[scuff3d]

What is it that you say on a regular basis that makes you feel like you need to walk on eggshells?

As I've said many times in the comments. I have 20+ years experience working for corporations. All through the me too wave, the increase focus on DE&I, and the general move to try and be less exclusionary. I've worked with woman, gay people, trans, and people of just about every ethnicity you could think of. Never once, in all those years, have I ever feared for my job or felt excluded.

Literally the only people I have ever heard complain are the ones I know for a fact tell racist and sexist jokes because they always felt comfortable enough around me to tell them.

If the fact that we are a bit more mindful about being racist and sexist in the work place bothers you, I think you may need to look inward at your own behavior. Not outward.

[torstenvl]

This is exactly the kind of dishonest manipulative baiting that makes people feel uncomfortable. Absolutely nothing InvertedRhodium said was in any way racist, and your allegations otherwise are both wholly devoid of evidence and against the community standards here.

If you can't make your point without leveling extreme and baseless allegations at fellow posters, that's a good sign that your point is without merit.

[scuff3d]

I didn't say he was a racist. But we are talking about feeling excluded in environments where the primary change has been it's not longer acceptable to tell racist/sexist jokes or make disparaging comments about others based race/sex/ethnicity.

People have had three opportunities now to give concrete examples of behavior that should be acceptable and makes them feel excluded or like they need to walk on eggshells. Nobody has offered a single thing.

So point blank: What can you not say or do in these environments for fear of reprisal?

[AlotOfReading]

Don't agree with the comments above and generally support DEI initiatives, but I also have an example.

A new DEI director joined a previous employer and started a mandatory survey to affirmatively label everyone's trans status. Whatever you entered would be used to auto-update your public info page with details on whether you identified as trans or not, with no opt out. I hope I don't have to explain why that's ill-considered at best.

Anyway, refusing to fill it out immediately escalated to a disciplinary meeting with the director.

[ryan_lane]

This isn't a good example, because this isn't "walking on eggshells", this is an example of a misguided policy that has unintended consequences, and in your own example, when they understood the unintended consequences, they removed this.

Sure, this person was probably bad at their job, and that's problematic, but this isn't an example of someone being fired because they said something non-problematic.

[zahlman]

> and in your own example, when they understood the unintended consequences, they removed this.

The example says nothing of the sort.

[AlotOfReading]

Correct, they didn't remove the policy or change their views on the surrounding context of the disciplinary meeting. They simply understood the issue after it was explained to them. It's not a high bar.

[scuff3d]

Yeah that's pure idiocy.

That's so bad it almost feels like someone trying to out trans people under the guise of DEI.

[AlotOfReading]

The director was a trans woman themselves, just not good at their job. At least they recognized the issue when was pointed out to them in that meeting, but this was just the tip of the iceberg for silly changes they pushed.

[scuff3d]

Yeah that's unfortunate. Hopefully they'll find the right balance. Well intentioned missteps are better then maliciousness I suppose.

[zahlman]

> where the primary change has been it's not longer acceptable to tell racist/sexist jokes or make disparaging comments about others based race/sex/ethnicity.

This is simply untrue. Such conduct was already completely and utterly unacceptable prior to "DEI", for decades. These policies have instead enabled disparaging comments about others based on race/sex/ethnicity — in particular, accusing people belonging to certain such groups of being inherently whatever-ist (see for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWoC90bbsdo), while defining away discrimination perpetrated against them (to move back towards the original topic, this claim was repeated many times in the discussion of the removal of references to "Strunk & White" in PEP 8).

> What can you not say or do in these environments for fear of reprisal?

For example, I doubt that you could refuse a request to state your "preferred pronouns", or critique the idea of making such requests or normalizing the culture around them.

[scuff3d]

I did. I don't have my pronouns in my email or my bio at work. Nobody gives a shit.

For the record, it's not because I have any particular issue with trans people. If they want to put that info in their bio, or other people do, that's fine. I'm just not interested.

So is your assertion that trans people don't exist? Or it isn't a real thing? And you think it's unfair that you don't feel comfortable talking about that at work? Just for clarity.

[zahlman]

> So is your assertion that trans people don't exist? Or it isn't a real thing?

No; and it makes so little sense to hypothesize that on the basis of what I actually wrote, that I cannot take seriously the possibility that you want to discuss this in good faith.

[scuff3d]

I'm just trying to figure out what the last paragraph of your previous comment means. So asked bluntly, what did you mean?

Edit: Ah, I see what you mean. My bad. I thought you meant "normalizing" the trans issue in general, not the request. I see why you got annoyed.

What's your objection to the request?

[shadowgovt]

Why would you refuse a request to state your preferred pronouns? If you're asked and refuse to say, how are people to know which ones to use?

[zahlman]

> Why would you refuse a request to state your preferred pronouns?

Because I reject the underlying conceptual framework, as well as the worldview that makes such a "preference" important or valuable.

> If you're asked and refuse to say, how are people to know which ones to use?

By making their own judgement, as is everyone's natural right.

It is simply not reasonable to demand that others see you as you see yourself. It is correct and just that people are permitted to see others as they will.

When we speak of "pronouns" in this context, we speak of third-person pronouns. Therefore, it is inherent to the concept that I am not privy to the discussion when they are used to refer to me. To refer to others in third person, knowingly, in front of them, is in my view at least unprofessional and likely rude — as it entails speaking on that person's behalf.

[shadowgovt]

If someone guessed wrong (say you had long hair and they assumed you were a woman therefore and used female pronouns when you use male pronouns for yourself), would you correct them?

If not, you're quite unusual but I can't argue that.

[zahlman]

> What is it that you say on a regular basis that makes you feel like you need to walk on eggshells?

For example, the things James Damore said, that resulted in his firing and which were blatantly misrepresented all over social media and journalism — to the point of people directly quoting things and then asserting that the quote means something other than its actual meaning.

> Never once, in all those years, have I ever feared for my job or felt excluded.

Not even when people assert that discrimination against your kind doesn't count as X-ism?

> Literally the only people I have ever heard complain are the ones I know for a fact tell racist and sexist jokes because they always felt comfortable enough around me to tell them. If the fact that we are a bit more mindful about being racist and sexist in the work place bothers you

You directly equivocate here. If they are telling racist and sexist jokes "around you", that is not doing so "in the work place". Moreover, if they "feel comfortable enough around you to tell them", that requires that you aren't objecting to it.

[scuff3d]

I've been working for 20 years, I've watched the landscape transform around me.

Those were jokes/comments made to me in the workplace back when it was more acceptable. Those same people went on to complain they couldn't do that anymore.

As for Damore, I'm not going to debate the merit of that memo. But even the NLRB thought he went beyond projected speech, saying his memo was "harmful, discriminatory, and disruptive"