[Spivak]

Genuinely, what's the poor execution? They seem to have basically codified "use someone's stated pronouns" with an awareness of the common ways people try to get around it.

It seems like anyone who respects how other people identify will have hard time running up against this policy.

[kelnos]

The policy assumes that everyone will act in good faith, or will be explicit about acting in bad faith. That's a terrible assumption.

For example: if I put an unfamiliar pronoun in my profile, and someone sees it, are they obligated to refer to me that way? What if I'm just trolling? Should people be required to google my preferred pronoun and then make a value judgment on whether I'm acting in good or bad faith?

If they err on the side of assuming good faith, and I'm really just trolling, then we get an answer for all to see that includes someone falling for a troll, which reduces the value of that answer. It also normalizes trollish behavior, which is bad.

If they believe I'm acting in bad faith, and they're wrong, they could get banned from the site, which is an overreaction to what I'd expect will be a common, innocent mistake.

And that's just one example; there are plenty more in the comments.

[Kye]

I would hope a mod on SO/SE is better at detecting trolling than the average /r/TumblrInAction poster. People who do this are very obvious if you're not already poised to go off on a rage at the people they're pretending to be. Unchecked confirmation bias is a critical vulnerability.

[gwbas1c]

> It seems like anyone who respects how other people identify will have hard time running up against this policy.

Because the policy isn't about respecting gender identity; it's about having a political battle where there are no winners.

[drstewart]

Must be nice to assume everyone is a native English speaker. Do you not believe foreign language speakers have equal rights to transpeople?