[nailer]

Nobody is saying Page isn’t allowed to have cosmetic surgery to have her breasts removed. Rather that her doctor is being harmful in letting her do so. Again please read the actual tweet you’re referring to.

Separately: an adult “with F on their birth certificate” is called a woman. Ellen Page was Ellen Page when she had the surgery.

The past, much like the Tweet you keep talking about, does not change because you wish it to. It’s fascinating you labelled someone that disagrees with you as ideologically driven when you believe you can determine reality with your mind.

[theprincess]

Nah, when someone changes their name like in the case of marriage but I don't approve of the marriage for some reason I don't go around calling them by their "real name" and refuse to acknowledge the change. When someone wants to go by another set of words to identify themselves, like pronouns, I'm also not a jerk about it.

You don't know anyone's medical history. You haven't given anyone a karyotype test. You'd use a new set of names for people in many circumstances and even pronouns likely in the case of an obvious intersex condition. Your decision to call Eliot Page she against his wishes is clearly ideologically driven and hateful. A petty snub more or less.

Doing it makes you a cruel person. I'm sure you don't see yourself that way, but, newsflash, humans generally want to be "good" so most cruel people think they are good and justified in their actions. They just have some toxic/anti-social ideas rooted into their sense of morality.

In this case it seems you've convinced yourself that by snubbing transgender people you're somehow protecting... truth? BiOloGiCal ReAlItY? Gendered terms predate any concept of sex chromosomes or even gametes. Jeez Ottomans worried about their concubines getting pregnant from EUNUCHS because they didn't fully realize that testes created sperm or that sperm was separate from semen. That's why they preferred dark skinned eunuchs, so they could tell if a baby was illegitimate.... Which is just to say that if you want to be "traditional" gendered terms are about surface level assessments of a person's physical appearance and social roles considered appropriate to such an appearance, not biology. If you transported Patti Harrison[1] (a very passable trans woman) back to King Arthur's court she'd be treated like a lady I assure you.

The even more fundamental thing though is respecting people's autonomy. It's a very aggressive act to call someone by labels that they dislike. Try continually getting someone's name wrong on purpose, maybe call a guy named Ted Bruce all the time, and see how your relationship with that person develops....

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ku_WIbDd9rc

[runack]

> The even more fundamental thing though is respecting people's autonomy

Yes, and this includes people's linguistic autonomy; their freedom to say what they see.

We all know that Page is female. We also know that Page most likely wants everyone to refer to her as if she is a man.

Some people, who believe in the ideology of gender identity, will say that she really is a man, so this is no problem for them. Others will acquiesce out of a feeling of politeness, or social pressure. But many will say, no, she's female, so she's actually a woman.

Please respect the autonomy of the latter group to express a view that you disagree with, due to your differing beliefs. In particular, there's no need to start haranguing people with unfounded accusations of hate.

[theprincess]

> Please respect the autonomy of the latter group to express a view that you disagree with, due to your differing beliefs. In particular, there's no need to start haranguing people with unfounded accusations of hate.

Does it make me a jerk to call you out for being a jerk? No....

Do I think you should be put in prison for being a jerk? No....

But I'll be honest, if you refuse to be kind to transgender people I'll find you distasteful and untrustworthy the same way I would a homophobe or a racist to be.

I realize from conversations with conservatives that many people consider supporting trans people as a form of virtue signaling, but from my experience it's the opposite. I live in a small town in a deep red county in a deep red state and the trans topic has become a shibboleth where not extending the basic respect of labeling trans people how they wish to be labeled is something that people do with prideful smiles and jolly laughter. It's a public display of cruelty that people bond over. There's nothing about it that smacks of protecting dignity or truth. It's just the same old human meanness that's popped up time and time again in history and always leads to nothing good.

I hope you'll grow as a person and treat people from outside of your experience with kindness and openness rather than callousness and suspicion. It's not the easy thing to do, but it's the right thing to do.