[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.