So the pronouns thing is literally about being nice to people and respecting their ability to define their own identity. It's less "we need more than two sets of gendered pronouns" and more "people use pronouns other than he or she and we want to make space for that".
And any sort of diversion from that approved narrative, like suggesting that some of this is going a little too far, will make you a pariah in the industry. This is what I'm getting in, in questioning how much "the establishment" allows vigorous debate.
I'm not interested in debating it here, because it could damage my career, which is my point.
In fact, even debating whether I should be able to debate it could damage my career. I believe this widespread use of silencing tactics, by implicit threat, has gone too far.
There are a great many things you can't debate about people. For example, you would be severely censured if you debated whether your colleague's chronic illness really was as bad as they claim it is.
If the position is "I should be able to question and debate anything about my colleagues" then the position is obviously absurd and I would ask a person holding such a view to reevaluate what they think society is. I don't think you would hold such a position.
So, why are you troubled that you can't debate this particular thing, when I'm sure there are things you shouldn't debate about your colleagues?
> So, why are you troubled that you can't debate this particular thing, when I'm sure there are things you shouldn't debate about your colleagues?
I'm troubled by the top-down nature of what is decided to be beyond debate vs not: it feels like it is leading to a scary kind of authoritarianism I don't want.
For fun, I'll throw you a specific plausible hypothetical. If an app has a gender identity field, and a user enters "Apache Helicopter", should this be treated as valid data or not?
Okay. We only need one set of gendered pronouns. Using words from one set for some people, while using words from a different set for other people, is subject to arbitrary interpretation and therefore vulnerable to othering.
Except the "singular they" doesn't exist and in basically a forced change of spoken language by a minority who thinks forcing people is a great way to accomplish things
There's no other way to enact change than force or consensus, or mix of these. Consensus is not going to happen. Languages change very slowly.
Royal We was forced, but in widespread use. This pronoun is an offshoot thereof.
And other languages have even better pronouns than English. Check Chinese and Japanese.