where names do imply something factual, suddenly situations start to arise where it's NOT clearly correct to call a person by their chosen name.

In any event, since your argument apparently does not rest on that analogy, and since it apparently did not help me to understand your position, please just lay out your argument for why trans people should be treated by society as their preferred gender without reference to your name analogy.

TIA.

In situations where names do imply something factual,

But trans activists' whole thing is to alter cultural and linguistic norms so that "she/her" or "woman" no longer imply anything factual about people's reproductive organs. We want a world where everyone knows that some "women" have penises rather than vaginas. There is no deceptive intent, as there would be in the Michael Jordan example. Moreover, until the linguistic expectation that a "man" necessarily has a penis becomes as universally quaint as using "gay" to mean happy, which I grant might take some decades yet to filter through from the wokest Blue hubs, I am generally in favour of trans people actively making their transness transparent in any context to which sex is relevant. And frankly, so many trans people are (physically or digitally) bedecked in pins and pride flags that we're a solid chunk of the way there already.

please just lay out your argument for why trans people should be treated by society as their preferred gender without reference to your name analogy.

Well, my main reason isn't so much a positive argument as the root preference-utilitarian claim that it is generally morally good to treat people the way they wish to be treated, and that any exceptions to this require a proactive case for why normal rules of courtesy should be suspended. Going along with trans people's preferences constitutes being nice to them; misgendering them constitutes being mean to them. I believe in being nice to people unless there are overwhelming reasons not to, and I've never seen a conservative make a convincing case as to why trans people, as a bloc, should constitute such an exception. (They occasionally make cogent utilitarian arguments about specific situations; I can respect the opposition's view re: the convicted-rapist problem, for example. But that would only justify making exceptions to the general refer-to-trans-people-as-their-preferred-gender rule in those highly specific contexts; it is not an argument for ignoring them all the time.)

But trans activists' whole thing is to alter cultural and linguistic norms so that "she/her" or "woman" no longer imply anything factual about people's reproductive organs. We want a world where everyone knows that some "women" have penises rather than vaginas.

This is one reason people get really, really upset about being forced to use the 'wrong' name. We know that you are trying to rewrite the way we think and talk. And forcing us to use the wrong name is coercing us into aiding your project against our will. If you want an intuition pump, imagine the culture was taken over by paedophiles trying to erase the child/adult distinction such that everyone knows some "adults" can't talk yet and the concept of being underage becomes taboo. (This is an intuition pump, I am not accusing you or anyone else of being a paedophile or a pervert.)

Speaking as somebody who has been in the exact position of suddenly being forced to call somebody by their new name, I will straight up tell you that I found it humiliating, coercive, and frightening. I am not asking your permission to feel these things, simply telling you I felt them. If your goodwill towards mankind extends beyond your ingroup, please consider that forcing people to refer to trans people as their preferred gender is not 'nice'. It is mean. It is mean as hell and produces lasting resentment.