[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.

[machomaster]

There is no difference. Even the worst people in the world easily explain their actions as good or at the very least as not so bad.

[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?

[zahlman]

First, gender is an identity marker, and I broadly agree with https://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html . The entire point of the feminism I was steeped in from early childhood is that sex is supposed to be one of the least interesting things about me. As I grew up and became educated about the existence of transgender people (starting in the 90s, BTW), naturally I figured that the same applies to gender as considered separately from sex.

Second: as a matter of ideology, I consider that people, on an individual level, should not be compelled to see others as those others see themselves, and certainly should not be compelled to express a particular view of others. That violates my conception of freedom of speech philosophically (and many have made the legal argument as well).

Those two points tie together: the social contract in play here is that you don't have to care about things that we agreed are a priori uninteresting about me, and therefore I should have the same freedom. The "pronoun culture" violates that contract. (N.B.: this culture is not just about asking people for third-person pronouns; it's about normalizing the act of proactively stating them in an introduction.)

This is not the same as the expectation of various social courtesies, because those concern face-to-face interaction. That is: if you tell me "my pronouns are...", my thought process is that this has no bearing on how I interact with you. When I speak with you, I will refer to you as "you", just as you would to me. The pronouns described are third-person; if you expect me to use them, you are inherently placing an expectation on conversations that do not involve you. (I am unaware of any world language with gendered second-person pronouns, and am happy not to speak any.)

I have had many activists try to tell me that they don't know me but they're sure I use third-person pronouns all the time in group conversations, to refer to members of the group who are present but who I'm not speaking to directly. I have tested this and they are wrong. It does happen rarely in groups of close friends where there is absolutely no question of gender. But even then, I disagree that "I discovered that someone in my group sees me as having a gender other than what I personally identify with" can be considered a form of oppression, or even an objective matter. The activists cannot have it both ways: if "gender" is something that people are free to "identify with", which leaves no identifiable or externally verifiable signs, then it cannot also be a natural fact about the world. Gender identity and gender expression are separate, and the latter is not fully under our control.

If you say that I should prioritize what others tell me over what I can directly observe, you are trying to control me (or enable others to control me). It is exactly the same as if you demanded that I agree that others are physically attractive if they believe themselves to be so.

[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]

As it happens, I do get thus misidentified (per my self-perception) fairly often, because I use a female-presenting avatar on some social media (it relates to prior work). If I notice, and it seems like the other person might care, I do explain; but this is never with any offense (because I have taken none) but only amusement or confusion ("zahlman" matches s/(?<!wo)man/ and I'm not looking at my own avatar generally). I can't recall anyone ever persisting in such "misgendering", but I would not care.

For all I know, countless people refer to me with female pronouns in discussions I can't observe. I get the impression that many people are constantly bothered by such a possibility. I only ever think about it when this exact discussion comes up, and then I simply do not care. I consider that the people in those discussions have the absolute right to do so.

Speaking of which, I have had this exact discussion many times in the last several years, and it's only because of the asking-about-pronouns culture that this is possible. In the decade or more that I knew transgender people in my life before that, none of this mattered and I could get on with my life, and have the same friendly relations with transgender people as cisgender people. There is more social friction now than there was then.

[shadowgovt]

> For all I know, countless people refer to me with female pronouns in discussions I can't observe.

Do you think you might feel differently on the topic if they did it continuously in discussions you can observe and when you tried gentle correction you were met with overt hostility?