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by Pxtl 4517 days ago
Look, we're all coders here, I get the instinct to be precise with our words. But what about the cost/benefit trade-off? Is a small matter of personal policy related to definitions really worth hurting somebody who's already a member of easily the most downtrodden and crapped-upon group in modern society? Is preventing a tiny incremental shift in vocabulary really worth kicking somebody while they're down? I mean, I'm as grumpy as the next geek about the literally/not-literally thing, but this?

Also, think of it like an interface - the idea is that you should treat the transgendered person as their identified gender. So if you're planning on treating this person as a woman in every way in respect for her situation, wouldn't the pronoun/terminology actually make the matter clearer?
2 comments
xaa 4517 days ago
Obviously I don't condone any mistreatment of or discrimination against transgendered people and think they should have full legal protections. On a personal level, they should be treated ethically and equitably, just like any other person.

But regarding the use of language, and forgive me for invoking the slippery slope argument, where does it end? The two propositions, "Person X is a Y" and "Person X feels they are or wishes they were a Y", are not the same. In fact, they aren't even close. As a society it would be ridiculous and ruinous if we were to conflate the two.

I believe it is possible to respect people and linguistic accuracy ("truth", if you like) at the same time. Also, I don't think respecting someone necessarily means doing (or saying) everything they want.

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dinkumthinkum 4517 days ago
How far do we take this? This is a conversation about the actions of these people. It is not coder pedantry to refer to Manning with male gendered pronouns. Are we now required to know how everyone feels about their gender before we use any pronouns describing them in every context? In fact, we have to keep with everyone's opinions about their genders throughout their whole lives. This is impractical.

I think here, we just have delusion of persecution.

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