NB Thread now retitled.
What Berkut was talking about:
Quote
Oxford professor given protection following threats from trans activists
25 January 2020
An Oxford professor given protection after alleged threats from transgender rights activists says she did not want to "wait and see if I'd get hit in the face" before taking action.
Selina Todd, modern history professor at St Hilda's College, said members of staff accompanied her to lectures after learning of threats on social media.
Prof Todd has now warned against shutting down debates.
The University of Oxford said it did not comment on individual arrangements.
The academic told BBC Radio 4's Today programme she felt "vulnerable" having previously experienced hostility from some academics and students.
Prof Todd said the threats come from some campaigners who believe her views on the need to protect women's spaces, such as single-sex refuges, from people who self-identify as women but are anatomically male are unacceptable.
The academic said that she has witnessed "quite antagonistic" and "quite confrontational" protests outside women's rights meetings she has spoken at in the past.
But she insisted that discussions about women's rights should not be silenced.
.....
Full item here:
https://www.bbc.com/news/education-51248684 (https://www.bbc.com/news/education-51248684)
Quote
Maya Forstater: Woman loses tribunal over transgender tweets
19 December 2019
A woman who lost her job after saying that people cannot change their biological sex has lost an employment tribunal.
Maya Forstater, 45, did not have her contract renewed after posting a series of tweets questioning government plans to let people declare their own gender.
Ms Forstater believes trans women holding certificates that recognise their transgender identity cannot describe themselves as women.
But that view is "not worthy of respect in a democratic society", a judge said.
Gender passport rules 'unlawful', court hears
Ms Forstater, who had worked as a tax expert at the think tank Center for Global Development, was not entitled to ignore the rights of a transgender person and the "enormous pain that can be caused by misgendering", employment judge James Tayler said.
Ms Forstater was "absolutist" in her view, he concluded in a 26-page judgement.
"It is a core component of her belief that she will refer to a person by the sex she considered appropriate even if it violates their dignity and/or creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment," he continued.
"The approach is not worthy of respect in a democratic society."
Full item here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-50858919 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-50858919)
Which is it? Did she lose her job or didn't she get her contract renewed?
Yeah I don't know Brit speak, so I am not sure what exactly went down besides that that woman is no longer employed studying taxes. But hey once again twitter is just a great place to hang out if you want to be fired from your job and have your life ruined because you had a bad opinion at some point in your life.
Quote from: The Brain on January 26, 2020, 11:47:25 PM
Which is it? Did she lose her job or didn't she get her contract renewed?
Her contract wasn't renewed. She framed it as being "fired". It also wasn't one or two tweets, but dozens of tweets and in-person comments and more. TERFs are fucking awful.
Transgender certificates are a bizarre concept.
QuoteBut that view is "not worthy of respect in a democratic society", a judge said.
Now there is a perfectly good Orwellian phrase.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on January 27, 2020, 08:06:45 AM
Transgender certificates are a bizarre concept.
So according to this judge it is incompatible with modern society to openly disagree on the gender of a person, especially if they have a government certificate stating that they have had at least two different genders during their life, then?
Quote from: DGuller on January 27, 2020, 08:15:53 AM
QuoteBut that view is "not worthy of respect in a democratic society", a judge said.
Now there is a perfectly good Orwellian phrase.
The societal/opinion pressure on this in the UK has already caused a lot of grief to teenagers, as -according to a Guardian article- most therapists are keen to push any teenagers with doubts about their true gender to gender-change medications, as to avoid being labelled intolerant, if they want to discuss the issue with the kid.
Quote from: DGuller on January 27, 2020, 08:15:53 AM
QuoteBut that view is "not worthy of respect in a democratic society", a judge said.
Now there is a perfectly good Orwellian phrase.
The problem is the article does not describe what happened. Thankfully the reasons are linked so one can read what did occur.
This was a preliminary application to decide whether the stated beliefs were philosophical beliefs which are protected from discrimination under the Act.
The court described all of the laws of both the UK and EU which permit a person to self identify their gender. The court noted the applicant was free to disagree with those laws, argue that they ought to be changed and to openly discuss all those matters. If her ability to do those things was infringed then she would have had a case.
But that was not her claim. What she argued is a legal right to ignore those laws and refuse to acknowledge a self identified gender.
The part you quoted was the judge correctly noting that one cannot simply choose to ignore the law.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on January 27, 2020, 08:06:45 AM
Transgender certificates are a bizarre concept.
Under UK law it is the formal way a person can self identify a gender which is different from the one they were assigned at birth.
Quote from: Maximus on January 27, 2020, 09:39:39 AM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on January 27, 2020, 08:06:45 AM
Transgender certificates are a bizarre concept.
Why?
Because I don't see what is gained by handing out a certificate as opposed to a someone just saying to you "hello, I identify as a woman." Are we right to doubt the person saying but wrong to doubt the person with a certificate?
Quote from: Admiral Yi on January 27, 2020, 09:58:47 AM
Quote from: Maximus on January 27, 2020, 09:39:39 AM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on January 27, 2020, 08:06:45 AM
Transgender certificates are a bizarre concept.
Why?
Because I don't see what is gained by handing out a certificate as opposed to a someone just saying to you "hello, I identify as a woman." Are we right to doubt the person saying but wrong to doubt the person with a certificate?
Has to do with legal documents like passports where one does not simply verbally declare.
The certificate allows someone to change the gender on their passport, request a new birth certificate etc. It determines your legal gender in the eyes of the state - in the same way as a birth certificate/passport does.
There's a move to change the process because it's seen as potentially quite demeaning at times to allow more self-identification like you're suggesting. But when the Gender Recognition Act came in authorising these certificates (2004) I think it was unprecedented and the first legislation of its type in the world. What's really striking is that all this happened with relatively little controversy because in 2004 trans-issues weren't really part of a culture war and certainly not one that affected the UK.
Quote from: Tamas on January 27, 2020, 08:34:25 AM
The societal/opinion pressure on this in the UK has already caused a lot of grief to teenagers, as -according to a Guardian article- most therapists are keen to push any teenagers with doubts about their true gender to gender-change medications, as to avoid being labelled intolerant, if they want to discuss the issue with the kid.
There are a lot of steps that need to be taken before any medications are prescribed almost anywhere but especially the UK. Numerous tiers of meetings with psychologists, meeting with doctors, and more. This is after making one's way through the incredibly long wait list that exists to even start the process. Nothing is being "pushed" on people. The grief for trans teens is often the hurdles they face and hoops they must jump through to obtain the help they need and seek. That help may upset TERFs and family, but the person whose opinion should matter the most is the individual seeking help. Also, teens are given puberty blockers which aren't "gender-change medication", but simply delay the onset of their assigned at birth puberty. They can cease to be taken and the normal puberty of the person's assigned at birth gender will occur. It allows for people to have more time to decide what the right course of action is for them without the dramatic changes that puberty brings to the body.
This culture war stuff is just bizzare. It's amazing how absolutely obsessed about trans people certain people on the hard right can be.
This stuff about crooks becoming women purely to make assault easier is particularly stupid.
Quote from: crazy canuck on January 27, 2020, 09:29:44 AM
But that was not her claim. What she argued is a legal right to ignore those laws and refuse to acknowledge a self identified gender.
The part you quoted was the judge correctly noting that one cannot simply choose to ignore the law.
So, in the UK, if someone identifies as a man and has a certificate to prove it, it's against the law to call that person "she"?
Quote from: dps on January 27, 2020, 11:52:14 AM
Quote from: crazy canuck on January 27, 2020, 09:29:44 AM
But that was not her claim. What she argued is a legal right to ignore those laws and refuse to acknowledge a self identified gender.
The part you quoted was the judge correctly noting that one cannot simply choose to ignore the law.
So, in the UK, if someone identifies as a man and has a certificate to prove it, it's against the law to call that person "she"?
Easy, girl.
Quote from: dps on January 27, 2020, 11:52:14 AM
Quote from: crazy canuck on January 27, 2020, 09:29:44 AM
But that was not her claim. What she argued is a legal right to ignore those laws and refuse to acknowledge a self identified gender.
The part you quoted was the judge correctly noting that one cannot simply choose to ignore the law.
So, in the UK, if someone identifies as a man and has a certificate to prove it, it's against the law to call that person "she"?
It is against the law to claim you've been discriminated against on the basis of "philosophical arguments" if you continually and maliciously misgender people, question their right to exist as they do, and launch attacks against them unprovoked online and in person. Seems like a pretty reasonable law and interpretation of it. Insert "Nazi" and "Jewish person" or "KKK member" and "Person of color" instead of "TERF" and "trans person" and see if it makes more sense.
It's difficult for me to use TERF in a sentence and think it makes any sense.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on January 27, 2020, 12:10:43 PM
It's difficult for me to use TERF in a sentence and think it makes any sense.
Nationalistic feminists who are worried their perfect female-exclusive society will be corrupted by subhumans is just too long to write though.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on January 27, 2020, 12:10:43 PM
It's difficult for me to use TERF in a sentence and think it makes any sense.
What type of field do they play on in Gillette Stadium, AT&T Stadium, Lucas Oil Stadium, and many others? Ok. Now you've acknowledged that you can form the word and say it. Expand outward from there. I believe in you. :)
"I question the right of astroturf to exist."
You're right!
Quote from: dps on January 27, 2020, 11:52:14 AM
So, in the UK, if someone identifies as a man and has a certificate to prove it, it's against the law to call that person "she"?
You can call them "she" all you want. You can't then say that not having your contract renewed was discrimination against your sincerely held belief.
Basically there's a line between your belief, and how you act upon it - if you're acting in a way that affects others and amounts to harassment then your fundamental right to act on your sincerely held belief is outweighed by the effects on other people's fundamental rights.
It's a bit like someone being able to sincerely hold the view that all gays are damned to eternal damnation. It's something you can believe and you can say. If you keep saying it so much that HR get involved because your gay colleagues are getting upset, you probably won't be able to claim discrimination.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on January 27, 2020, 09:58:47 AM
Quote from: Maximus on January 27, 2020, 09:39:39 AM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on January 27, 2020, 08:06:45 AM
Transgender certificates are a bizarre concept.
Why?
Because I don't see what is gained by handing out a certificate as opposed to a someone just saying to you "hello, I identify as a woman." Are we right to doubt the person saying but wrong to doubt the person with a certificate?
It's a change in legal status.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on January 27, 2020, 12:10:43 PM
It's difficult for me to use TERF in a sentence and think it makes any sense.
You aren't intolerant enough to use the term the way it is intended.
Quote from: Benedict Arnold on January 27, 2020, 11:33:02 AM
Quote from: Tamas on January 27, 2020, 08:34:25 AM
The societal/opinion pressure on this in the UK has already caused a lot of grief to teenagers, as -according to a Guardian article- most therapists are keen to push any teenagers with doubts about their true gender to gender-change medications, as to avoid being labelled intolerant, if they want to discuss the issue with the kid.
There are a lot of steps that need to be taken before any medications are prescribed almost anywhere but especially the UK. Numerous tiers of meetings with psychologists, meeting with doctors, and more. This is after making one's way through the incredibly long wait list that exists to even start the process. Nothing is being "pushed" on people. The grief for trans teens is often the hurdles they face and hoops they must jump through to obtain the help they need and seek. That help may upset TERFs and family, but the person whose opinion should matter the most is the individual seeking help. Also, teens are given puberty blockers which aren't "gender-change medication", but simply delay the onset of their assigned at birth puberty. They can cease to be taken and the normal puberty of the person's assigned at birth gender will occur. It allows for people to have more time to decide what the right course of action is for them without the dramatic changes that puberty brings to the body.
Yeah, I'm surprised to hear this from Tamas. I can't imagine that anyone with any experience with the NHS would make a remark that doctors are able to push medications willy nilly at patients.
I am not please with my name being associated with this - it is very much NOT AT ALL what I was talking about.
Quote from: dps on January 27, 2020, 11:52:14 AM
Quote from: crazy canuck on January 27, 2020, 09:29:44 AM
But that was not her claim. What she argued is a legal right to ignore those laws and refuse to acknowledge a self identified gender.
The part you quoted was the judge correctly noting that one cannot simply choose to ignore the law.
So, in the UK, if someone identifies as a man and has a certificate to prove it, it's against the law to call that person "she"?
No, she was arguing that she was being discriminated against because her employer was concerned that she was adamant that she would not address people in the manner they were legally entitled to be addressed and so did not renew her contract.
Quote from: Berkut on January 27, 2020, 01:48:53 PM
I am not please with my name being associated with this - it is very much NOT AT ALL what I was talking about.
I was going to say . . .
The legal background here is quite different from the US at will context where the grounds for discrimination lawsuits are narrower. This plaintiff would never have a had a shot in the US as holding "philosophical views" doesn't put a person in a protected class.
Quote from: garbon on January 27, 2020, 01:31:14 PM
Quote from: Benedict Arnold on January 27, 2020, 11:33:02 AM
Quote from: Tamas on January 27, 2020, 08:34:25 AM
The societal/opinion pressure on this in the UK has already caused a lot of grief to teenagers, as -according to a Guardian article- most therapists are keen to push any teenagers with doubts about their true gender to gender-change medications, as to avoid being labelled intolerant, if they want to discuss the issue with the kid.
There are a lot of steps that need to be taken before any medications are prescribed almost anywhere but especially the UK. Numerous tiers of meetings with psychologists, meeting with doctors, and more. This is after making one's way through the incredibly long wait list that exists to even start the process. Nothing is being "pushed" on people. The grief for trans teens is often the hurdles they face and hoops they must jump through to obtain the help they need and seek. That help may upset TERFs and family, but the person whose opinion should matter the most is the individual seeking help. Also, teens are given puberty blockers which aren't "gender-change medication", but simply delay the onset of their assigned at birth puberty. They can cease to be taken and the normal puberty of the person's assigned at birth gender will occur. It allows for people to have more time to decide what the right course of action is for them without the dramatic changes that puberty brings to the body.
Yeah, I'm surprised to hear this from Tamas. I can't imagine that anyone with any experience with the NHS would make a remark that doctors are able to push medications willy nilly at patients.
I read a Guardian article. The same Guardian that has covered in two or three very sympathetic articles the "man" who gave birth in the UK. He was born a she, got help to become a he, then decided he still wanted to be a he but he also wanted a kid so he stopped with the medications so he could be a bit of a she and got pregnant, got artificially inseminated, gave birth, and now a he-he again.
So the same magazine that is totally supportive of such a clear case of insanity, had an article on how a lot of psychologists are remorseful about pushing teens toward hormone medication without properly talking it through with them first, due to fear of being labelled a bigot.
Sorry for taking the article at face value.
...or a trans man wanted to have a child, realized current medical technology hasn't reached a point where he can do so as a man and instead had to do so as his sex assigned at birth. He stopped taking Testosterone to allow his body to better give birth, and then resumed the medication that aids him to better access and present his gender identity. There is no insanity involved but there is some nastiness in declaring it as such because you don't understand it, "man".
Quote from: Berkut on January 27, 2020, 01:48:53 PM
I am not please with my name being associated with this - it is very much NOT AT ALL what I was talking about.
Maybe it's not you but a Asian Eagle?
Quote from: Berkut on January 27, 2020, 01:48:53 PM
I am not please with my name being associated with this - it is very much NOT AT ALL what I was talking about.
I was curious what "you were talking about" to produce this topic but couldn't find anything. Care to elaborate on what happened/your opinion?
Berkut has always been a spirited defender of freedom of expression. This case has nothing to do with that issue. In fact the Tribunal found that if her expressive rights have been in question she would have had a case.
The UK law does permit cases to proceed on the basis of "philosophical belief" - but only if "worthy of respect in a democratic society . . ." etc. So the UK legal regime inevitably involves the state making value judgments about philosophical principles.
Well Britain isn't exactly known for its liberties.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on January 27, 2020, 03:00:16 PM
The UK law does permit cases to proceed on the basis of "philosophical belief" - but only if "worthy of respect in a democratic society . . ." etc. So the UK legal regime inevitably involves the state making value judgments about philosophical principles.
The tribunal was saying nothing more than one cannot found a discrimination complaint on an employer being concerned the employee would not comply with the law - she expressly said she would not.
Quote from: crazy canuck on January 27, 2020, 03:25:41 PM
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on January 27, 2020, 03:00:16 PM
The UK law does permit cases to proceed on the basis of "philosophical belief" - but only if "worthy of respect in a democratic society . . ." etc. So the UK legal regime inevitably involves the state making value judgments about philosophical principles.
The tribunal was saying nothing more than one cannot found a discrimination complaint on an employer being concerned the employee would not comply with the law - she expressly said she would not.
The tribunal said more than that you dirty liar.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on January 27, 2020, 03:00:16 PM
The UK law does permit cases to proceed on the basis of "philosophical belief" - but only if "worthy of respect in a democratic society . . ." etc. So the UK legal regime inevitably involves the state making value judgments about philosophical principles.
Yeah. It's one of the criteria of whether or not something is treated as a philosophical belief (which can be a protected category) or not.
It's not easy but the Equalities Act basically tries to protect religion, or absence of religion as protected categories as well as other philosophical beliefs on an equal basis for the purposes of certain legislation. But that gets into the tricky territory of what is a philosophical belief that protects, say, Humanists but not Jedi or philosophical racists.
So the court's answer at the minute is: the belief must be genuinely held; it must be a belief and not an opinion or viewpoint based on the present state of information available; it must be a belief as to a weighty and substantial aspect of human life and behaviour; it must attain a certain level of cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance; and it must be worthy of respect in a democratic society, not be incompatible with human dignity and not conflict with the fundamental rights of others.
Quote from: Benedict Arnold on January 27, 2020, 02:34:56 PM
...or a trans man wanted to have a child, realized current medical technology hasn't reached a point where he can do so as a man and instead had to do so as his sex assigned at birth. He stopped taking Testosterone to allow his body to better give birth, and then resumed the medication that aids him to better access and present his gender identity. There is no insanity involved but there is some nastiness in declaring it as such because you don't understand it, "man".
I guess my mistake came from having obsolete assumptions on the ability of bearing a child being strictly in the domain of female identity, and therefore I could not understand how a male would both be wanting to be a male AND utilise the womb he was born with but not before he turned from a she to he AND be considered mentally sound.
My bad.
Quote from: Sheilbh on January 27, 2020, 03:34:12 PM
So the court's answer at the minute is: the belief must be genuinely held; it must be a belief and not an opinion or viewpoint based on the present state of information available; it must be a belief as to a weighty and substantial aspect of human life and behaviour; it must attain a certain level of cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance; and it must be worthy of respect in a democratic society, not be incompatible with human dignity and not conflict with the fundamental rights of others.
What is the court's standards against which these value judgments are to be held? Does the court also have the power to determine what is unworthy of respect in a non-democratic society.
The US regime avoids certain problems by being formally value neutral but at the cost having to deal with recognition problems like "what is a religion" - thus Scientology or Moonies can count but not Neoplatonists, Kantians, or Objectivists.
I don't understand the difference between a belief and an opinion.
Is there such a thing as a philosophy that doesn't conflict with a fundamental right of someone, somewhere?
I understand how hard it is to adjudicate all human interaction but that code is a horror show.
Quote from: crazy canuck on January 27, 2020, 02:41:30 PM
Berkut has always been a spirited defender of freedom of expression. This case has nothing to do with that issue. In fact the Tribunal found that if her expressive rights have been in question she would have had a case.
I've also always been very pro-free speech, and now that the court's ruling has been explained to me I would say that wouldn't have been a freedom of speech case even in the U.S.--the First Amendment protects against government action, not the actions of private employers.
Quote from: Berkut on January 27, 2020, 01:48:53 PM
I am not please with my name being associated with this - it is very much NOT AT ALL what I was talking about.
Unfortunately the thread has focused on one issue, rather than the topic of freedom of expression especially in academia, which is what the first news item I posted in the OP, instead most people have focused on the 2nd and an aspect of that, rather than say being allowed private' opinions outside of a work environment.
As you wish I'm more than happy to retitle the thread, what about -
Freedom of Expression in Academia and Employment - formerly the Trans Issues
CC got why the thread mentioned you:
Quote from: crazy canuck on January 27, 2020, 02:41:30 PM
Berkut has always been a spirited defender of freedom of expression. This case has nothing to do with that issue. In fact the Tribunal found that if her expressive rights have been in question she would have had a case.
Quote from: Tamas on January 27, 2020, 03:35:35 PM
Quote from: Benedict Arnold on January 27, 2020, 02:34:56 PM
...or a trans man wanted to have a child, realized current medical technology hasn't reached a point where he can do so as a man and instead had to do so as his sex assigned at birth. He stopped taking Testosterone to allow his body to better give birth, and then resumed the medication that aids him to better access and present his gender identity. There is no insanity involved but there is some nastiness in declaring it as such because you don't understand it, "man".
I guess my mistake came from having obsolete assumptions on the ability of bearing a child being strictly in the domain of female identity, and therefore I could not understand how a male would both be wanting to be a male AND utilise the womb he was born with but not before he turned from a she to he AND be considered mentally sound.
My bad.
Well yeah, Tamas, it is your bad.
A person wanted a child so the person did what was necessary with medications in order to have a child.
This happens every day all over the world. Because it doesn't meet with your understanding of gender identity doesn't make it wrong, nor does it make that person mentally unsound. That you can't adjust to it doesn't make them the problem. It makes you the problem for refusing to bother to try to understand. Not to mention shows you to be an unsympathetic git.
I don't know what Berkut was talking about, but this is something I was definitely talking about. I haven't seen it stated anywhere on the Internet that she was planning to impose her views on the way she did her work. Unless I am mistaken about this factually, then firing her (or non-renewing her contract, same shit) for expressing her views is unconscionable.
Quote from: merithyn on January 27, 2020, 06:39:42 PM
Quote from: Tamas on January 27, 2020, 03:35:35 PM
Quote from: Benedict Arnold on January 27, 2020, 02:34:56 PM
...or a trans man wanted to have a child, realized current medical technology hasn't reached a point where he can do so as a man and instead had to do so as his sex assigned at birth. He stopped taking Testosterone to allow his body to better give birth, and then resumed the medication that aids him to better access and present his gender identity. There is no insanity involved but there is some nastiness in declaring it as such because you don't understand it, "man".
I guess my mistake came from having obsolete assumptions on the ability of bearing a child being strictly in the domain of female identity, and therefore I could not understand how a male would both be wanting to be a male AND utilise the womb he was born with but not before he turned from a she to he AND be considered mentally sound.
My bad.
Well yeah, Tamas, it is your bad.
A person wanted a child so the person did what was necessary with medications in order to have a child.
This happens every day all over the world. Because it doesn't meet with your understanding of gender identity doesn't make it wrong, nor does it make that person mentally unsound. That you can't adjust to it doesn't make them the problem. It makes you the problem for refusing to bother to try to understand. Not to mention shows you to be an unsympathetic git.
Raowww.
Quote from: DGuller on January 27, 2020, 06:50:37 PM
I don't know what Berkut was talking about, but this is something I was definitely talking about. I haven't seen it stated anywhere on the Internet that she was planning to impose her views on the way she did her work. Unless I am mistaken about this factually, then firing her (or non-renewing her contract, same shit) for expressing her views is unconscionable.
Maybe I misunderstood things, but I thought she declared that she would refer to all of her students always as the gender that she determines they are, regardless of how they may prefer to be called.
That strikes me as pretty problematic and outright disrespectful to any trans students in her class. I know that I'd be fired if I refused to refer to my coworker as "he" because I decided he was "she".
@ DGuller - you are missing some of the facts.
She was fired because she told her employer that she would never address someone with a salutation consistent with a self identified gender different from what she, in her wisdom, believed their proper gender should be.
I have said this three times now, but you might have missed it. The Tribunal specifically ruled she was certainly entitled to say the legislation allowing people to self select was daft. No problem at all with her saying that on social media to her heart's content. If she had been fired for expressing those views she would have had a case.
edit: ie what Meri said.
Quote from: crazy canuck on January 27, 2020, 06:57:22 PM
@ DGuller - you are missing some of the facts.
She was fired because she told her employer that she would never address someone with a salutation consistent with a self identified gender different from what she, in her wisdom, believed their proper gender should be.
I have said this three times now, but you might have missed it. The Tribunal specifically ruled she was certainly entitled to say the legislation allowing people to self select was daft. No problem at all with her saying that on social media to her heart's content. If she had been fired for expressing those views she would have had a case.
edit: ie what Meri said.
I've seen you post it, but I googled her name and went to four links, and none of them deviate from the original BBC story. Can you point me to a link that goes into the relationship between her views and her action at her place of employment?
And just to confirm, are we all talking about the second case? I was.
This is actually a pretty interesting case.
I think she has every right to have an opinion, in general, about gender identity. She even has a reasonable right to express that opinion (subject to reasonable restrictions around the suitability to those expressions in the context of her job - some computer science prof who spend their class time railing about gender studies is not the same as some actual gender studies prof doing the same).
Note: I don't care about the First Amendment issue. I think this goes beyond what is strictly legal, and what we as a society want to encourage, not just what strictly is a technical violation of the First Amendment. I think we should want to encourage free expression in a manner that goes far, far, FAR beyond what is only the minimum allowed subject to not running afoul of the First.
But there is having an opinion about a relevant political or social debate, and then there is how do you interact with actual, specific human beings who are your students. We are going from the general, to the particular, and from a question of free exercise of ideas to showing mutual respect, and showing respect between non-peers. There is a concern, a legitimate one, on the part of the university to want to create an environment where students will not feel like they are being personally attacked by their professors.
On the other hand, freedom of speech, if we value it, ought to be valued even when it does in fact result in some people being made to feel uncomfortable. After all, what is the value of the right to speech if it is limited to only speech that is easy, and safe?
But on this issue, I think the employer does, or ought to, have the right to demand that their employees treat their customers with a basic level of respect, especially when the context of how they are addressed is in fact totally outside the actual confines of the debate. There is a interesting argument to be made about gender identification, and what it really means. But this person is insisting that they have the right to basically bring that argument up personally and constantly, even completely outside the confines of any actual argument about gender identification. They insist that not only do they have the right to argue that "Hes" (in their view) ought to be called "hes" instead of "shes" they are arguing they have the right to bring that argument up every single time they have to refer to someone in simple, polite conversation.
Why? What is being imposed on them by this requirement that is so onerous? They are not being asked to stifle their views in general, just to show basic courtesy to other people in a fashion that has become common.
Quote from: mongers on January 27, 2020, 06:38:58 PM
Unfortunately the thread has focused on one issue, rather than the topic of freedom of expression especially in academia, which is what the first news item I posted in the OP, instead most people have focused on the 2nd and an aspect of that, rather than say being allowed private' opinions outside of a work environment.
I didn't find that story that notable. People sent threatening messages to a professor, which is obviously a bad thing, and the university provided protection, which seems pretty sensible under the circumstances.. Not sure what inferences we are supposed to draw from those events.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on January 27, 2020, 08:07:27 PM
Quote from: mongers on January 27, 2020, 06:38:58 PM
Unfortunately the thread has focused on one issue, rather than the topic of freedom of expression especially in academia, which is what the first news item I posted in the OP, instead most people have focused on the 2nd and an aspect of that, rather than say being allowed private' opinions outside of a work environment.
I didn't find that story that notable. People sent threatening messages to a professor, which is obviously a bad thing, and the university provided protection, which seems pretty sensible under the circumstances.. Not sure what inferences we are supposed to draw from those events.
That people associated with the student body or some students themselves are trying to constrain and define acceptable speech on campus and by academic staff.
Quote from: DGuller on January 27, 2020, 07:08:25 PM
Quote from: crazy canuck on January 27, 2020, 06:57:22 PM
@ DGuller - you are missing some of the facts.
She was fired because she told her employer that she would never address someone with a salutation consistent with a self identified gender different from what she, in her wisdom, believed their proper gender should be.
I have said this three times now, but you might have missed it. The Tribunal specifically ruled she was certainly entitled to say the legislation allowing people to self select was daft. No problem at all with her saying that on social media to her heart's content. If she had been fired for expressing those views she would have had a case.
edit: ie what Meri said.
I've seen you post it, but I googled her name and went to four links, and none of them deviate from the original BBC story. Can you point me to a link that goes into the relationship between her views and her action at her place of employment?
The article gets it wrong - read the actual decision. But maybe we might be talking about different cases - unsure.
I mean this gender identity stuff is just extremist de-platforming. Everyone knows these people have a biological sex and we have social conventions for referring to that, transgenderism is a mental illness on par with various other body dysphorias that are uncontroversially mental illnesses (like the dysphorias that lead people to want to amputate healthy legs for example.)
Point being--big difference between asking someone to respect ordinary things, it's quite another when you're asking an academic to encourage someone's mentally ill delusion.
You have a perfect right to say that and hold that view, as wrong as it is. But your employer is also allowed to tell you to respect a person's gender self identification.
Quote from: crazy canuck on January 27, 2020, 10:11:19 PM
You have a perfect right to say that and hold that view, as wrong as it is. But your employer is also allowed to tell you to respect a person's gender self identification.
Would an employer be allowed to tell somebody to not respect a person's gender self identification?
Quote from: Valmy on January 27, 2020, 11:14:18 PM
Quote from: crazy canuck on January 27, 2020, 10:11:19 PM
You have a perfect right to say that and hold that view, as wrong as it is. But your employer is also allowed to tell you to respect a person's gender self identification.
Would an employer be allowed to tell somebody to not respect a person's gender self identification?
Interesting question, under present day EEOC regs, discrimination based on transgender status is a civil rights violation; however, the Trump justice department has been working to reverse this. And it isn't clear how those rules would interact with corporate rights to religious free exercise (!) under the Hobby Lobby decision.
I'd be fine litigating EEOC in the current judicial/administrative environment.
Obama basically invented civil rights law out of thin air with his "expansion" to include mentally ill dysphoria sufferers. At the end of the day of course in the era of Trump executive overreach is basically assumed in the system so Obama's transgressions are small beer by comparison.
Quote from: crazy canuck on January 27, 2020, 10:11:19 PM
You have a perfect right to say that and hold that view, as wrong as it is. But your employer is also allowed to tell you to respect a person's gender self identification.
I'm fine with that, but if I have tenure and I'm a professor I'm not going to go quietly when someone asks me to reject science and embrace the delusions of a (tragically) mentally ill person.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on January 27, 2020, 11:25:04 PM
Interesting question, under present day EEOC regs, discrimination based on transgender status is a civil rights violation
Is simply refusing to address someone using their preferred designation even discrimination? Doing so isn't the same as refusing to provide them with service. I mean, I really don't want to be called "shithead" but if the cashier at Kroger's calls me that when they rign up my purchase, I might complain that they're being disrespectful, but I certainly wouldn't feel I had any grounds for a discrimination suit if store management didn't make the cashier stop doing that.
Quote from: chipwich on January 27, 2020, 03:57:47 PM
What is the court's standards against which these value judgments are to be held? Does the court also have the power to determine what is unworthy of respect in a non-democratic society.
I'm not sure to be honest - it's not my area. My guess is it would probably be linked to the other two elements. So if your philosophical belief is incompatible with human dignity and the fundamental rights of others it will be not worthy of respect in a democratic society.
It's a little bit annoying that the article's have focused on "worthy of respect in a democratic society" because that's just the test, but doesn't really explain any of the analysis on how the judge got there which is probably more relevant.
Otherwise I think I basically agree with Berk.
QuoteI don't understand the difference between a belief and an opinion.
Is there such a thing as a philosophy that doesn't conflict with a fundamental right of someone, somewhere?
I understand how hard it is to adjudicate all human interaction but that code is a horror show.
The Equalities Act just says belief is a protected characteristic and belief "means any religious or philosophical belief and a reference to belief includes a reference to a lack of belief."
So those five tests are what judges have established to define a philosophical belief. I don't think many philosophies conflict with other people's fundamental rights :mellow:
In terms of opinion v belief this came up in an early discrimination case relating to gay foster care. The claimant was a magistrate who said he couldn't do his job because he might have to place a foster child with a gay couple (which is the law) and asked for a dispensation for those cases. The Department of Justice said that he's a magistrate which means he has to apply the law and if he can't, then he can't be a magistrate. From my understanding his argument shifted and was initially that he thought kids would be guinea pigs in a social experiement, and then moved to it was part of his Christian belief system.
But his initial point was positioned as an "opinion" not a belief. As a matter of principle he didn't think it was impossible that same sex parents would be in the best interests of a foster child, he just didn't think there was any evidence for it but that might change. That's an "opinion based on the present state of information" (as he saw it), not a belief.
Quote from: Berkut on January 27, 2020, 07:24:21 PM
Why? What is being imposed on them by this requirement that is so onerous? They are not being asked to stifle their views in general, just to show basic courtesy to other people in a fashion that has become common.
Yeah. This was similar to the approach the Supreme Court took in our "gay cake" case.
They actually briefly considered the US case Masterpiece and a few US cases on "compelled speech" and I saw a decent amount of interest in it from the US.
The main point was that in the UK it was a man who worked at an LGBT community centre in Belfast. He'd previously gone to a bakery for cakes, which were good. He didn't know they were run by very staunch Christians. They didn't know he was gay. The LGBT community centre was running an event on gay marriage in Northern Ireland and he thought it would be good to get a cake so ordered one with the iced message "Support gay marriage", they refused to bake it.
Basically they said the bakery couldn't refuse to provide services to him because he was gay or because he supported gay marriage - but that didn't happpen. And the bakery couldn't have been compelled to ice a message they profoundly disagreed with - whether it was "support living in sin", "support Sinn Fein", "support the Pope" or whatever else - and they would have refused to do that for anyone. But those two are separate things.
Quote from: Sheilbh on January 28, 2020, 01:34:37 AM
Quote from: chipwich on January 27, 2020, 03:57:47 PM
What is the court's standards against which these value judgments are to be held? Does the court also have the power to determine what is unworthy of respect in a non-democratic society.
I'm not sure to be honest - it's not my area. My guess is it would probably be linked to the other two elements. So if your philosophical belief is incompatible with human dignity and the fundamental rights of others it will be not worthy of respect in a democratic society.
What sort of person would know this? This is an odd gap of knowledge for a UK attorney. Didn't Respect-in-a-democratic-society come up in law school since it appears to be an important concept?
An employment lawyer would know, or maybe someone doing public law or human rights law would come across discrimination too.
Nope - I don't think we even covered the Equalities Act. This is quite specialised employment law. I only did the "core" one year conversion and the core units for an English lawyer are land, tort, equity, contract, EU, administrative and criminal. I can't see that this would come up in any of those classes. And of those I would only say I really know anything about some bits of EU and contract because that's what I do for a living.
This is very much outside the area I work in - which is why I'll read the judgment and chat about it on an online forum, but if someone came to me with a philosophical belief discrimination claim I'd direct them to a colleague :lol:
I followed the gay cake case out of personal interest :mellow:
How do you know you aren't saying something right now that a judge might declare, apparently on a whim, is unworthy of democratic respect?
Quote from: chipwich on January 28, 2020, 03:08:57 AM
How do you know you aren't saying something right now that a judge might declare, apparently on a whim, is unworthy of democratic respect?
Because this is a casual discussion on an obscure forum. Not an attack on someone's rights in the workplace.
Wow, I didn't realize OvB was such a shit.
Quote from: Solmyr on January 28, 2020, 04:35:55 AM
Wow, I didn't realize OvB was such a shit.
Really? He's always been that sort of troll.
Quote from: Solmyr on January 28, 2020, 04:35:55 AM
Wow, I didn't realize OvB was such a shit.
One thing on the, well, difference of opinion there.
I guess it stems largely from whether you consider sex and gender independent of each other. Your birth sex is a done deal you can't change your DNA (I KNOW there's like 0.00000001% of people who are a mix of two sexes, irrelevant). Gender is basically social norms associated with that birth sex.
Those social norms used to be pretty restrictive (and continue to be for most of the world), so feeling the need to redefine your gender in order to switch from one set of societal norms and expectations to another I can understand.
However, as we move toward gender equality - we are still pretty far but I'd say its pretty good compared to even 50 years ago- shan't gender change become increasingly irrelevant and unnecessary?
If somebody wants to dress and behave in ways traditionally associated with the sex opposite to their birth, should not they just do so? Should not the correct expectation from society be to accept this and handle everyone EQUALLY and not to make sure we create sufficient pre-defined categories of gender to divide and differentiate societal interactions toward them?
I guess that's harder in a language that is not gender neutral, but that's something that could change.
Quote from: Valmy on January 27, 2020, 11:14:18 PM
Quote from: crazy canuck on January 27, 2020, 10:11:19 PM
You have a perfect right to say that and hold that view, as wrong as it is. But your employer is also allowed to tell you to respect a person's gender self identification.
Would an employer be allowed to tell somebody to not respect a person's gender self identification?
Probably not. Employers are only permitted to make lawful directions and so a direction to violate a human rights code provision would be highly problematic.
Quote from: Tamas on January 28, 2020, 06:25:36 AM
Quote from: Solmyr on January 28, 2020, 04:35:55 AM
Wow, I didn't realize OvB was such a shit.
One thing on the, well, difference of opinion there.
I guess it stems largely from whether you consider sex and gender independent of each other. Your birth sex is a done deal you can't change your DNA (I KNOW there's like 0.00000001% of people who are a mix of two sexes, irrelevant). Gender is basically social norms associated with that birth sex.
Those social norms used to be pretty restrictive (and continue to be for most of the world), so feeling the need to redefine your gender in order to switch from one set of societal norms and expectations to another I can understand.
However, as we move toward gender equality - we are still pretty far but I'd say its pretty good compared to even 50 years ago- shan't gender change become increasingly irrelevant and unnecessary?
If somebody wants to dress and behave in ways traditionally associated with the sex opposite to their birth, should not they just do so? Should not the correct expectation from society be to accept this and handle everyone EQUALLY and not to make sure we create sufficient pre-defined categories of gender to divide and differentiate societal interactions toward them?
I guess that's harder in a language that is not gender neutral, but that's something that could change.
While "let's just ignore gender" is occasionally offered as a solution, it's really not a good one. Many people actually do want to have a gender (including "other") as part of their identity, it just may not be the same gender as they were assigned at birth. To ignore it is basically the same argument as "I don't see race" - sure, but that's not how the world works.
I think the insistence on pronoun is a little akin to people with PhDs who insist on being addressed as doctor so and so.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on January 28, 2020, 10:17:31 AM
I think the insistence on pronoun is a little akin to people with PhDs who insist on being addressed as doctor so and so.
Ehhh ish.
It's like a doctor being annoyed if you call him mister Smith. But feel free to just call him John.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on January 28, 2020, 10:17:31 AM
I think the insistence on pronoun is a little akin to people with PhDs who insist on being addressed as doctor so and so.
:huh:
I think this is an anglo world issue.
Quote from: Tyr on January 28, 2020, 10:26:51 AM
Ehhh ish.
It's like a doctor being annoyed if you call him mister Smith. But feel free to just call him John.
Except that we have an existing social convention that you address medical doctors as doctor so and so.
If a doctor expects to be called doctor outside of his professional life then he's a pompous weirdo. Obviously I know about professional women, but many women are not.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on January 28, 2020, 10:48:43 AM
Quote from: Tyr on January 28, 2020, 10:26:51 AM
Ehhh ish.
It's like a doctor being annoyed if you call him mister Smith. But feel free to just call him John.
Except that we have an existing social convention that you address medical doctors as doctor so and so.
It would be very odd for me to call my friends in that profession doctor. I use their first name. It would also be very odd for me to call a doctor who identifies as male as she.
Quote from: Grey Fox on January 28, 2020, 10:46:59 AM
I think this is an anglo world issue.
How does the French language deal with pronouns?
edit, or I should say, this pronoun issue.
QuoteWhile "let's just ignore gender" is occasionally offered as a solution, it's really not a good one. Many people actually do want to have a gender (including "other") as part of their identity, it just may not be the same gender as they were assigned at birth. To ignore it is basically the same argument as "I don't see race" - sure, but that's not how the world works.
That they want their own special thing does not sound like a proper argument for me.
Fighting to make sure a born male doesn't get discriminated just because he wears what is considered women's clothing/hairstyle/mannerism is perfectly worthwhile.
Fighting to make sure we have properly defined drawers and division lines in society to accommodate everyone's personal wishes is not worthwhile, and in fact counterproductive, and divisive.
Quote from: crazy canuck on January 28, 2020, 11:18:47 AM
Quote from: Grey Fox on January 28, 2020, 10:46:59 AM
I think this is an anglo world issue.
How does the French language deal with pronouns?
edit, or I should say, this pronoun issue.
In French, everything has a gender, there is no neutral. Somethings are ambiguous wether they are feminin or masculin. Doesn't seems a big deal to change from one to the other for a person. A neutral person pronom has been created for non-binary persons but I know no francophone non-bionary.
Also in french possessive adjectives also use the gender of the thing being possessed rather than the possessor so that takes care of a whole bunch of the usual "pronoun" issues we have in English around this issue.
Quote from: Valmy on January 28, 2020, 01:10:08 PM
Also in french possessive adjectives also use the gender of the thing being possessed rather than the possessor so that takes care of a whole bunch of the usual "pronoun" issues we have in English around this issue.
Unless they're talking about "my transgender assistant." Then they're fucked.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on January 28, 2020, 01:13:25 PM
Quote from: Valmy on January 28, 2020, 01:10:08 PM
Also in french possessive adjectives also use the gender of the thing being possessed rather than the possessor so that takes care of a whole bunch of the usual "pronoun" issues we have in English around this issue.
Unless they're talking about "my transgender assistant." Then they're fucked.
:hmm: No.
Quote from: Grey Fox on January 28, 2020, 01:52:30 PM
:hmm: No.
Fine, fine. French Nazi. How about "my friend, the transgender person."
Quote from: Admiral Yi on January 28, 2020, 01:54:19 PM
Quote from: Grey Fox on January 28, 2020, 01:52:30 PM
:hmm: No.
Fine, fine. French Nazi. How about "my friend, the transgender person."
Person is always feminine. Friend is where you need to pick one or you go masculine & a disclaimer.
Quote from: crazy canuck on January 28, 2020, 08:51:25 AM
Quote from: Valmy on January 27, 2020, 11:14:18 PM
Quote from: crazy canuck on January 27, 2020, 10:11:19 PM
You have a perfect right to say that and hold that view, as wrong as it is. But your employer is also allowed to tell you to respect a person's gender self identification.
Would an employer be allowed to tell somebody to not respect a person's gender self identification?
Probably not. Employers are only permitted to make lawful directions and so a direction to violate a human rights code provision would be highly problematic.
Hey Shelf, you say this is an edge case of Employment Law, Crazy Canuck says it is an unlawful violation of a "Human rights code." Which is it?
Quote from: chipwich on January 28, 2020, 03:08:57 AM
How do you know you aren't saying something right now that a judge might declare, apparently on a whim, is unworthy of democratic respect?
Well I look at the judge's analysis and it doesn't seem very likely.
In any event if I'm fired for my Languish activites I will have bigger problems and am unlikely to claim it's part of my philosophical belief - though I think I'd fail far more on the cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance point.
QuoteHey Shelf, you say this is an edge case of Employment Law, Crazy Canuck says it is an unlawful violation of a "Human rights code." Which is it?
CC's talking about what if an employer directs their staff to misgender people. I have no idea what sort of case that would be - I mean it would fundamentally still be employment law though.
But you can see the way the two work together in UK law in the judgment. So you've got a discrimination claim based on her philosophical belief which is a protected category.
But the Human Rights Act provides that, if possible UK statute law must be interpreted in a way that is compatible with the European Convention of Human Rights. This isn't absolute because Parliament and judges in the UK can't overrule an Act of Parliament, so they have lots of interpretative tools and remedies but if an Act of Parliament is impossible to interprent compatibly with the ECHR then they can't overturn it they can issue a Declaration of Incompatibility. Normally the government issues a regulation "fixing" the flaw - I think it's based on the New Zealand system.
So in understanding what is meant by a "philisophical belief" you have the sort of common law interpretation (those five test) but you've also got to consider Articles on freedom of thought, conscience and religion and freedom of expression. Both of those are not absolute freedoms. Luckily the two work together because the European Court of Human Rights has largely adopted the UK court's tests for a "philosophical belief" as quite helpful.
But you also have to consider the human rights of trans people, because their status is also a protected category - so that kicks in with the right to respect for privacy and family life (I actually know a bit about this one :lol:).
In the UK because of that requirement to interpret statute in a way that's compatible with the ECHR, human rights is sort of an overlay on top of everything. In this case it's directly relevant because it's about the rights of two groups of people and a philosophical belief.
I have no experience or knowledge of this from my work, but I'd imagine if you were bringing a case for an individual and it involved statute you would probably shove in a human rights element too, but I think judges tend to deal with them fairly quickly unless it is exactly the point they decide the case on.
Quote from: Tamas on January 28, 2020, 11:22:53 AM
QuoteWhile "let's just ignore gender" is occasionally offered as a solution, it's really not a good one. Many people actually do want to have a gender (including "other") as part of their identity, it just may not be the same gender as they were assigned at birth. To ignore it is basically the same argument as "I don't see race" - sure, but that's not how the world works.
That they want their own special thing does not sound like a proper argument for me.
Fighting to make sure a born male doesn't get discriminated just because he wears what is considered women's clothing/hairstyle/mannerism is perfectly worthwhile.
Fighting to make sure we have properly defined drawers and division lines in society to accommodate everyone's personal wishes is not worthwhile, and in fact counterproductive, and divisive.
It's not divisive unless someone forces it to become divisive in their eyes. I am not in any way negatively affected by someone else's gender identity, it does not make me their opponent in some kind of division.
Quote from: Solmyr on January 29, 2020, 04:57:33 AM
Quote from: Tamas on January 28, 2020, 11:22:53 AM
QuoteWhile "let's just ignore gender" is occasionally offered as a solution, it's really not a good one. Many people actually do want to have a gender (including "other") as part of their identity, it just may not be the same gender as they were assigned at birth. To ignore it is basically the same argument as "I don't see race" - sure, but that's not how the world works.
That they want their own special thing does not sound like a proper argument for me.
Fighting to make sure a born male doesn't get discriminated just because he wears what is considered women's clothing/hairstyle/mannerism is perfectly worthwhile.
Fighting to make sure we have properly defined drawers and division lines in society to accommodate everyone's personal wishes is not worthwhile, and in fact counterproductive, and divisive.
It's not divisive unless someone forces it to become divisive in their eyes. I am not in any way negatively affected by someone else's gender identity, it does not make me their opponent in some kind of division.
Fine, but if you make gender distinction matter, you are putting a limit on equality. If a guy cannot look and act like what people used to associate with a lady without having to switch genders, that's pretty far from equality between genders. Same goes for the other way around, obviously.
And if somebody insists that there should be gender categories for certain defined patterns of behaviour, then they are creating division, not removing them.
Quote from: Tamas on January 29, 2020, 05:01:46 AM
Quote from: Solmyr on January 29, 2020, 04:57:33 AM
Quote from: Tamas on January 28, 2020, 11:22:53 AM
QuoteWhile "let's just ignore gender" is occasionally offered as a solution, it's really not a good one. Many people actually do want to have a gender (including "other") as part of their identity, it just may not be the same gender as they were assigned at birth. To ignore it is basically the same argument as "I don't see race" - sure, but that's not how the world works.
That they want their own special thing does not sound like a proper argument for me.
Fighting to make sure a born male doesn't get discriminated just because he wears what is considered women's clothing/hairstyle/mannerism is perfectly worthwhile.
Fighting to make sure we have properly defined drawers and division lines in society to accommodate everyone's personal wishes is not worthwhile, and in fact counterproductive, and divisive.
It's not divisive unless someone forces it to become divisive in their eyes. I am not in any way negatively affected by someone else's gender identity, it does not make me their opponent in some kind of division.
Fine, but if you make gender distinction matter, you are putting a limit on equality. If a guy cannot look and act like what people used to associate with a lady without having to switch genders, that's pretty far from equality between genders. Same goes for the other way around, obviously.
And if somebody insists that there should be gender categories for certain defined patterns of behaviour, then they are creating division, not removing them.
You seem to be misunderstanding how choosing your own gender identity works. A guy is free to look and act like anything he wants while also identifying as a guy, or identifying as a woman/queer/other gender. It's his choice, nobody is drawing any lines on which behaviour or clothing is confined to which genders. The whole point is that there are no such defined boundaries.
But if there were no boundaries, and people did not associate values to them, they would not want to switch genders.
Quote from: Tamas on January 29, 2020, 05:08:36 AM
But if there were no boundaries, and people did not associate values to them, they would not want to switch genders.
As I said, a gender might be part of someone's identity, so they want to have a particular one. It's not just how you dress, there are many other factors.
So it's a premade category to define a person? What if no existing gender defines a particular person? We create a new one just for them? Wouldn't it be a nobler aim to remove such categories altogether?
Quote from: Grey Fox on January 28, 2020, 02:00:46 PM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on January 28, 2020, 01:54:19 PM
Quote from: Grey Fox on January 28, 2020, 01:52:30 PM
:hmm: No.
Fine, fine. French Nazi. How about "my friend, the transgender person."
Person is always feminine. Friend is where you need to pick one or you go masculine & a disclaimer.
French does have the ongoing issue of needing to create new words for gender equal job roles though right?
A feminine version of executioner et al.
I'd imagine there's a lot of scope for misgendering douche baggery there?
Quote from: Tyr on January 29, 2020, 07:20:02 AM
Quote from: Grey Fox on January 28, 2020, 02:00:46 PM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on January 28, 2020, 01:54:19 PM
Quote from: Grey Fox on January 28, 2020, 01:52:30 PM
:hmm: No.
Fine, fine. French Nazi. How about "my friend, the transgender person."
Person is always feminine. Friend is where you need to pick one or you go masculine & a disclaimer.
French does have the ongoing issue of needing to create new words for gender equal job roles though right?
A feminine version of executioner et al.
I'd imagine there's a lot of scope for misgendering douche baggery there?
The French are idiots & refuse to do it on many of them.
In Quebec, we create the words. No big deal.
The more debates about sex and gender I listen to, the more I wonder about the possibility that the whole concept was introduced by Russian trolls to make SJW types jump the shark and discredit all of liberals.
Quote
The French are idiots & refuse to do it on many of them.
In Quebec, we create the words. No big deal.
My point is it seems harder to avoid gendering if an executioner must be a borreau or borretress (or whatever it is).
If you've a trans person in a job that was traditionally the domain of their birth gender it opens up a lot of opportunities for misgendering.
Quote from: DGuller on January 29, 2020, 09:01:47 AM
The more debates about sex and gender I listen to, the more I wonder about the possibility that the whole concept was introduced by Russian trolls to make SJW types jump the shark and discredit all of liberals.
It's funny as I get the opposite impression. It's the rabid keyboard warrior edge lords doing a lot of work to go full nazi and discredit all Conservatives.
But then that's the way Russia works. Its not about one side winning its about deepening hate.
Both could be true. The point is to deepen the divide to the point that no flaw of your side would ever make you consider doing anything that would in any way aid the other side. I can see how it would be tempting for a conservative to perform as much mental gymnastics as necessary to not see anything fatally wrong with Trump, when the alternative is to put people in power who will earnestly believe in any insane raving if it goes viral enough.
Quote from: Tyr on January 29, 2020, 09:26:19 AM
Quote
The French are idiots & refuse to do it on many of them.
In Quebec, we create the words. No big deal.
My point is it seems harder to avoid gendering if an executioner must be a borreau or borretress (or whatever it is).
If you've a trans person in a job that was traditionally the domain of their birth gender it opens up a lot of opportunities for misgendering.
I think I understand now what you mean by gendering.
When every word has a gender, errors are going to happen & corrections are made.
Un avion or
une avion is a frequent topic of discussion.
A transgender woman being call
un infirmier (nurse) instead of
une infirmière will elicit, in my opinion, a correction not outrage.
Quote from: DGuller on January 29, 2020, 09:34:48 AM
Both could be true. The point is to deepen the divide to the point that no flaw of your side would ever make you consider doing anything that would in any way aid the other side. I can see how it would be tempting for a conservative to perform as much mental gymnastics as necessary to not see anything fatally wrong with Trump, when the alternative is to put people in power who will earnestly believe in any insane raving if it goes viral enough.
It is very counterproductive to blame everything on Russian trolls.
It wasn't Russian trolls who introduced silly shit like this throughout history, like iconoclasts vs. the other dudes, the debate and killing over the exact nature of Christ, etc. It's who we are.
What is actually 'new' in the discussions of sex and gender? Most of what I've seen in this thread seem to be topics that were being debated and discussed back when I was still in college. :hmm:
Quote from: Tamas on January 29, 2020, 10:09:52 AM
Quote from: DGuller on January 29, 2020, 09:34:48 AM
Both could be true. The point is to deepen the divide to the point that no flaw of your side would ever make you consider doing anything that would in any way aid the other side. I can see how it would be tempting for a conservative to perform as much mental gymnastics as necessary to not see anything fatally wrong with Trump, when the alternative is to put people in power who will earnestly believe in any insane raving if it goes viral enough.
It is very counterproductive to blame everything on Russian trolls.
It wasn't Russian trolls who introduced silly shit like this throughout history, like iconoclasts vs. the other dudes, the debate and killing over the exact nature of Christ, etc. It's who we are.
Iconoclasts vs. Iconodules.
What strikes me above all is the smallness of the stakes in this particular controversy. It affects relatively few people and the accommodation (using their preferred form of address) is so small, why not simply do them this courtesy, whether you think they are right to ask for it or not?
Reminds me of Howard Cosell's reaction to Cassius Clay renaming himself Mohammed Ali: 'you have a right to be called anything you want'.
Quote from: garbon on January 29, 2020, 10:16:36 AM
What is actually 'new' in the discussions of sex and gender? Most of what I've seen in this thread seem to be topics that were being debated and discussed back when I was still in college. :hmm:
It did largely seem to go away for a bit as people recognised transgender people could be who they wanted to be.
In recent years the hate has really picked up again though, reigniting previously settled issues.
Quote from: Malthus on January 29, 2020, 10:31:29 AM
Quote from: Tamas on January 29, 2020, 10:09:52 AM
Quote from: DGuller on January 29, 2020, 09:34:48 AM
Both could be true. The point is to deepen the divide to the point that no flaw of your side would ever make you consider doing anything that would in any way aid the other side. I can see how it would be tempting for a conservative to perform as much mental gymnastics as necessary to not see anything fatally wrong with Trump, when the alternative is to put people in power who will earnestly believe in any insane raving if it goes viral enough.
It is very counterproductive to blame everything on Russian trolls.
It wasn't Russian trolls who introduced silly shit like this throughout history, like iconoclasts vs. the other dudes, the debate and killing over the exact nature of Christ, etc. It's who we are.
Iconoclasts vs. Iconodules.
What strikes me above all is the smallness of the stakes in this particular controversy. It affects relatively few people and the accommodation (using their preferred form of address) is so small, why not simply do them this courtesy, whether you think they are right to ask for it or not?
Reminds me of Howard Cosell's reaction to Cassius Clay renaming himself Mohammed Ali: 'you have a right to be called anything you want'.
I personally don't mind accommodating them at all. But it shouldn't be a legal requirement. I mean this as a general comment and not referring specifically to the second case in the original post here, that lady just sounds like an arsehole whom I am sure her colleagues were happy to be rid of regardless of her stance on transgender people.
Quote from: Malthus on January 29, 2020, 10:31:29 AM
Quote from: Tamas on January 29, 2020, 10:09:52 AM
Quote from: DGuller on January 29, 2020, 09:34:48 AM
Both could be true. The point is to deepen the divide to the point that no flaw of your side would ever make you consider doing anything that would in any way aid the other side. I can see how it would be tempting for a conservative to perform as much mental gymnastics as necessary to not see anything fatally wrong with Trump, when the alternative is to put people in power who will earnestly believe in any insane raving if it goes viral enough.
It is very counterproductive to blame everything on Russian trolls.
It wasn't Russian trolls who introduced silly shit like this throughout history, like iconoclasts vs. the other dudes, the debate and killing over the exact nature of Christ, etc. It's who we are.
Iconoclasts vs. Iconodules.
What strikes me above all is the smallness of the stakes in this particular controversy. It affects relatively few people and the accommodation (using their preferred form of address) is so small, why not simply do them this courtesy, whether you think they are right to ask for it or not?
Reminds me of Howard Cosell's reaction to Cassius Clay renaming himself Mohammed Ali: 'you have a right to be called anything you want'.
I don't think the stakes are small. The issue is death of critical thinking by a thousand cuts. Each cut may be minor, but death certainly isn't. The attitude of "just let it go" may have its uses, but it certainly doesn't facilitate open debate. When letting it go becomes mandatory, the marketplace of ideas becomes a planned economy of ideas.
Quote from: DGuller on January 29, 2020, 11:01:41 AM
I don't think the stakes are small. The issue is death of critical thinking by a thousand cuts. Each cut may be minor, but death certainly isn't. The attitude of "just let it go" may have its uses, but it certainly doesn't facilitate open debate. When letting it go becomes mandatory, the marketplace of ideas becomes a planned economy of ideas.
Compared with the truly big issues of the day - global warming, the drying up of social mobility, etc. - the stakes seem to me tiny.
Yet the emotions they generate are equivalent.
This is one of my concerns - that folks are dividing themselves up into tribes, based on emotional reactions to issues such as this. The "tribe" that rejects the labelling of transgendered folks as they wish, is also the "tribe" that rejects (say) global warming.
Yep. You can't just be a fuckwit on one thing anymore. It has to be on everything.
What's disturbing is its working in the fuckwits favour. You'd think being associated with stupid beliefs would turn people away but no. They're only too keen to take the associated positions of the thing they actually care about
Quote from: Malthus on January 29, 2020, 11:10:14 AM
Quote from: DGuller on January 29, 2020, 11:01:41 AM
I don't think the stakes are small. The issue is death of critical thinking by a thousand cuts. Each cut may be minor, but death certainly isn't. The attitude of "just let it go" may have its uses, but it certainly doesn't facilitate open debate. When letting it go becomes mandatory, the marketplace of ideas becomes a planned economy of ideas.
Compared with the truly big issues of the day - global warming, the drying up of social mobility, etc. - the stakes seem to me tiny.
Yet the emotions they generate are equivalent.
This is one of my concerns - that folks are dividing themselves up into tribes, based on emotional reactions to issues such as this. The "tribe" that rejects the labelling of transgendered folks as they wish, is also the "tribe" that rejects (say) global warming.
I still disagree. I think the left losing its way is making every issue of significance worse. Critical thinking and rejection of authoritarianism are the founding principles of liberals. I for one am a liberal because I think these two principles are crucial for effectively addressing the problems we face. I think it would be a disaster for humanity if the liberals just became ideologues in a different rabbit hole.
Quote from: DGuller on January 29, 2020, 11:19:45 AM
I still disagree. I think the left losing its way is making every issue of significance worse. Critical thinking and rejection of authoritarianism are the founding principles of liberals. I for one am a liberal because I think these two principles are crucial for effectively addressing the problems we face. I think it would be a disaster for humanity if the liberals just became ideologues in a different rabbit hole.
:yes:
Quote from: DGuller on January 29, 2020, 11:19:45 AM
Quote from: Malthus on January 29, 2020, 11:10:14 AM
Quote from: DGuller on January 29, 2020, 11:01:41 AM
I don't think the stakes are small. The issue is death of critical thinking by a thousand cuts. Each cut may be minor, but death certainly isn't. The attitude of "just let it go" may have its uses, but it certainly doesn't facilitate open debate. When letting it go becomes mandatory, the marketplace of ideas becomes a planned economy of ideas.
Compared with the truly big issues of the day - global warming, the drying up of social mobility, etc. - the stakes seem to me tiny.
Yet the emotions they generate are equivalent.
This is one of my concerns - that folks are dividing themselves up into tribes, based on emotional reactions to issues such as this. The "tribe" that rejects the labelling of transgendered folks as they wish, is also the "tribe" that rejects (say) global warming.
I still disagree. I think the left losing its way is making every issue of significance worse. Critical thinking and rejection of authoritarianism are the founding principles of liberals. I for one am a liberal because I think these two principles are crucial for effectively addressing the problems we face. I think it would be a disaster for humanity if the liberals just became ideologues in a different rabbit hole.
Elaborate on the rabbit hole.
Ewwww
Is that what they are calling it these days? Elaboration?
Quote from: Malthus on January 29, 2020, 11:10:14 AM
This is one of my concerns - that folks are dividing themselves up into tribes, based on emotional reactions to issues such as this. The "tribe" that rejects the labelling of transgendered folks as they wish, is also the "tribe" that rejects (say) global warming.
I'm not sure that's true - for example right here, I'm pretty sure Otto takes global warming seriously but his views on transgenderism clearly are on the other "side".
The OP posts seem to confirm that - I don't really know what Selina Todd thinks of global warming, but as a professor of modern history at Oxford focusing on working class life and social work in postwar Britain I'm going to take a wild stab she is not likely to be on the Trumpy side of lots of other issues. . .
Anecdotally, I know of people who are "nice" liberal types on other issues but express some degree or other of dissent on these issues.
Part of the problem involves the edge cases of differentiation between biological sex and gender. Common sense and courtesy suggests that if a person prefers a particular form of address or gendered identification in the social sphere, it costs nothing to extend that recognition and respect - or at least that is the classically liberal view of things. More tricky are issues like male/female separation in sports leagues and competition - are these separations due to a social convention against mixing in a sporting context or because of the sense that being of one biological sex confers certain advantages? I think in the contemporary context it is probably more the latter.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on January 29, 2020, 12:00:13 PM
Quote from: Malthus on January 29, 2020, 11:10:14 AM
This is one of my concerns - that folks are dividing themselves up into tribes, based on emotional reactions to issues such as this. The "tribe" that rejects the labelling of transgendered folks as they wish, is also the "tribe" that rejects (say) global warming.
I'm not sure that's true - for example right here, I'm pretty sure Otto takes global warming seriously but his views on transgenderism clearly are on the other "side".
The OP posts seem to confirm that - I don't really know what Selina Todd thinks of global warming, but as a professor of modern history at Oxford focusing on working class life and social work in postwar Britain I'm going to take a wild stab she is not likely to be on the Trumpy side of lots of other issues. . .
Anecdotally, I know of people who are "nice" liberal types on other issues but express some degree or other of dissent on these issues.
Part of the problem involves the edge cases of differentiation between biological sex and gender. Common sense and courtesy suggests that if a person prefers a particular form of address or gendered identification in the social sphere, it costs nothing to extend that recognition and respect - or at least that is the classically liberal view of things. More tricky are issues like male/female separation in sports leagues and competition - are these separations due to a social convention against mixing in a sporting context or because of the sense that being of one biological sex confers certain advantages? I think in the contemporary context it is probably more the latter.
Clearly, it is not
universally true that people
must think in lock-step on all issues. There are lots of people, here and elsewhere, who are capable of thinking of issues on their own merits. That may even be a sign of intelligence, and presumably your "nice" liberal types fall into that category.
However, I would argue that there is a
tendency, particularly notable these days, for people to identify with one side or the other, and issues such as this are the types of issues over which people tend to divide. They allow a battle of competing negative stereotypes.
I agree with your last observation.
Quote from: Grey Fox on January 28, 2020, 11:44:03 AM
Quote from: crazy canuck on January 28, 2020, 11:18:47 AM
Quote from: Grey Fox on January 28, 2020, 10:46:59 AM
I think this is an anglo world issue.
How does the French language deal with pronouns?
edit, or I should say, this pronoun issue.
In French, everything has a gender, there is no neutral. Somethings are ambiguous wether they are feminin or masculin. Doesn't seems a big deal to change from one to the other for a person. A neutral person pronom has been created for non-binary persons but I know no francophone non-bionary.
Actually, masculine in French can also include neutral cf. quelqu'un. Masculine plural is even more encompassing.
That's something neo/post-feminists cannot fathom for ideological reasons. Thing is, masculine and neutral were already pretty close in Latin, only accusative was different. This happens in other Indo-European languages such as German where the only difference now is den vs das.
One can emphasize by saying toutes et tous or the reverse but that's a stylistic or rhetorical choice.
There is something of real neutral but it is more for inanimate objects, again like neutral in theory in Latin.
Btw, Homme can mean human, not just male, as well " Un Homme sur deux est une femme" albeit now feminists would not agree though it used to be a feminist slogan.
Homme/homme : the former like Mensch in German or Homo in Latin the latter like Mann or Vir.
Thing is, feminine forms are a bit harder to form than in other romance languages which cause all sorts of barbarisms such as "auteure" when there is an acceptable and attested form such as autrice. I tend to use auteur for everybody though, out of habit.
Genders in French (grammatical) are sometimes arbitrary cf. personne, sentinelle or estafette but only post-modern feminists get outraged and start demanding – impractical– newspeak.
If you want a gender-neutral language, try contemporary Persian/Parsi. Hence I am afraid that language is not the decisive element in sex equality.
I guess if they could show how grammatical gender in language actually correlates with gender-based injustice in society I would agree that changing the language like that should be a serious issue, but I don't really see that to be the case. I do get that it can be annoying.
Quote from: Duque de Bragança on January 29, 2020, 01:55:06 PM
Something neo/post-feminists cannot fathom for ideological reasons. Thing is, masculine and neutral were already pretty close in Latin, only accusative was different.
Of course they can. They just know, because they live in today's society, and not in the 6th century, that language has deep social effects, that social effects have profound effects on language, and that masculine-as-neutral, in a patriarchal society, has a different connotations and different effects than it would, if we were living in a matriarchal society.
This is also ignoring the deliberate impoverishment of meaning that historically happened as women were cut off from certain occupations they initially held.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on January 29, 2020, 12:00:13 PMI'm not sure that's true - for example right here, I'm pretty sure Otto takes global warming seriously but his views on transgenderism clearly are on the other "side".
I mean so keep in mind, probably 10% of things I say on the net about trans people reflect a kernel of genuine belief, and another 90% is just me trolling a really stupid cultural phenomenon (namely extreme SJWs.) I don't think this is an issue that is threatening the integrity of the Republic.
I do genuinely believe if you have a gender dysphoria such that you believe the natural, human genitals and reproductive system you have and that your DNA dictates yo have, should be mutilated and reshaped into an approximation of the physical genitalia of the opposite sex, there's something "wrong" with your brain. I actually genuinely believe that this wasn't controversial until very very recently. Gender dysphorias were and still are listed in the DSM which is what professional mental health people use to diagnose mental illness.
The argument in the trans community is that this is just "regressive" thinking, and that just like homosexuality used to be in the DSM, and now is not, soon enough gender dysphorias will not be either (the most recent DSM did relabel them and sort of shuffle them into a different category, so it looks like things are heading in that direction.) I think there is a fundamental difference between homosexuality and gender dysphoria. A homosexual experiences sexual attraction and sexual pleasure from, very broadly speaking, a different set of things than a comparable heterosexual of the same sex. The intersection between "differences in the way your brain works" and "mental illness" often is understood to relate to how it interacts with your ability to function in society.
Really liking other men and wanting to fuck other men for say, most of the 20th century (up until arguably the 1980s, arguably later) undeniable caused serious issues for you as a person. It was illegal in most of the United States until the 60s, it eliminated from the person the chance of marriage and establishment of a family, it was widely seen as a grave character flaw justifying someone's termination from employment etc. So in a sense it's understandable it was classified as a mental illness. Back then, almost no one would "want" to be gay, because it was trading a normal life for a lot of grief. We now recognize that this different sexual preference really causes no harm in a society that
is not bigoted, and thus homosexuality is just a natural variation in the human brain, not an illness.
It's easy for those inclined to do so to extend this argument to transgenderism, but the physical body modification is a serious deviation for me in how I look at it. The reason body dysphoria in which a person genuinely believes say, their leg is a "foreign invader" and needs removed, and someone really being obsessed with women's feet, is one is a fetish that largely causes no harm to anyone, one is something that can lead to people seeking dangerous and
never healthy medical procedures. When a gender dysphoria leads to someone essentially obliterating their perfectly healthy reproductive organs, usually in a fashion that makes natural reproduction impossible, I think we're right there with other dangerous body dysphorias.
When you are talking about biologically changing someone's body, you aren't talking about societal gender any longer. The "genderqueer" and other weird terms I don't fully understand, of people who are perfectly happy with
their bodies but wish to present as a different cultural gender, or as a "fluid" gender. I view that as weird and whatever, but I don't view it as a mental illness or anything. It's just a natural variation in the mind, and rejecting the
social construct of your gender to me is very different than rejecting the
biological nature of your natural human body.
The trans community largely rejects these lines be drawn at all, and they actually vehemently assert that a trans person is not biologically their birth sex, their actual sex is what they feel it to be, and
any reference to their biological reality is bigotry. There have been very very few studies that demonstrate there is a "real sex" separate from the understood, biological chromosomal sex. There's a famous study that lots in the trans community will reference where they took the brains of dead trans people, and they found a very small difference in
some of these brains where a very small structure of a small part of the brain in the trans person was
more similar to their "identified sex" than their biological sex. Except this was a study done with like 12 brains and a limited analysis of a control group or anything of that nature. This study is far from giving us scientific license to assert all trans people are "genuinely" not the biological sex that everyone understands them to be.
When it comes to referencing someone with a pronoun, I'm from the South and politeness is ingrained in my upbringing in terms of my interactions with people in the real world--it's unlikely I would refuse to call someone what they wanted to be called in most contexts. But whether I agree with that being forced or mandated behavior would be a very different topic.
I also think it's crazy that "extreme" trans activists are doing things like forcing use of the word Latinx down the throats of a society that doesn't want this word. Something like 98% of Latinos do not like the word Latinx, they are fine with their gendered language and don't like a group of people representing like 0.5% of the entire population dictating structural changes to
their language. It's some of the worst "white urban liberal" patronizing of minority people I've ever seen.
Quote from: Valmy on January 29, 2020, 02:03:17 PM
I guess if they could show how grammatical gender in language actually correlates with gender-based injustice in society I would agree that changing the language like that should be a serious issue, but I don't really see that to be the case. I do get that it can be annoying.
In French, a "couturier" connotes a fashion designer. A "couturière", a seamstress. A "cuisinier" connotes a chef; a "cuisinière", a homecook. And when "secrétaire", who once were positions of power held by men, became overwhelmingly women typists, the male "secrétaire" became "secrétaire of..." something, or "secrétaire-général". Still today in France, job ads for secrétaire frequently use the feminine, not the vaunted "male neutral", even if the word itself sounds the same for men and women.
The point of feminine titles is to audibly show women in positions of power, including in roles that were long dominated by men.
Quote from: Oexmelin on January 29, 2020, 02:19:50 PM
The point of feminine titles is to audibly show women in positions of power, including in roles that were long dominated by men.
I get it and I know and when I was studying French I thought that was weird, as I said I get how it would be annoying.
But I didn't think that was the only change that was being made because of grammatical gender, also GF made it sound like this was not really a problem in Quebec that you guys just made new words no problem.
Quote from: Valmy on January 29, 2020, 02:21:59 PM
Quote from: Oexmelin on January 29, 2020, 02:19:50 PM
The point of feminine titles is to audibly show women in positions of power, including in roles that were long dominated by men.
I get it and I know and when I was studying French I thought that was weird, as I said I get how it would be annoying.
But I didn't think that was the only change that was being made because of grammatical gender, also GF made it sound like this was not really a problem in Quebec that you guys just made new words no problem.
The process of making the new words is not easy per se, French is slow to adapt, but they do get adopted. While France french is, apparently, still stucked using "Madame le maire" instead of a proper feminine title.
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on January 29, 2020, 02:17:09 PM
I do genuinely believe if you have a gender dysphoria such that you believe the natural, human genitals and reproductive system you have and that your DNA dictates yo have, should be mutilated and reshaped into an approximation of the physical genitalia of the opposite sex, there's something "wrong" with your brain. I actually genuinely believe that this wasn't controversial until very very recently. Gender dysphorias were and still are listed in the DSM which is what professional mental health people use to diagnose mental illness.
The thing is - even if you accept the transgenderism = gender dysphoria = mental illness, I don't know that you're any further ahead. I don't think we have any really effective treatment for GD other than transitioning. And untreated GD is correlated to a lot of other negative mental health results.
Now I wish the topic of different treatment options and how effective they are was studied more (in particular for children!), but SJW activist types may have a point on this one.
The problem with "SJW" types was never that their ideas weren't good, it was how they pursue and argue for those ideas. I mean there are times for militancy but "RuPaul is transphobic" stuff is counter-productive.
Quote from: Barrister on January 29, 2020, 02:37:36 PM
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on January 29, 2020, 02:17:09 PM
I do genuinely believe if you have a gender dysphoria such that you believe the natural, human genitals and reproductive system you have and that your DNA dictates yo have, should be mutilated and reshaped into an approximation of the physical genitalia of the opposite sex, there's something "wrong" with your brain. I actually genuinely believe that this wasn't controversial until very very recently. Gender dysphorias were and still are listed in the DSM which is what professional mental health people use to diagnose mental illness.
The thing is - even if you accept the transgenderism = gender dysphoria = mental illness, I don't know that you're any further ahead. I don't think we have any really effective treatment for GD other than transitioning. And untreated GD is correlated to a lot of other negative mental health results.
Now I wish the topic of different treatment options and how effective they are was studied more (in particular for children!), but SJW activist types may have a point on this one.
I dunno. Recognising gender dysphoria as a mental illness is quite a bit ahead of those who just don't recognise it.
It's the pattern that happened with recognition of gay people really.
Started at being gay isn't a thing and gay acts were just horrible acts some men committed.
Moved onto gay men are mentally ill and have to be cured.
Then stepped up to they aren't hurting anyone so why not let them just get on with their lives together.
I liked yay people better.
What the fuck does cutting off one's leg have to do with transgender, anyway? OvB's entire argument is bollocks. Not even all trans people modify their genitalia.
Also, does this extend to all unnatural body modifications or just the ones he thinks are "mental illness"? Is wearing glasses a mental illness? In the future, will cyborg modifications be a sign of mental illness?
Quote from: Solmyr on January 29, 2020, 03:07:36 PM
What the fuck does cutting off one's leg have to do with transgender, anyway? OvB's entire argument is bollocks. Not even all trans people modify their genitalia.
Also, does this extend to all unnatural body modifications or just the ones he thinks are "mental illness"? Is wearing glasses a mental illness? In the future, will cyborg modifications be a sign of mental illness?
I mean it was pretty clear they're both dysphorias, they are grouped as such in the DSM. I said so in my post. I also said that not all trans people modified their genitalia, and I specifically delineated how I viewed their behaviors differently--again, in my post.
As for the line of "mental illness", like I said it's about harm. Sometimes that harm is socially constructed, and really a reflection of a fucked up society (hence society's old view on gay people.) But for stuff like leg removal, there's just medical standards in place that cutting off body parts for no medical reason is not healthy or good. The mainstream view on all dysphorias other than gender is that you should try to treat the underlying dysphoria, not attempt to encourage the underlying delusion.
I have to admit that I just don't "get" the whole transgender thing. When I was younger, the term was used (if it was used at all) to refer to people who had had a sex change operation. Ok, I can understand the meaning of the word used in that context, or even in the context of people seeking or preparing for a sex change operation. But now it's used to designate a person's identify". If a person who was born with and still has male genitalia and has no intention of changing that, what does it even mean to "identify" as a female? Or as trans, or other? I'm not trolling, I just genuinely don't understand what that means.
Yeah it is an identity thing I think. I mean even if somebody makes no effort to present as a female at all I guess they can still be a transwoman if they claim they are. I guess. It is not like there is a rule book or something.
Quote from: dps on January 29, 2020, 03:29:51 PM
I have to admit that I just don't "get" the whole transgender thing. When I was younger, the term was used (if it was used at all) to refer to people who had had a sex change operation. Ok, I can understand the meaning of the word used in that context, or even in the context of people seeking or preparing for a sex change operation. But now it's used to designate a person's identify". If a person who was born with and still has male genitalia and has no intention of changing that, what does it even mean to "identify" as a female? Or as trans, or other? I'm not trolling, I just genuinely don't understand what that means.
Well it often means that someone dresses as a female, wears makeup, takes female hormones, grows breasts from the hormones (or has implants), but has otherwise left their genitals alone.
When you deal with someone like that, they often can't "pass" (i.e. you'd never know they were TG), but they look much more female than male, so I don't know how much difference someone's genitals play in this.
Now there are cases where someone's genitals do become important, which is why a lot of these fights come up over bathrooms.
Quote from: Valmy on January 29, 2020, 03:31:42 PM
Yeah it is an identity thing I think. I mean even if somebody makes no effort to present as a female at all I guess they can still be a transwoman if they claim they are. I guess. It is not like there is a rule book or something.
Yeah the right-wing bogeyman is a large bearded "trans woman" insisting to use a female locker room, but I don't know how much something like that comes up.
Quote from: Valmy on January 29, 2020, 03:31:42 PM
Yeah it is an identity thing I think. I mean even if somebody makes no effort to present as a female at all I guess they can still be a transwoman if they claim they are. I guess. It is not like there is a rule book or something.
Ok, but what does it even mean? And why are we supposed to agree with someone's self-identity, especially if we have no idea what we're actually agreeing to? I mean, at least when DGuller self-identified as an expert in automotive, we all felt free to not agree with his self-identification, though at least in that case I suppose we at least thought we knew what we were disagreeing with about it.
He can't even pump his own gas. :wacko:
Quote from: Barrister on January 29, 2020, 03:40:23 PM
Quote from: Valmy on January 29, 2020, 03:31:42 PM
Yeah it is an identity thing I think. I mean even if somebody makes no effort to present as a female at all I guess they can still be a transwoman if they claim they are. I guess. It is not like there is a rule book or something.
Yeah the right-wing bogeyman is a large bearded "trans woman" insisting to use a female locker room, but I don't know how much something like that comes up.
I don't know either. But that is a thing though, some trans women might not appear to be sufficiently female presenting for some people even if they are not large and bearded.
I don't know. I don't even use locker rooms.
Quote from: Valmy on January 29, 2020, 03:44:35 PM
Quote from: Barrister on January 29, 2020, 03:40:23 PM
Quote from: Valmy on January 29, 2020, 03:31:42 PM
Yeah it is an identity thing I think. I mean even if somebody makes no effort to present as a female at all I guess they can still be a transwoman if they claim they are. I guess. It is not like there is a rule book or something.
Yeah the right-wing bogeyman is a large bearded "trans woman" insisting to use a female locker room, but I don't know how much something like that comes up.
I don't know either. But that is a thing though, some trans women might not appear to be sufficiently female presenting for some people even if they are not large and bearded.
I don't know. I don't even use locker rooms.
Closest I know of anything like that is that some high school kid who identified as trans (I think that technically the kid was biologically male but identified as female--and no, I'm not sure how that differs from identifying as trans or other) suing the school to try and force them to provide a separate restroom facility because the kid wasn't comfortable using either the boy's or girl's restroom.
I don't know how that played out in the courts (quite possibly the kid had already graduated before the courts rendered a decision) but the infamous NC House Bill 2 was a reaction to the case.
Wait until non-binary identity crosses state lines out of California.
Quote from: Oexmelin on January 29, 2020, 02:11:03 PM
Quote from: Duque de Bragança on January 29, 2020, 01:55:06 PM
Something neo/post-feminists cannot fathom for ideological reasons. Thing is, masculine and neutral were already pretty close in Latin, only accusative was different.
Of course they can. They just know, because they live in today's society, and not in the 6th century, that language has deep social effects, that social effects have profound effects on language, and that masculine-as-neutral, in a patriarchal society, has a different connotations and different effects than it would, if we were living in a matriarchal society.
This is also ignoring the deliberate impoverishment of meaning that historically happened as women were cut off from certain occupations they initially held.
:secret:
6th Century AD was not really known for its classical Latin, but for the rough transition to the Romance languages.
As for your last sentence, how could I forget about the vast patriarchal conspiracy. :Embarrass:
Quote from: Grey Fox on January 29, 2020, 02:32:11 PM
Quote from: Valmy on January 29, 2020, 02:21:59 PM
Quote from: Oexmelin on January 29, 2020, 02:19:50 PM
The point of feminine titles is to audibly show women in positions of power, including in roles that were long dominated by men.
I get it and I know and when I was studying French I thought that was weird, as I said I get how it would be annoying.
But I didn't think that was the only change that was being made because of grammatical gender, also GF made it sound like this was not really a problem in Quebec that you guys just made new words no problem.
The process of making the new words is not easy per se, French is slow to adapt, but they do get adopted. While France french is, apparently, still stucked using "Madame le maire" instead of a proper feminine title.
:secret: La maire de really sounds bad in French. The current female mayor of Paris is the butt of jokes thanks to it. Even easier than for males. ;)
Quote from: Oexmelin on January 29, 2020, 02:19:50 PM
Quote from: Valmy on January 29, 2020, 02:03:17 PM
I guess if they could show how grammatical gender in language actually correlates with gender-based injustice in society I would agree that changing the language like that should be a serious issue, but I don't really see that to be the case. I do get that it can be annoying.
In French, a "couturier" connotes a fashion designer. A "couturière", a seamstress. A "cuisinier" connotes a chef; a "cuisinière", a homecook. And when "secrétaire", who once were positions of power held by men, became overwhelmingly women typists, the male "secrétaire" became "secrétaire of..." something, or "secrétaire-général". Still today in France, job ads for secrétaire frequently use the feminine, not the vaunted "male neutral", even if the word itself sounds the same for men and women.
The point of feminine titles is to audibly show women in positions of power, including in roles that were long dominated by men.
Couturier means also male seamstress, nice try. You meant grand couturier. Cuisinier connotes chef if preceded by grand, again. As for cuisinière, the problem is it can also mean stove.
Your so-called positions of power theory does not explain female titles for men such as estafette or sentinelle but that's what happens with feminist cherry-picking, and uninspired one.
I was expecting the entraîneur/entraîneuse distinction, which is a bit unfair but tends to disappear since entraîneurE (sic) is ugly and unpractical.
Not to mention men had to fight to get a proper male title for sage-femme (midwife). Hint: not sage-homme. :D
I guess you have not seen ads for secrétaire in a long time in your academical ivory tower. :lol:
Try Pole Emploi/Monster/whatever you get H/F after secrétaire since the word may be ambiguous to some, some by ignorance, others due to ideology.
Same happens with traducteur in fact, despite an a priori easier feminine form.
If masculine as neutral outrages you as a gender theorist, try to see it as
genre non marqué. :)
Quote from: dps on January 29, 2020, 03:50:08 PM
Quote from: Valmy on January 29, 2020, 03:44:35 PM
Quote from: Barrister on January 29, 2020, 03:40:23 PM
Quote from: Valmy on January 29, 2020, 03:31:42 PM
Yeah it is an identity thing I think. I mean even if somebody makes no effort to present as a female at all I guess they can still be a transwoman if they claim they are. I guess. It is not like there is a rule book or something.
Yeah the right-wing bogeyman is a large bearded "trans woman" insisting to use a female locker room, but I don't know how much something like that comes up.
I don't know either. But that is a thing though, some trans women might not appear to be sufficiently female presenting for some people even if they are not large and bearded.
I don't know. I don't even use locker rooms.
Closest I know of anything like that is that some high school kid who identified as trans (I think that technically the kid was biologically male but identified as female--and no, I'm not sure how that differs from identifying as trans or other) suing the school to try and force them to provide a separate restroom facility because the kid wasn't comfortable using either the boy's or girl's restroom.
I don't know how that played out in the courts (quite possibly the kid had already graduated before the courts rendered a decision) but the infamous NC House Bill 2 was a reaction to the case.
As far as washrooms go, the biggest beef I have heard comes from women, and it is this: washrooms for public buildings devote the same space for men as women, yet men's facilities allow for much more rapid use because of urinals. At theatres and other such places, the woman's facilities always have a long line, when the men's do not. Logically, women should have more space, but this rarely happens.
Perhaps it would make sense to allow women who want to (and are not worried about the presence of men), to use the men's facilities, regardless of self-identification. Or just allow anyone to use either, reserving a small separate facility for the sensitive of any sex or orientation.
Quote from: Malthus on January 29, 2020, 05:36:19 PM
As far as washrooms go, the biggest beef I have heard comes from women, and it is this: washrooms for public buildings devote the same space for men as women, yet men's facilities allow for much more rapid use because of urinals. At theatres and other such places, the woman's facilities always have a long line, when the men's do not. Logically, women should have more space, but this rarely happens.
Perhaps it would make sense to allow women who want to (and are not worried about the presence of men), to use the men's facilities, regardless of self-identification. Or just allow anyone to use either, reserving a small separate facility for the sensitive of any sex or orientation.
Why don't we just equip women's restrooms with urinals?
Unisex restrooms???!? Who has ever heard of such a thing?? :o
Quote from: Duque de Bragança on January 29, 2020, 05:19:30 PM
:secret:
I know. This is simply one of the supposed crucial moment for the development of "French" - and other romance languages, i.e., a moment when they drop the third gender.
QuoteCouturier means also male seamstress, nice try.
Apparently, you haven't learned the meaning of "connotes".
QuoteYour so-called positions of power theory does not explain female titles for men such as estafette or sentinelle but that's what happens with feminist cherry-picking, and uninspired one.
How permanent were these positions of vast masculine power that estafette and sentinelle evoke?
QuoteI guess you have not seen ads for secrétaire in a long time in your academical ivory tower. :lol:
About 30 seconds before posting, to make sure I wasn't making outdated reference. It took me about that to find a bunch of ads with "secrétaire", all conjugated in the feminine. This is, of course, in addition to all those ads written as "assistante".
QuoteIf masculine as neutral outrages you as a gender theorist, try to see it as genre non marqué.
The fact that you deliberately use smirks and sarcasm every time the topic comes up doesn't make you appear less outraged. You are the one so desperately clinging to an unchanging conception of the language. And for what? What is to be gained from that position, that warrants such a stubborn rejection? The fact is, these defenses of "grammatical purity" would have a lot more weight if they came from people who otherwise acknowledged the role of history, the persistent inequality between men and women, or otherwise any of the issues raised by feminists. I am not holding my breath.
If these new titles create so much masculine anxiety, try to
Quote from: Sheilbh on January 28, 2020, 05:05:14 PM
Well I look at the judge's analysis and it doesn't seem very likely.
By what means did you discern the likelihood if you don't have a professional understanding of what standards a British judge determines Respect-in-a-democratic-society or how such a mysterious and pompous phrase entered the judicial lexicon?
Quote from: Duque de Bragança on January 29, 2020, 05:22:55 PM
Quote from: Grey Fox on January 29, 2020, 02:32:11 PM
Quote from: Valmy on January 29, 2020, 02:21:59 PM
Quote from: Oexmelin on January 29, 2020, 02:19:50 PM
The point of feminine titles is to audibly show women in positions of power, including in roles that were long dominated by men.
I get it and I know and when I was studying French I thought that was weird, as I said I get how it would be annoying.
But I didn't think that was the only change that was being made because of grammatical gender, also GF made it sound like this was not really a problem in Quebec that you guys just made new words no problem.
The process of making the new words is not easy per se, French is slow to adapt, but they do get adopted. While France french is, apparently, still stucked using "Madame le maire" instead of a proper feminine title.
:secret: La maire de really sounds bad in French. The current female mayor of Paris is the butt of jokes thanks to it. Even easier than for males. ;)
We use mairesse.
Oui, et ça perturbe énormément Duque.
Quote from: Oexmelin on January 29, 2020, 07:40:54 PM
Oui, et ça perturbe énormément Duque.
Raté, c'est la maire (sic) que je trouve horrible à entendre, qui ressemble trop à la merde. Encore que pour certains maires, et mairesses bien sûr, la question puisse se poser. :P
C'est aussi la forme exigée par nos chères post-féministes.
Mairesse, même si l'ambiguïté avec la femme du maire est possible n'écorche pas mes oreilles, de même qu'autrice, contrairement à auteure.
Il faut sortir de sa tour d'ivoire et arrêter de se donner un genre Evergreen Oexmelin, car ça te perturbe énormément et tu projettes ça sur ceux qui sont d'un avis opposé.
Quote from: Oexmelin on January 29, 2020, 06:11:55 PM
Quote from: Duque de Bragança
:secret:
Quote
I know. This is simply one of the supposed crucial moment for the development of "French" - and other romance languages, i.e., a moment when they drop the third gender.
Romanian never dropped it. As for French and other Romance languages given the turmoil, it would hard to say a somewhat precise time. French kept 2 cases till the late middle ages. Remnants of neutral exist.
Not to mention, Frankish was still spoken in Île-de-France till the 9th century roughly.
QuoteCouturier means also male seamstress, nice try.
QuoteApparently, you haven't learned the meaning of "connotes".
You are the one who learned what meanings are.
Connotations are subjective, as perceptions, varying from speaker, hardly authoritative, hardly omnipotent.
Newspeak to make people think and speak the way you believe is right is not desirable. Not all problems can be solved by twisting the language.
QuoteYour so-called positions of power theory does not explain female titles for men such as estafette or sentinelle but that's what happens with feminist cherry-picking, and uninspired one.
QuoteHow permanent were these positions of vast masculine power that estafette and sentinelle evoke?
Hey, sentinelle is my usual position at football! :blurgh: Sentinelle as Defender has both very positive denotation and connotation.
As for estafette, you do know its meaning, right? Mostly military masculine position.
How about vedette btw?
But then, even lousy jobs for proletarian men only, specially by immigrants for some reason, will somehow qualify as permanent vast masculine positions of power.
QuoteI guess you have not seen ads for secrétaire in a long time in your academical ivory tower. :lol:
QuoteAbout 30 seconds before posting, to make sure I wasn't making outdated reference. It took me about that to find a bunch of ads with "secrétaire", all conjugated in the feminine. This is, of course, in addition to all those ads written as "assistante".
It took me even less to find with masculine. I guess that if you tried you tried not very hard or cherry picked again.
Masculine is more used nowadays, with the H/F for the gender-obsessed people like you, and/or brackets.
https://candidat.pole-emploi.fr/offres/recherche?lieux=75D&motsCles=secr%C3%A9taire&offresPartenaires=true&rayon=10&tri=0 (https://candidat.pole-emploi.fr/offres/recherche?lieux=75D&motsCles=secr%C3%A9taire&offresPartenaires=true&rayon=10&tri=0)
Interesting you mention Assistant, the post-bac vocational training course was once precisely called Assistant (Trilingue/de direction etc.)
Now changed to a hideous BTS Support (sic) à l'action managériale (sic). I prefer the early version, i.e Assistant de Direction.
QuoteBTS Support à l'action managériale - SAM
"L'assistant(e) a une activité qui est essentiellement de nature relationnelle, organisationnelle et administrative. Sa mission s'inscrit dans un monde en mutation : décloisonnement des services, nomadisme des salariés, internationalisation des entreprises et digitalisation (sic) des activités de l'entreprise.
C'est pourquoi sa fonction d'interface, notamment dans des contextes d'urgence, induit de fortes exigences comportementales et des compétences solides dans le domaine informatique.
From the site of the École Nationale de Commerce, not a business school, but a reference post-high school institution
(http://enc-bessieres.org/enc/index.php#)
QuoteIf masculine as neutral outrages you as a gender theorist, try to see it as genre non marqué.
Quote
The fact that you deliberately use smirks and sarcasm every time the topic comes up doesn't make you appear less outraged. You are the one so desperately clinging to an unchanging conception of the language. And for what? What is to be gained from that position, that warrants such a stubborn rejection? The fact is, these defenses of "grammatical purity" would have a lot more weight if they came from people who otherwise acknowledged the role of history, the persistent inequality between men and women, or otherwise any of the issues raised by feminists. I am not holding my breath.
You are putting words in my mouth as again, Evergreen Oexmelin. I said earlier than proper French feminine forms are fine by me, though I won't go on a neo-feminist cyber-jihad like you to enforce them.
You are missing the point, that your bourgeois feminist new arrangement is targeted at top bourgeois women, equality but for the top brass for women as in in shareholders' council. It does nothing however for women at the bottom of the ladder, as for instance ones doomed to dead-end jobs like cashiers and soon to be out of a job with automation. Far from it actually, it simply perpetuates an ever increasing inequality gap using the diversion called neo-feminism, and dividing people even more in the process.
And let us not speak of the foreign non-European proletarian or even lumpen-proletarian women who have a real patriarchy to contend with.
Quote
If these new titles create so much masculine anxiety, try to
Masculine anxiety? Is that the new lingo/Newspeak for pointing out in a satirical manner of all the contradictions, shortcuts and ignorance of the Identity Politics flavour of the day?
Try what?
PS: fixed messy quotes both mine and Oexmelin's.
Quote from: Duque de Bragança on January 30, 2020, 03:05:11 AM
Quote from: Oexmelin on January 29, 2020, 06:11:55 PM
Quote from: Duque de Bragança on January 29, 2020, 05:19:30 PM
:secret:
Quote
I know. This is simply one of the supposed crucial moment for the development of "French" - and other romance languages, i.e., a moment when they drop the third gender.
Romanian never dropped it. As for French and other Romance languages given the turmoil, it would hard to say a somewhat precise time. French kept 2 cases till the late middle ages. Remnants of neutral exist.
Not to mention, Frankish was still spoken in Île-de-France till the 9th century roughly.
QuoteCouturier means also male seamstress, nice try.
QuoteApparently, you haven't learned the meaning of "connotes".
You are the one with problems with meanings.
Connotations are subjective as perceptions, varying from speaker, hardly authoritative, hardly omnipotent.
Newspeak to make people think and speak the way you believe is right is not desirable. Not all problems can be solved by twisting the language.
QuoteYour so-called positions of power theory does not explain female titles for men such as estafette or sentinelle but that's what happens with feminist cherry-picking, and uninspired one.
QuoteHow permanent were these positions of vast masculine power that estafette and sentinelle evoke?
Hey, sentinelle is my usual position at football! :blurgh: Sentinelle as Defender has both very positive denotation and connotation.
As for estafette, you do know its meaning, right? Mostly military masculine position.
But then, even lousy jobs for proletarian men only, specially by immigrants for some reason, will somehow qualify as permanent vast masculine positions of power.
QuoteI guess you have not seen ads for secrétaire in a long time in your academical ivory tower. :lol:
QuoteAbout 30 seconds before posting, to make sure I wasn't making outdated reference. It took me about that to find a bunch of ads with "secrétaire", all conjugated in the feminine. This is, of course, in addition to all those ads written as "assistante".
It took me even less to find with masculine. I guess that if you tried you tried not very hard or cherry picked again.
Masculine is more used nowadays, with the H/F for the gender-obsessed people like you, and/or brackets.
https://candidat.pole-emploi.fr/offres/recherche?lieux=75D&motsCles=secr%C3%A9taire&offresPartenaires=true&rayon=10&tri=0 (https://candidat.pole-emploi.fr/offres/recherche?lieux=75D&motsCles=secr%C3%A9taire&offresPartenaires=true&rayon=10&tri=0)
Intersting you mention Assistant, the post-bac vocational training was once precisely called Assistant (Trilingue/de direction etc.)
Now changed to a hideous BTS Support (sic) à l'action managériale (sic). I prefer the early version, i.e Assistant de Direction.
QuoteBTS Support à l'action managériale - SAM
"L'assistant(e) a une activité qui est essentiellement de nature relationnelle, organisationnelle et administrative. Sa mission s'inscrit dans un monde en mutation : décloisonnement des services, nomadisme des salariés, internationalisation des entreprises et digitalisation des activités de l'entreprise.
C'est pourquoi sa fonction d'interface, notamment dans des contextes d'urgence, induit de fortes exigences comportementales et des compétences solides dans le domaine informatique.
From the site of the École Nationale de Commerce, not a business school, but a reference post-high school institution
http://enc-bessieres.org/enc/index.php# (http://enc-bessieres.org/enc/index.php#)
QuoteIf masculine as neutral outrages you as a gender theorist, try to see it as genre non marqué.
Quote
The fact that you deliberately use smirks and sarcasm every time the topic comes up doesn't make you appear less outraged. You are the one so desperately clinging to an unchanging conception of the language. And for what? What is to be gained from that position, that warrants such a stubborn rejection? The fact is, these defenses of "grammatical purity" would have a lot more weight if they came from people who otherwise acknowledged the role of history, the persistent inequality between men and women, or otherwise any of the issues raised by feminists. I am not holding my breath.
You are putting words in my mouth as again, Evergreen Oexmelin. I said earlier than proper French feminine forms are fine by me, though I won't go on a neo-feminist cyber-jihad like you to enforce them.
You are missing the point, that your bourgeois feminist new arrangement works is for top bourgeois women, including equality in the top brass for women as in in shareholders' council, does nothing for women at the bottom of the ladder, as for instance ones doomed to dead-end jobs like cashiers and soon to be out of a job with automation. Far from it, it simply perpetuates an ever increasing inequality gap using the diversion called neo-feminism, and dividing people even more in the process.
And let us not speak of the foreign non-European proletarian or even lumpen-proletarian women who have a real patriarchy to contend with.
Quote
If these new titles create so much masculine anxiety, try to
Masculine anxiety? Is that the new lingo/Newspeak for pointing out in a satirical manner of all the contradictions, shortcuts and ignorance of the Identity Politics flavour of the day?
Try what?