[version_five]

This is a problem across charities it seems - political activism is not necessarily bad, but when it's all generic woke stuff that has nothing to do with the charity's mission, it becomes really frustrating. The ACLU is another obvious example (as is Canada's equivalent the CCLA that I stopped supporting). But even a hospital I used to support has gotten into the business of pronouns and stuff, and regardless of the merit of that sort of thing, it's not anywhere near the top of causes people expect their hospital donations to go to. It would be nice to see charities much better stick with their mandates and not have this creep that happens where the current thing is somehow automatically an issue for them

Edit: I'm also very interested in the way this story has been ranked on Hn. It's had a lot of votes in a short time that would normally get it right up to the top, yet it's currently on the second page. I know enough that there's not some nefarious thing happening, though it's curious whatever quirk of the algorithm / moderation is keeping the story down in the ranking

[greyface-]

> Edit: I'm also very interested in the way this story has been ranked on Hn.

It was submitted and flagkilled a few hours ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33167393

I wouldn't be surprised if The Algorithm punished this for being a duplicate.

[tootie]

I work at a nonprofit that is all in on pronoun affirmation. It doesn't mean we've spent a millions of donor funds on pronoun consultants, we just added a field on our active directory. Employees demanded it.

[20after4]

Wikimedia likely has spent quite a lot of donor funds on pronoun consultants. I sat in on some of the meetings.

- Former employee of Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Opinions and pronouns are my own.

[vba616]

  >the business of pronouns and stuff, and regardless of the merit of that sort of 
  >thing, it's not anywhere near the top of causes people expect their hospital 
  >donations to go to

If I received a complaint along these lines, I would earnestly explain that we are looking into an electron recycling initiative to compensate for the extra letters in email signatures.

[onos]

Agree. There are many causes that people across the political spectrum would support a la carte, but for some reason many institutions have recently collapsed into a “must support all of the above” posture. Bring back the single issue institution!

[hondo77]

> But even a hospital I used to support has gotten into the business of pronouns and stuff, and regardless of the merit of that sort of thing, it's not anywhere near the top of causes people expect their hospital donations to go to.

You're kidding, right? You won't donate to a hospital because "pronouns and stuff" isn't part of "their mandates"? How about sexual harassment? Should they turn a blind eye to that in the workplace because it's not part of their mandates. Lunch breaks? Birthday parties? Seriously, if pronouns is the reason you stopped donating to an otherwise worthy cause, I don't see the hospital as the problem.

[version_five]

A smug dismissal doesn't change people's minds. You can accept that many people don't go in for their donations being spent this way, try to hide it from them, or write them off as donors. This sort of condescension doesn't do anything.

[agensaequivocum]

Yes because the notion that one can choose his pronouns is one of the most insidious lies in contemporary culture.