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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   Edited 1yr ago   38245 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 12, 2022

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I should also add that this individual is kind of a stereotype of a "trender"; she's gone from being a woman in 2019, to agender, to nonbinary, now to ftm trans and nonbinary, with pronouns shifting every time (as she's gained increased prominence within the Green Party/national politics). She now uses he/they/ille pronouns (that's a French neopronoun), so wow, quelle surprise that someone misgendered her.

(I would say that normally I'm fine with going along with someone's preferred pronouns, but when it is so obviously farcical you have to draw the line).

A friend of mine is engaged to a trans man. This trans man changed the name they prefer to be addressed by like three times in as many years.

I get that trans people prefer not to be deadnamed and I try to address people by their preferred name whenever possible, but really, beyond a certain point you're getting into Puff Daddy/P. Diddy/Diddy/Puffy levels of absurdity.

he/they/ille pronouns (that's a French neopronoun)

How is "ille" pronounced? My first thought would be to pronounce it the same as "il"

Yeah... is it [il], or [ij], or some other pronunciation that ignores French phonetics? Or maybe tries for some obscure argument in favor of pronuncing the final e... but again, [ilə] or [ijə]?

I want to expect [il], but that'd render it inaudible.

(I would say that normally I'm fine with going along with someone's preferred pronouns, but when it is so obviously farcical you have to draw the line).

When does it become farcical to you? My standard is that anything other than standard male or female pronouns are farcical and that you only get to switch those once, maybe twice before it's really not on me to figure out what you are today. If someone makes an obvious effort to present as a man, they get male pronouns, if they make an effort to present as female, they'll get female pronouns. Anything more is a bridge too far and I don't believe in the sincerity of even a single xir.

When does it become farcical to you?

I don't like it, but I will grudgingly refer to someone using "they/them" pronouns if they really insist on it. I absolutely draw the line at neopronouns, however.

I don't believe in the sincerity of even a single xir.

I do think they're mostly sincere, just very confused because the whole edifice is hopelessly convoluted and being pushed by their peers who in turn all have a different flawed understanding. There is no central dogma because the concepts evolve daily because if they were ever formally set then the battle lines would be clear and the whole movement would fracture irreconcilably. The whole thing is like what you get in a game of calvinball where everyone makes up their own rules and it's considered a grave sin to tell someone that their rule is silly and will make the game unplayable.

Yeah, I'm on the same page as you are. If you make a genuine attempt to present male/female I'm all good with it. No neopronouns and no they/thems though.

I’m kind of fond of they/them, if only because I find gender “abolition” more sympathetic than aggressive gender affirmation.

Cis by default, baby.

If only we could abolish gender without abolishing clarity when referring to more than one person at a time...

The book notes on page 85 that "Our research clearly shows that women do as well as men in general elections. It also shows that the reason there aren't more women in public office is that not many women have run. Women have made up a very small percentage of candidates in general elections, particularly at higher levels of office."

I kind of like xir, it sounds like I am in some kind of vaguely Star Trekian utopia. I've never been asked to use any pronouns in real life, let alone xir though.

At my previous workplace, people listed pronouns in their work profiles and one person had a long explanation of why their pronouns had asterisks in them and how to pronounce them out loud. Fortunately, I never had the misfortune of needing to engage further than emailing a group list that they happened to be on.

I used to really dislike him but I've come to sympathize with the Jordan Peterson position of "we can talk if it's the two pronouns and you legitimately make an effort but using anything else is actively supporting a radical ideological regime that naturally slides into farce".

All of the confusion of gender identity as this dualist force and "not being a boy or girl" and such are encouraged by these neo-pronouns so why should I go along? By using them I'd be helping along the very silliness I fundamentally disagree with.

TBH I'm becoming skeptical of even changing those two pronouns, since that is how this whole mess got started.

At the very least, there should be strong differentiation between a transwoman and a woman in text and reporting. It wouldn't be so bad for them to use the "wrong" pronouns if reporting didn't sometimes seem to use this to obscure cases where sex clearly matters (e.g. who just committed that sex crime? A male or a female? I think it matters when we're collecting numbers )

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