Rule 8 Announcement

[Reece]

Nnnnnot quite true?
"I am a human being and fellow forum user, I ask that you treat me with basic decency" is basically just reaffirming Rule 1.

See above- there's no reason for either side to be assholes about it.

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That's not at all the same thing and you know it. You can pretend it is, and enforce it like it is, but that doesn't mean it is. Someone believing that a transsexual is just a mentally ill 'Gender X' is not seeing said treating said person without basic decency - unless you think that all the mentally ill are undermensch, in which case it would be; I suppose - it's them disagreeing with a current hot button political topic. LARP'ing that it is otherwise doesn't change that. Them going 'You're mentally ill faggot' is a direct provocation and is them being an asshole, sure. But is the position 'All trans people are heckin valid, and disagreeing is bigotry so get banned!' or is the position 'We don't care, don't insult each other?'. Or is the position 'We don't care, don't insult each other, but you can only hold opinion X otherwise it's an insult'.

I suppose that would be my mild confusion here. I probably should re-iterate I personally don't care, the whole 'trans issue' is a political one. My desire when I come to QQ is to shoot a fat nut from a fun/hot/funny story. Politics isn't really a thing I care for here, but I assume other people do care, and the consternation seems to come from a concern that someone can say a political statement like 'Gender isn't real!' and people aren't allowed to disagree with them under threat of 'You're being an asshole, eat shit'.

Both examples are now allowed, but don't be an asshole to other users remains in effect (don't say other users don't deserve to exist, or say they're all mentally ill, or imply they're sub-human, fucking hell).

Freely discussing sexual identity and bringing that up as points when discussing say, character identity, are kinda important to be able to do when talking about sexual-focused stories. This change is to allow those, rather than going "only talk about orgasms, not about character narratives"

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I wasn't talking about characters in the first. I was talking about someone using their identify to try and force their ideals on someone else.

To use another example, I have autism. Me bringing this up to try and make people behave in a way I want, is me trying to leverage something innocuous, like autism, into something 'political'. If I go out of my way to goad someone to say something I would find problematic, and then go 'Actually shitlord, I have autism, bigot'; and the report them, that's me using my nature as a way of trying to get one up over someone else. My first example was very clumsy, because I honestly don't really see how you could do that, since I assume the mods read what is posted in threads and are capable of higher thought. So any sort of 'gotcha' would be pretty clearly visible. I was responding to another user who seemed to be concerned about that issue.

 

[magic9mushroom]

Part 3: How drastic is this change?

It's not drastic at all.

I'm going to be blunt again, anyone who's complaining about this change is making a mountain out of a molehill. You'll note that we really aren't asking anything extra from any of you.

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Okay, I'll cut to the chase.

I was concerned over whether you were going to newly allow posts like this and this but not allow people to hit back (with the obvious result of "transphobes" getting shamed and/or baited+banned off the board). Wasn't particularly planning on asking you to change it if so, I just wanted to avoid myself and others getting blindsided/frog-boiled. I explained the social dynamics to someone else because, IDK, I like explaining things?

Now, I did hit back four hours ago (it wasn't just a test, of course; I was quite upset), and you guys don't seem to have banned me. So, provisionally, it would seem that things are fine and my concerns were unfounded (like, I've never been a particular fan of rule 8; lifting it equitably on one particular issue is great stuff as far as I'm concerned).

 

[FeepingCreature]

Characters in stories are unaffected. So long as it stays in story.
For example, Worm fics- some characters in Worm are literal neo-Nazis. They are allowed to be characters in stories.

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Sorry, I need to ask for clarification again here. As I recall, the issue was the narration misgendering a character - ie. to the effect of "'I identify as a woman,' he said." That doesn't seem to fall in either category.

 

[mrttao]

Also, just a general notice, anyone who posts complaints after this post will be summarily removed from this thread.

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This is way too heavy handed. You are forbidding people from even discussing the rules (it is not a discussion if you are only allowed to agree with it. at that point it is a circle jerk)

 

[ultima333]

That's not at all the same thing and you know it. You can pretend it is, and enforce it like it is, but that doesn't mean it is. Someone believing that a transsexual is just a mentally ill 'Gender X' is not seeing said treating said person without basic decency - unless you think that all the mentally ill are undermensch, in which case it would be; I suppose - it's them disagreeing with a current hot button political topic. LARP'ing that it is otherwise doesn't change that. Them going 'You're mentally ill faggot' is a direct provocation and is them being an asshole, sure. But is the position 'All trans people are heckin valid, and disagreeing is bigotry so get banned!' or is the position 'We don't care, don't insult each other?'. Or is the position 'We don't care, don't insult each other, but you can only hold opinion X otherwise it's an insult'.

I suppose that would be my mild confusion here. I probably should re-iterate I personally don't care, the whole 'trans issue' is a political one. My desire when I come to QQ is to shoot a fat nut from a fun/hot/funny story. Politics isn't really a thing I care for here, but I assume other people do care, and the consternation seems to come from a concern that someone can say a political statement like 'Gender isn't real!' and people aren't allowed to disagree with them under threat of 'You're being an asshole, eat shit'.


I wasn't talking about characters in the first. I was talking about someone using their identify to try and force their ideals on someone else.

To use another example, I have autism. Me bringing this up to try and make people behave in a way I want, is me trying to leverage something innocuous, like autism, into something 'political'. If I go out of my way to goad someone to say something I would find problematic, and then go 'Actually shitlord, I have autism, bigot'; and the report them, that's me using my nature as a way of trying to get one up over someone else. My first example was very clumsy, because I honestly don't really see how you could do that, since I assume the mods read what is posted in threads and are capable of higher thought. So any sort of 'gotcha' would be pretty clearly visible. I was responding to another user who seemed to be concerned about that issue.

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I'm really not sure what is so hard to understand about "treat other people with basic fucking respect and don't dehumanize or denigrate them"

QQ is a place for adults. If you're still unable to understand that basic preschool level concept, then you shouldn't be on QQ.

 

[Reece]

I'm really not sure what is so hard to understand about "treat other people with basic fucking respect and don't dehumanize or denigrate them"

QQ is a place for adults. If you're still unable to understand that basic preschool level concept, then you shouldn't be on QQ.

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I have already pointed out that I am not neurotypical, and I'm asking questions in good faith; I feel that insulting my intelligence is unironically very bigoted, and I'd like an apology for that. I am confused as to why you have suddenly become so hostile over this? I am not dehumanizing, or denigrating anybody. I am asking if the party line is 'You can disagree.' or 'You cannot disagree', or if the intention is to pretend it's the first and treat it like the second? I don't care either way, I'd simply like to be told in black and white terms what I am allowed to say.

 

[Alucard 109]

Saying 'Women are purely XX, and men are purely XY, and anything else is delusion'

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While still hopefully on subject, this is actually objectively, provably untrue, and I really wish people talked about it more. Genetics are just a bit more complimentary than high school taught. You can be born XY and those genes will Naturally express themselves as female with no hormones or alterations or anything (or vice versa for xx). And you can go your whole life not knowing you were genetically male, because most people don't casually check their genetic gender. And it's more common than you'd think.

Minor note: I am not a geneticist, but am repeating something I learned from a geneticist to the best of my memory. I may have forgotten or mixed up some minor details, but the general gist should be accurate. I fully encourage you to do research on the subject.

 

[Reece]

While still hopefully on subject, this is actually objectively, provably untrue, and I really wish people talked about it more. Genetics are just a bit more complimentary than high school taught. You can be born XY and those genes will Naturally express themselves as female with no hormones or alterations or anything (or vice versa for xx). And you can go your whole life not knowing you were genetically male, because most people don't casually check their genetic gender. And it's more common than you'd think.

Minor note: I am not a geneticist, but am repeating something I learned from a geneticist to the best of my memory. I may have forgotten or mixed up some minor details, but the general gist should be accurate. I fully encourage you to do research on the subject.

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I have a degree in human genetics. It is not provably untrue. It's very uncommon, and it's a disease. No different from any other genetic disorder. There are a lot of problems associated with sex chromosome disorders, they are in some cases life limiting, they are in most cases very life affecting when it comes to hormonal balance, and having children. It's not at all the same thing as a new gender, or some intermediary, or some crossover. It's actually quite horrible for the people afflicted by those conditions. Trisomy X for example is one of the more common, and results in severe seizures, mental underdevelopment, long term kidney damage and physical deformity. EDIT: It pretty much is like saying that humans can actually have just one arm! Sure yes, but something has gone wrong during development if your baby comes out with just one limb.

 

[FeepingCreature]

I think maybe a thing is happening here in parts of this exchange, where one side goes "this should not be hard to understand!" but they're actually referencing concepts that reflect social reality, or that look like they may reflect social reality, which for some people is very hard to parse. And then those people go "actually I don't understand this" and then the first people don't realize that people can actually have that hard a time parsing something, so they think they're trying to set up a gotcha or get away with something.

(For instance, what does "dehumanizing" mean? It's not that I can't think of an example, it's that I can think of many examples, most of which would find some disagreement about whether they are covered by the label.)

("QQ is a place for adults", for instance, is arguably dehumanizing or at least infantilizing those people.)

So I want to assure those people that when they are being told "actually, I am not sure what is covered by this", those asking are very plausibly 100% serious and looking for a genuine answer. It is not a gotcha, it is not a trick question. People vary in their ease of understanding things.

 

[Queen Fiona]

I would like to at this juncture mention that I am also autistic.

 

[Alucard 109]

I have a degree in human genetics. It is not provably untrue. It's very uncommon, and it's a disease. No different from any other genetic disorder. There are a lot of problems associated with sex chromosome disorders, they are in some cases life limiting, they are in most cases very life affecting when it comes to hormonal balance, and having children. It's not at all the same thing as a new gender, or some intermediary, or some crossover. It's actually quite horrible for the people afflicted by those conditions. Trisomy X for example is one of the more common, and results in severe seizures, mental underdevelopment, long term kidney damage and physical deformity. EDIT: It pretty much is like saying that humans can actually have just one arm! Sure yes, but something has gone wrong during development if your baby comes out with just one limb.

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https://novonordiskfonden.dk/en/news/more-women-than-expected-are-genetically-men/

I think this is an article on the phenomena I was referring to. I'd love to hear your opinion on it, but that should probably be over PMs to avoid a derail

 

[Monarchist Guy]

Finally, never really get why this was a problem, I've got gay friends on the left and right so it was rather confusing tbh.

 

[sinereal]

I'm really not sure what is so hard to understand about "treat other people with basic fucking respect and don't dehumanize or denigrate them"

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Okay, I'll take this one.

Do you (the moderation of QQ, not you specifically ultima) consider it disrespectful, dehumanizing, and denigrating to force someone to conform to opinions or beliefs they do not hold?

Because, unless I'm misreading the replies, that's... kinda what it looks like?
Your original answer to my question was

Just... make at least a minimal effort, and don't be an asshole.
If you're interacting with someone, and they mention "hey, please use masculine instead of feminine" and you do the reverse, then that's a Rule 1 issue.

The neutral 'they' can be used in singular as well, that's always another option.

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This is all fine and good. The option is there to abide by/circumvent this by referring to someone by name, or just ignore it. I'm okay with this.

Which you then went back and edited to,

Just... make at least a minimal effort, and don't be an asshole.
If you're interacting with someone, and they mention "hey, please use masculine instead of feminine" and you do the reverse, then that's a Rule 1 issue.

If you know what they are, use 'em.

The neutral 'they' can be used in singular as well, that's always another option.

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Edit in bold.

What I'm pointing out here is that you (specifically, this time) have ruled that if we know what someone's pronouns are, we should use them and that by not doing so, we are 'being an asshole.' Regardless of users' own personal feelings, beliefs, and so on and so forth.

Yes, one could use 'they' to refer to someone, but that's asking someone to walk on eggshells for the sake of someone else's feelings. Or put another way, asking someone to change the way they speak in order to suit someone else. You would then be asserting that one person's point of view is the 'correct' one and asserting that any deviation outside of the allowed options of capitulation or verbally walking on eggshells shall not be tolerated, no matter how it may go against users' own feelings or beliefs on the matter.

You've effectively said that one side's feelings/opinions/religious views/etc matter and the other's do not.
This is, in and of itself, dehumanizing, denigrating, and disrespectful.

And I'm not trying to be an asshole here. I'm really not.
I'm pointing out that the response here is, well... it's hypocritical. And all of the above. By definition.
Your forum, your rules. I get that. But the point still stands.

 

[FeepingCreature]

I mean really, IMO, just make a separate page on "things we consider being an asshole" with examples that include misgendering. Then the autists will be happy, because they'll have clear rules, and the conservatives won't be happy but at least they'll know what's up. I think it's the insistence that this is basic and common-sense - nonpolitical - stuff, that people should know it implicitly from vague terms, and agree, that's causing all this upset.

If the board is ideologically neutral, but it also wants to prevent misgendering, then gendering cannot be a political act. So people who use the 'wrong' pronouns must just be assholes; no other conclusion fits the premises. That's why people are being agitated and defensive, I think.

 

[weirdee]

We got a lot of neurodivergent people here. I think asking other people for respect but not giving any is an act of bad faith. Just cool off if you need to, nobody's going anywhere.

That being said, I don't know why you're all so upset. If anything, under the old observance of policy, everybody here talking about their belief systems would have been bannable (if that had been enforced to both sides instead of one), so the fact that you're all going off about what you think regardless of whether or not it's factually true and not getting slapped for it is a privilege you all get to enjoy without retaliation. Abusing that privilege to argue with other people for the sake of arguing is not protected, though.

 

[Cherry Lover]

No.
Not anymore.
People can now be trans-sexual, trans-age, trans-race, trans-species, and so on.
Literally anything you could build an identity around, you can claim to be a trans- of.
I wish I were joking. I'm not.​

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Have you ever seen anyone say that who is not very obviously doing it as an attack on trans people?

Okay, I'll take this one.

Do you (the moderation of QQ, not you specifically ultima) consider it disrespectful, dehumanizing, and denigrating to force someone to conform to opinions or beliefs they do not hold?

Because, unless I'm misreading the replies, that's... kinda what it looks like?
Your original answer to my question was

This is all fine and good. The option is there to abide by/circumvent this by referring to someone by name, or just ignore it. I'm okay with this.

Which you then went back and edited to,

Edit in bold.

What I'm pointing out here is that you (specifically, this time) have ruled that if we know what someone's pronouns are, we should use them and that by not doing so, we are 'being an asshole.' Regardless of users' own personal feelings, beliefs, and so on and so forth.

Yes, one could use 'they' to refer to someone, but that's asking someone to walk on eggshells for the sake of someone else's feelings. Or put another way, asking someone to change the way they speak in order to suit someone else. You would then be asserting that one person's point of view is the 'correct' one and asserting that any deviation outside of the allowed options of capitulation or verbally walking on eggshells shall not be tolerated, no matter how it may go against users' own feelings or beliefs on the matter.

You've effectively said that one side's feelings/opinions/religious views/etc matter and the other's do not.
This is, in and of itself, dehumanizing, denigrating, and disrespectful.

And I'm not trying to be an asshole here. I'm really not.
I'm pointing out that the response here is, well... it's hypocritical. And all of the above. By definition.
Your forum, your rules. I get that. But the point still stands.

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Would you consider it to be acceptable to deliberately refer to a cis girl as "he" after being informed otherwise? If not, then I don't see how you think it's OK to do it to trans people either. Especially since you have no way to know whether someone is male or female unless they explicitly tell you, so if you choose to use the pronouns they've explicitly told you not to use, then you're 100% being an asshole for the sake of being an asshole.

No-one is forcing you to use their pronouns, either. If you really must, just don't use pronouns at all.

Also, ultimately, "I sincerely believe this" is not a defence against Rule 1. There's plenty of stuff I sincerely believe about people like you that would get me a warning if I said it. I don't see why "deliberate misgendering" should not be included in that.

 

[ultima333]

As pretty much the entirety of policies, this "change" is meant to get people to treat other users with respect, and to not stifle discussion, in that order. As such, basically anything of such can be open for discussion, so long as you're not being an asshole (implying subhuman nature, saying they're deluded, or insulting them).

I quoted "change" because this has been slowly going into practice for a couple months now.




"In-story"

The narrator or author or whomever, using whatever pronouns when discussing a character is not an issue.

It only becomes an issue when it's, for example, a post talking to other users, or a non-story post espousing things such as "all trans are subhuman" or something of the like. Basically, when the author is directly engaging other forum members (whether directly, or by broad categorizations).
That sort of thing is, and always has been, a Rule 1 violation, cuz you're being an asshole to other users.


Discussion of Topics

Same as before, the intent is to treat other people with respect.

The topics are not forbidden. Surgery, genetics, identity, pronouns, I don't care. All fair game for discussion.

As before, Rule 1 is still in effect. If you're denigrating other users, saying that those users are delusional, or "wrong" about who they feel they are as a person, that's pretty assholeish behavior.


Pronouns
Be polite when informing others of your own preferences. Understand that not everyone has Titles/Signatures visible.

If someone asks you to use their pronouns, use 'em or something neutral or use names instead of pronouns. Intentionally misgendering is an asshole move. Don't be an asshole.

Again, this has already been in effect for a while.

 

[Darrenb209]

I mean really, IMO, just make a separate page on "things we consider being an asshole" with examples that include misgendering. Then the autists will be happy, because they'll have clear rules, and the conservatives won't be happy but at least they'll know what's up

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Well, I don't really want to get involved in this mess because it's turning quite literally into the type of conversation that Rule 8 was created to stop, but you've hit on a point that I've been wondering about myself.

There's clearly a line between what counts as bigotry in one group's eyes and what doesn't, but I cannot for the life of me work out where that line is.

Yes, some parts are obvious like deliberate misgendering of a trans person, but they also say that not acknowledging and accepting what they identify as is bigoty while hitting out at some absurd statements.

So the line exists, but where.

It can't be "realism" because identification is a personal matter and what everyone believes to be "realistically possible" is different, it can't be how common it is because that would invalidate the whole thing because of how rare the entire situation is in the first place.

So where, between "I identify as a man/women" and the thing hit as flamebait is the line? And is it before or after "Otherkin" to use an example of a thing real people identify as that's also rather blatantly insanity?

I'm not saying that the rule can't work even if it treats things as bigotry, but the line is not as clear as some people clearly think and it would be really helpful for a clear statement from somebody on where that line is regarding that part of the situation for those of us that aren't seeing whatever line you're all seeing easily.

Have you ever seen anyone say that who is not very obviously doing it as an attack on trans people?

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"Otherkin" And paedophiles trying to justify their paedophilia by claiming to be "trans-age" So... yes. Neither group do it as an "attack on trans people" The former because they legitimately believe something, the latter because they're evil bastards wanting to justify their behaviour.

Would you consider it to be acceptable to deliberately refer to a cis girl as "he" after being informed otherwise? If not, then I don't see how you think it's OK to do it to trans people either.

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If it was deliberate, not part of an in-joke and a trend from somebody without memory issues then no, I'd not call it acceptable. I'd just call it being an arse, like 99% of human interaction on the internet and thus probably hitting on Rule 1 outside of certain sections of rants.[/QUOTE]

 

[sinereal]

Have you ever seen anyone say that who is not very obviously doing it as an attack on trans people?

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Yes, I have.

Would you consider it to be acceptable to deliberately refer to a cis girl as "he" after being informed otherwise? If not, then I don't see how you think it's OK to do it to trans people either.

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False equivocation/intentionally missing the point.
The point being, you have the right to ask me to call you whatever you like, I have the right to refuse. And that disallowing that refusal, forcing capitulation, would in turn violate the rights of the one being forced, dehumanize them, disrespect them, and denigrate them.
George Orwell actually had some things to say about this. Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.

 

[ultima333]

What I'm pointing out here is that you (specifically, this time) have ruled that if we know what someone's pronouns are, we should use them and that by not doing so, we are 'being an asshole.' Regardless of users' own personal feelings, beliefs, and so on and so forth.

Yes, one could use 'they' to refer to someone, but that's asking someone to walk on eggshells for the sake of someone else's feelings. Or put another way, asking someone to change the way they speak in order to suit someone else. You would then be asserting that one person's point of view is the 'correct' one and asserting that any deviation outside of the allowed options of capitulation or verbally walking on eggshells shall not be tolerated, no matter how it may go against users' own feelings or beliefs on the matter.

You've effectively said that one side's feelings/opinions/religious views/etc matter and the other's do not.
This is, in and of itself, dehumanizing, denigrating, and disrespectful.

And I'm not trying to be an asshole here. I'm really not.
I'm pointing out that the response here is, well... it's hypocritical. And all of the above. By definition.
Your forum, your rules. I get that. But the point still stands.

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In what reasonable view is "treating others with decency" considered 'capitulation?'

Like, what part of that makes any sense to you?

QQ is not a place for dehumanizing other people. If someone's beliefs or rhetoric is that "certain groups of people don't deserve to be people, or deserve basic decency or manners" then they can leave QQ.


Treat others with decency. Don't be an asshole.
These are rules. There is no "religious or ideological exemption" for this.

 

[sinereal]

In what reasonable view is "treating others with decency" considered 'capitulation?'

Like, what part of that makes any sense to you?

QQ is not a place for dehumanizing other people. If someone's beliefs or rhetoric is that "certain groups of people don't deserve to be people, or deserve basic decency or manners" then they can leave QQ.


Treat others with decency. Don't be an asshole.
These are rules. There is no "religious or ideological exemption" for this.

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Fair enough.
At this point, any further is just me arguing because I like to argue.
I've got work to do, so I'm putting it down.

 

[Mentos]

In what reasonable view is "treating others with decency" considered 'capitulation?'

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Is it decent to feed a mental illness? They should get professional help, not be enabled.

Edit to respond to alucard since I can't post: not many religious/political identities, and certainly not mine, have such a high suicide rate or include self mutilation, keeping an open wound, or fucking your bones and stuff with puberty blockers, and for those that do I would tell them to get help as well. Frankly, quite a lot of people should be getting professional mental help. It's not belittling or dehumanizing to go to a professional instead of embracing a mental disorder. Just like those people that seek to amputate healthy limbs or paralyze themselves because of their body dysphoria (dysmorphia? Don't recall the correct word), the answer isn't to agree with them and fire up the saw and start cutting. The decent human response to seeing a person trying to hurt themselves is to stop them, not give them a hammer.

Anyway I think this kind of topic inevitably leads to a political shitstorm. As I think think thread shows. It's strenuous politics.

 

[Tortoise]

In what reasonable view is "treating others with decency" considered 'capitulation?'

Like, what part of that makes any sense to you?

QQ is not a place for dehumanizing other people. If someone's beliefs or rhetoric is that "certain groups of people don't deserve to be people, or deserve basic decency or manners" then they can leave QQ.

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I consider this an example of the "if you disagree with me, you're a bad person" kind of rhetoric. Some people believe that a person's internal view, and what they express about it, should determine what pronouns to use for the person. Others believe that pronouns should be based on biological sex. Neither of those views is inherently either against or for people's basic rights or decency/manners.

People do not have a basic right to be called by whatever pronouns they prefer. In many other ways it is allowed to address them in ways they don't like. Depending on context this may be impolite, but it is not against basic decency.

Insisting that it's particularly important to accommodate people in this particular aspect is strongly associated with current US left-wing political views. So in addition to the direct issue between people who disagree on this, there's the additional issue that you're essentially saying that everyone must either use language following the dictates of a particular political movement, or use clearly artificial cumbersome language as the only alternative.

 

[Alucard 109]

Is it decent to feed a mental illness? They should get professional help, not be enabled.

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Let's try a counterexample to show exactly why this kind of thinking is against rule 1.

Imagine for a moment someone said your (as in you specifically) particular religious identity was a mental illness. Or your political identity. None of these are tangible, none of these are necessarily provable. But they're an intrinsic part of who you are. And anyone saying those identities are mental illnesses and trying to demean, belittle, or mock them would rightly be against rule 1. They can privately think whatever they want, but as soon as they voice that particular opinion they'd geta bonk from the mods.

Don't be a dick means don't be a dick.

 

[infinityDivided]

For the love of whatever god(s) you believe in, it's a few extra letters just to make someone comfortable. If you find the idea of having to use a slightly different set of words to describe someone so aggravating that you're willing to demean them, then maybe you shouldn't interact with people.

 

[Cherry Lover]

False equivocation/intentionally missing the point.
The point being, you have the right to ask me to call you whatever you like, I have the right to refuse. And that disallowing that refusal, forcing capitulation, would in turn violate the rights of the one being forced, dehumanize them, disrespect them, and denigrate them.
George Orwell actually had some things to say about this. Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.

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No, it's not "false equivocation". There's no inherent difference between misgendering a cis person and misgendering a trans person. The only difference might be your motivation for doing so, but that's extremely difficult to judge and way too open to abuse. Plus, there might be a reason why you're misgendering the cis person too.

Fundamentally, most insults are things that the person saying them kinda thinks are true about the person they're insulting. Yet they're still insults and still banned as such. I don't see why misgendering people should be an exception. Either you're allowed to "tell the truth" as you see it and so am I, or neither of us are. And if it's the former, then I should be allowed to insult you since I believe those insults to be true.

 

[FeepingCreature]

For the love of whatever god(s) you believe in, it's a few extra letters just to make someone comfortable. If you find the idea of having to use a slightly different set of words to describe someone so aggravating that you're willing to demean them, then maybe you shouldn't interact with people.

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To be fair, I think that people view this as less about how they're allowed to refer to people as how they're allowed to think about them. After all, if gender pronouns were purely meaningless noises, basically just an extension of your name, there would be no reason to care about them, right? He and she mean something to people. That's I think where the stuff about "lying" comes from, because if someone doesn't think of someone else as a woman, then calling them 'she' is asking them to engage in a sort of distributed act, a kind of weird game where everyone behaves as if they thought that person was a woman. Which is what I think the pronouns thing is about, it's a social acknowledgment, that's why it's important. But that implies a willingness to "think about a person as if" they have a certain gender. What else could it mean?

What pronoun rules are asking is for you to put a person in a particular gender category in your head - or at least pretend you are doing so. It's not just about the word. And that's why some non-progressives are viewing it as an attack, as they see you as messing with their mental categorization - and why some autists view it as an attack, as they see it as being forced to lie, to inaccurately report what they perceive.

I mean, I think it's a tradeoff, and this tradeoff is pretty cheap for making trans people happy. But the tradeoff costs are different for different people.

 

[Cherry Lover]

To be fair, I think that people view this as less about how they're allowed to refer to people as how they're allowed to think about them. After all, if gender pronouns were purely meaningless noises, basically just an extension of your name, there would be no reason to care about them, right? He and she mean something to people. That's I think where the stuff about "lying" comes from, because if someone doesn't think of someone else as a woman, then calling them 'she' is asking them to engage in a sort of distributed act, a kind of weird game where everyone behaves as if they thought that person was a woman. Which is what I think the pronouns thing is about, it's a social acknowledgment, that's why it's important. But that implies a willingness to "think about a person as if" they have a certain gender. What else could it mean?

What pronoun rules are asking is for you to put a person in a particular gender category in your head - or at least pretend you are doing so. It's not just about the word. And that's why some non-progressives are viewing it as an attack, as they see you as messing with their mental categorization - and why some autists view it as an attack, as they see it as being forced to lie, to inaccurately report what they perceive.

I mean, I think it's a tradeoff, and this tradeoff is pretty cheap for making trans people happy. But the tradeoff costs are different for different people.

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There's always the option of not using pronouns at all. No-one is being compelled to use specific pronouns, just to avoid intentionally using the wrong ones.

And, frankly, being autistic on a forum invariably requires you to "lie" about things, or at minimum hide your beliefs. I've got in trouble multiple times for telling moderators what I think of them. And normal users, for that matter. The whole concept of not being an asshole implies being forced to keep your opinions of people to yourself sometimes.

 

[Monarchist Guy]

There's always the option of not using pronouns at all. No-one is being compelled to use specific pronouns, just to avoid intentionally using the wrong ones.

And, frankly, being autistic on a forum invariably requires you to "lie" about things, or at minimum hide your beliefs. I've got in trouble multiple times for telling moderators what I think of them. And normal users, for that matter. The whole concept of not being an asshole implies being forced to keep your opinions of people to yourself sometimes.

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Yeah. This is how things work here, only problem is some people look to raise hell for the smallest of things. At one point there was someone who tried to get me banned for a crusade joke lol.

 

[Scygnus]

Reading through this thread, I'm reminded of the Political Peasant scene from Holy Grail.

It's not that hard to respect the rights of reasonable people. If they aren't reasonable... on the internet, the wisest choice is just to cut them out. In real life too, but that's harder.

If someone tries to start shit, hit report. The third time you have to report them, they're probably a lost cause, hit ignore after. Haven't ever had the mods not jump on someone I reported for trying to start shit.

If you don't hit Ignore after three offenses (or just one, if you're confident you don't want to hear any more out of this dumbass) you're probably also an asshole, or at least need to take a good hard look at your motivations for arguing with people who clearly aren't ever going to change.

And yes, there are always assholes on both sides of every argument. Remember that, acknowledge the ones on your side... and then ignore them too because you don't want to associate with that.




I actually had this come up recently in a thread, and the new policy was actually the one practiced- I specified that a trans character was so by choice, instead of by dysphoria, but I phrased it poorly, so when someone reported a real shitlord complaining quite rudely about even having a trans character, the mods PM'd me about my wording and helped me clear it up, while infracting the jerk.

Another poster in the same thread was unfamiliar with my work (which all contains futa because it's my jam) and was respectful about both asking what he should expect and Bravely Sir Robining his way out when he found out he wasn't interested.