[reccanti]

Some of the responses to this article showcase opinions that I see a lot on Hacker News and which make it really hard to be on this site as a trans person sometimes. There’s a lot of attention being paid to the people who resigned, or whose moderator status was revoked—and how accommodating they may or may not have been—but it seems like very little of them are focusing on the people who this preferred pronoun policy was designed to help in the first place.

I know lots of people in my life who are genderfluid, or who use nonstandard pronouns. They aren’t the caricatures that some of the people in this thread are making them out to be, they’re real people who are out there doing their best and live as themselves, and it’s really difficult seeing this thing they struggle with every day be labeled a “political” issue.

[NeedMoreTea]

SE is a Q&A site, to answer questions. HN an anonymous discussion. Most messages on both do without names and pronouns entirely. The few times they become necessary is it not better to simply stick to neutral?

Not to be uncaring, offensive, or presumptuous, but to be neutral.

In my life, in a social setting, in work etc I'm going to be much more likely to need to use names and pronouns. I'll make effort to get them right and cause minimal offence, along with keeping friendships. Yet people use the neutral form all the time in conversation as well, sometimes mixed in amongst their names and gendered pronouns.

What is so wrong with that?

[merb]

well I do not think that using non neutral pronouns or names is offensive to another gender. or at least it shouldn't be. example: in germany there is the word student. it means the same than the english version. in germany it uses a male pronoun, but the simple word targeted all kinds of students, not just male ones. the word just had a maskulin pronoun. unfortunatly it was gender incorrect, so some people came up with studentin, however now we sometimes need to deal with the rest and the languages get totally fucked up by genderfication. sometimes a maskulin pronoun does not target a certain group of people. i.e. using neutral/genderfication of pronouns/nouns most often makes it worse. it actually views the world as binary (only males/females) and is most often no the way the language was designed. (some words have a maskulin pronoun but still target everybody) using our languages differently also does not fix any poblem at all, in some cases it might make it even worse.

[asdjlkadsjklads]

Sometimes i consider myself lucky that i don't know anyone seeking special pronouns - because i imagine i would repeatedly use what i visually see, not what they request.

These days i seek to find a gender neutral word i can get into the habit of using (it, or they, or something similar), for fear of mis-nouning someone. Though, i also have the fear that if i use something neutral, when someone requested a specific non-neutral pronoun, i may be negatively impacted.

As someone "on the spectrum" social norms are already difficult. All of this talk just makes me nervous.

[henrikschroder]

Think of special pronouns as names. All the etiquette we have surrounding names apply equally to pronouns.

It's not expected to remember someone's name if you've only met them briefly, but the more you've interacted with the person, the more embarrassing not remembering their name becomes.

Mis-naming someone intentionally, repeatedly, is rude and quickly moves into harassment territory.

But the flipside is also true, if someone demands to be called a long and complicated and unusual name, then that person is rude, and can't expect others to comply or remember.

Pronouns work exactly the same. If someone tells you they prefer a pronoun that is different from the gender they present as, it's polite to remember this and use this when talking about the person. But if you forget, it should be treated like if you forgot that persons name.

If you intentionally and repeatedly mis-gender someone, it is rude and quickly moves into harassment territory.

And, finally the flipside, if someone has an onerous or complicated preferred pronoun, that person is rude and can't expect others to comply or remember.

[simo7]

> Think of special pronouns as names.

That's exactly the problem: pronouns are not names for a reason.

Pronouns are meant to be a finite set of words that can group an infinite set of other words, names.

In many languages gender is the criteria to form those groups. It 's a natural choice if you think of gender as a binary category.

Once you introduce the concept of gender fluidity the most logical solution is to introduce a residual pronoun that includes everybody who doesn't fit in the male/female dichotomy.

To adopt instead a inifinite set of pronouns means to poorly re-engineer a language. It's an extremely important and complex common good, we shouldn't be tinkering with it so lightheartedly.

[qqwwqqww]

The use of hurtful nicknames in the workplace can indeed be considered harassment in the eyes of the law and/or polite society.

That being said, not sure pronouns are indistinguishable from names. As a species, we evolved sexual dimorphism alongside a visual apparatus to detect the dimorphism. We are able to tell a male from a female at a glance with high accuracy, even in presence of elaborated disguises. Being asked to call someone we perceive as male "her", or someone we perceive as female "him" is often times difficult. The pronoun is not an arbitrary tag detached from perception, visual or linguistic. Picture a couple more situations:

* A 6ft bearded hulking person insisting to be referred as "she".

* A person insisting that their name is "Susan", but that we should refer to them as "he".

Plenty of people would have to make an explicit effort to comply with such requests, beyond what's required for remembering the mere name/pronoun tag.

Online, we interact with a huge number of people, possibly only for a few brief moments. Most of us simply use the name tag under our eyes, and infer the pronouns using linguistic clues. For example, most people would use "he" to refer to u/henrikschroder. For name tags with less obvious genders, most people would default to gender neutral. Taking offense at people using an inferred pronoun when no other information is readily in sight is akin taking offense at HN readers that don't read the linked article before commenting. Nobody has time to click links on the Internet.

As a culture, we'd do well to stop catastrophising and taking offense at people minding their own business and not being hyper-aware of everyone else's special circumstances.

[atq2119]

> For name tags with less obvious genders, most people would default to gender neutral.

This is a bit of a tangent, but I don't think this is really true yet. There are plenty of online forums where I see people using "he" when referring to users with ambiguous nicks. It's probably changing over time though.

[humanrebar]

> ...if someone has an onerous or complicated preferred pronoun, that person is rude and can't expect others to comply or remember.

To the extent that there is any controversy here, it's in this guideline. I'd just soften 'rude' to unreasonable.

1. I have not seen any code of conduct make room for this scenario. It's taken as a given that pronoun preferences are reasonable.

2. Some people think singular 'they' and 'their' falls in this bucket.

3. Some people think writing in passive voice, etc., should be considered a good faith effort to be accommodating.

Pedantically applied, most codes of conduct make room for the judges and queens to insist on "his honor" and "Her Majesty" as pronouns, at least in some contexts.

I honestly wish some people would decide that this whole thing is too complicated to legislate completely and institute some sort of jury system, at least on appeal, to decide what counts as reasonable.

[henrikschroder]

> To the extent that there is any controversy here, it's in this guideline. I'd just soften 'rude' to unreasonable.

Yes. There's a lot of grey area here. I personally don't think it's unreasonable to ask people to use 'he', 'she', or 'they' regardless of how someone presents themselves.

And I do think it's unreasonable to ask people to use 'xe' and 'hir' except every odd Tuesday when it's 'xim' and 'phe'.

At least recognizing that there is a grey area is better than sticking to the extremes. Rejecting the outlandish pronouns doesn't make you a transphobe bigot, you can't expect everyone to bow to your slightest whims, and accepting that some people prefer different pronouns to what they present as won't dissolve society, and it's not fascism to ask people to respect each other.

> I honestly wish some people would decide that this whole thing is too complicated to legislate completely and institute some sort of jury system, at least on appeal, to decide what counts as reasonable.

I think we're already doing pretty ok with names, without any formal system.

"I'm John!"

"Ok, John."

"I'm Sir Master Kensington Fuckbuttery Waddlesworth III Jr!"

"No, you're Kenny."

[humanrebar]

Who says, "No, you're Kenny." in the context of an online community: moderated conduct, etc.?

And what if someone wants to go by "The Sampsons" for personal reasons? There's not a precise analogy here, but people infer plurality from 'they' and not 'John'.

[baggy_trough]

You cannot compel people to talk in a certain way. To do so is totalitarian and evil.

[henrikschroder]

If we work in the same place and if I consistently and intentionally call you a different name than your actual name, I'm harassing you, I'm bullying you, and if the place we work at has decent HR policies, I will get fired.

So I am absolutely compelled to call you your actual name, I'm compelled to talk in a certain way if I want to keep my job, and this isn't totalitarian or evil, it's simply having manners and treating each other with respect.

[sverhagen]

Agreed entirely with this. But it's also just an evolving social norm that these HR rules are based on. (As a few generations back, I assume, males got away with maybe calling their female colleagues "missy".) So, with that, I'm just curious where the average HR stands on pronouns.

[adrianN]

This is clearly wrong as we already compel people to be reasonably respectful to each other even in lawful neutral countries.

[DanBC]

> You cannot compel people to talk in a certain way. To do so is totalitarian and evil.

I don't understand this argument in the context of an employer / employee relationship. Employers tell employees how to respond to clients all the time.

[overgard]

“Harassment” is a really overly dramatic way of phrasing this considering the definition of the word. Not every slight is “harassment”, calling mild insults by that word comes across as shrill.

[switch007]

> And, finally the flipside, if someone has an onerous or complicated preferred pronoun, that person is rude and can't expect others to comply or remember.

But the person with the onerous/complicated pronoun gets to define how onerous or complicated it is, right?

However I don't imagine many people with non-standard pronouns think they're onerous nor complicated. Seems like you're setting up a straw...thing.

[henrikschroder]

> But the person with the onerous/complicated pronoun gets to define how onerous or complicated it is, right?

What, no? Every person who interacts with the person with the wonky pronouns gets to decide how onerous they think it is. If you insist on using 'xim' or 'phe', be prepared for a lot of confused looks and people dismissing you as unreasonable.

> However I don't imagine many people with non-standard pronouns think they're onerous nor complicated.

Of course not, people love their insulated little bubbles where everyone agrees, but if you want to be a part of society, you have to learn to accept that most people don't give a shit about you and your wants. You might not think that 'xer' and 'phim' are unreasonable, but if the majority of the people that interact with you think they are, then they are, and you will have to adjust your expectations.

> Seems like you're setting up a straw...thing.

We prefer strawperson in this forum. Hay rights are human rights!

[asdjlkadsjklads]

> Think of special pronouns as names. All the etiquette we have surrounding names apply equally to pronouns.

I'm bad with names, too.

[automatoney]

I've never thought about how changing social norms affect people on the spectrum, but it definitely seems like it would be a lot harder to get pronouns right. In my experience with trans friends, pronoun misuse would just come with a gentle reminder, and if you want, mentioning you have trouble with social norms should give you more leeway. In many left-leaning circles awareness of gender, disability and other things tend to come as a package.

(As an aside I think that people might not take using "it" very well if you are referring to a person - they might see it as dehumanizing)

[reccanti]

I don’t want to discount any of your points because it can be difficult to navigate social situations. I just also want to mention that there are also trans people who are on the spectrum, and they have to navigate situations where they need to correct others about their pronouns and assert their identity. It’s not a simple “one or the other” situation.

[DanBC]

> changing social norms affect people on the spectrum,

Gender fluidity is much more common among autistic people, so most autistic people handle it just fine.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26753812

[derefr]

Sensory processing disorders are common among people on the spectrum; but they do not tend to handle one-another’s (often opposed) disorders well at all, e.g. people who feel a need to stim, vs. people with misophonia who hate the sound people make when clapping their hands against themselves or constantly grunting. Explained more here: https://autofspoons.com/2017/12/02/competing-access-needs/

[DanBC]

Sure, "autistic people are all individuals with different views" is something I can agree with, and it's probably more correct than "autistic people cannot cope with using the word 'her' when asked to do so".

[edanm]

Just wanted to point out something you may not be aware of. I was confused about this which is why I feel the need to mention it - since my first instinct was to assume this mod was in the wrong.

The first discussions of this issue, from a few days ago, made it seem as if the moderator in question opposed a preferred pronoun policy. On further reading about this, the moderator claims that she doesn't oppose a preferred pronoun policy and would not misgender someone, but rather, wanted to clarify whether she could continue to use pronoun-neutral language as she does this out of custom anyway.

At least in my mind, if what the mod is saying is true (and a few other people have backed her up on her account), not only wasn't she opposing the standard preferred-pronoun policy most people are familiar with, she wasn't even opposing anything but rather asking legitimate "edge case" questions to help clarify a policy before it is decided on.

(SE hasn't really given concrete details at the moment about why she was fired, so it's entirely possible the mod did something else problematic, though again, her account seems to be backed up by other mods).

[overgard]

The “focus” is on the moderator because thats an actual person thats been directly impacted, right now, in the present tense.

Someone has just been fired for a hypothetical future thought crime, which is insane, and you’re saying “why are we not focussed on the hypothetical people she might have microaggressed against in the future”.

[NOGDP]

This kind of comment is what makes discussion difficult. You're just alluding to some kind of indecent opinions which offend(?) you, without pointing out anything specifically. I have no idea what you're talking about. All I gleamed from your comment is that 'someone' is responding in some unspecified way which you don't like, and you follow that up with a strawman about 'caricatures' which I have not seen in this thread.

[detaro]

"And my preferred pronoun this week is blergl." is very much a caricature and variations of it have been made a few times.

As is "Using the wrong gender is enough to cause someone to commit suicide?" when it's pointed out that doing so is part of the pattern they're often harassed with.

EDIT: edited, see below

[NOGDP]

Except you've made both of those quotes up... I can't find any similar comments in this thread by searching for parts of the quoted text you provide. OP is complaining about responses to this article on hackernews, provides zero examples of what he/she is actually complaining about, and you come to support with quotes you made up to match the perceived grievance? Seriously?

[detaro]

sigh

I wanted to avoid that, but I have replaced them with copy-pasted quotes to make your searching easier.

[NOGDP]

The first quote is in bad taste, though the context is not as bad, and the comment as a whole lead to a pretty interesting exchange. I see nothing wrong with the second quote, it is not intentionally made to offend, it's part of a reasonable argument. Even if you disagree, or the author is not as informed as you on the issue - that doesn't mean they should not be saying what they did. The purpose of the comments is to discuss things, not to display your ideological allegiances or be right about everything.

[derefr]

Pronouns are political insofar as even having grammatical gender in the English language is a continuous political decision made by a linguistic enclave; and interpreting said grammatical gender as having something to do with gender-identity is another political decision by that linguistic enclave. (Think: adding keywords to a programming language as a political decision.)

Other languages—and even other linguistic enclaves of English-speakers or English-creole speakers—don’t have this problem; either for lack of grammatical gender, or for lack of an association between grammatical gender and gender identity.

[michannne]

Modifying the policies that StackOverflow enforces is very much political.

[solinent]

If non-binary people want a world which exclusively genders them (exclusive of man/woman) they have to pick their own word and stick to it. Adopting an existing gender-neutral pronoun doesn't work for anybody since they might mean cis-gendered people.

So I find it difficult referring to a non-binary person in singular or in particular. I usually just say "non-binary" or trans when it's important, typically only using their name, or not mentioning them at all for fear of misgendering them.

[TheAdamAndChe]

Gender neutral does not imply cis-gendered.

[solinent]

It means both, cis-gendered and not. If you look at "her" for example, it just means cis-gendered females or anyone who identifies as a female.

If, during conversation, we wanted to specify through a pronoun what gender a person was, there is no way to do it purely with pronouns anymore, since non-cisgendered people will sometimes use "they" so to distinguish between cis and non-cis you need to explicitly state it. Or even to specify the plurality of a group of non-gendered people you have to explicitly state it. Which is not typical english.

[TheAdamAndChe]

I think what is confusing me about this is the need for categorization of something that by definition does not have a categorization (non-binary). Why would a new set of pronouns be needed to categorize such a non-homogeneous group when neutrality already captures everyone between the normal binary categorizations?

[solinent]

Non-binary is literally the categorization, I wouldn't say they avoid categorization at all. See, by "they" I could mean anyone, so it doesn't necessarily refer just to non-binary people.

If I had two colors on a spectrum, lets say blue and yellow, we wouldn't call the middle of the spectrum "color", we'd call it "green".

> Why would a new set of pronouns be needed to categorize such a non-homogeneous group when neutrality already captures everyone between the normal binary categorizations?

I think this is the issue, it doesn't necessarily capture them directly. I think there is merit in having a pronoun, but it shouldn't be forced by law (as it is where I live). It doesn't arise naturally probably because there are many different categorizations in the middle and most people are on the poles, which I think is fine.

[mirimir]

Fair enough. It's rather pointless to argue on HN about SE.

I'm entirely happy to use whatever pronouns people want. But here, how would I know? There aren't even images. Just names, and very often ~genderless names.

Edit: Also, upon reflection, I suspect that I don't even know the universe of gender pronouns in common use.

[anaisbetts]

Thanks for reminding folx about what this is actually about, this was a great post