I keep seeing this notion that the singular they is offensive. I thought its whole purpose was to be more inclusive. At what point did it become offensive and why is it considered to be offensive?

I was just recently at a gender-inclusivity seminar. The speaker asked everyone in the room to give their name, but specifically asked for NOT everyone to state their [preferred?] pronouns. Why not? Apparently the speaker is currently in a community were certain transgender members feel quite strongly that stating pronouns is itself problematic and hurtful.

For those of us not quite up to date on social movements, and for slow-moving organizations, this is obviously tricky to navigate. My workplace is just starting to encourage everyone to state their "preferred pronouns" prominently when introducing themselves and on all correspondence (e.g. in email signatures), and to avoid gendered pronouns when possible in many situations or at least use "singular they" (e.g. in abstract examples or documentation). Last week I thought that was quite progressive. This week I have learned that "preferred pronouns" is no longer an acceptable phrase, that "singular they" is offensive to some, that avoiding pronouns itself is problematic (at least in SE's CoC, apparently), and that asking someone to give pronouns is problematic and hurtful to some. I don't know where that leaves me or my workplace.

Just do the best you can, try to be respectful of everybody, and be understanding when someone is not unhappy or offended. It's not something that needs to be a fight.

when its getting to the point that its turning into hr classes and laws that get you fired or jailed for being in the 99.9% of the population then yea people should fight back against it all

You obviously shouldn't be (and aren't) getting fired or jailed for being in whatever percentage of the population. But if people are going out of their way to hurt a minority, then something needs to be done to stop it. That's what those laws and HR classes should be addressing.

And if that's the thing you intend to be fighting, then yes, you've got a fight. But this shouldn't be a fight. Respecting people for their differences should be a normal part of being a decent person.

> "define hurt."

In this context, intentionally denying people their identity. Those bathroom bills that force people to use the wrong bathroom, for example. But anyone who insists on calling a transgender woman "he" or a transgender man "she", even after having been corrected, is intentionally hurting them. It's intentionally being an asshole to someone.

> "you cant just make up rules."

We can do. Hopefully after some careful deliberation, or you end up with stupid rules like those bathroom bills, but yes, rules get made all the time.

That doesn't mean we should legislate everything. We can't and shouldn't. But what should and shouldn't get legislated, or captured in less formal community rules, is an ongoing discussion.

> "and are you seriously ignoring all the people who do get fired and jailed? lol wait till it happens to you"

I'm not. Lots of people are indeed getting fired and jailed for being LBGTQ, belonging to the wrong minority, etc. But nobody is getting fired or jailed for belonging to a demographic that is 99.9% of the population.

> "i find your comment offensive so youre banned for life from the internet."

There's a massive difference between accidentally offending someone, and going out of your way to offend. I'm addressing the latter. If we manage to address that, it becomes easier to assume that the offenses we do experience were not intentional.

It's a unbelievable that we take the output of these seminars as gospel. They are just groups of people - with no more authority on what "proper behavior" is than the rest of us.

...and yet the community that supports them vehemently punishes anyone that strays from their constantly changing and often contradictory directives.

It's not gospel, it's a view. It's useful to understand people who have a different perspective. Their view may not be universal, but it's still a valid view.

It is tricky, yeah. Everyone has their own preferences, and no one set of rules will apply 100% to everyone. And, unfortunately, some people are simply acting in bad faith.

There was a discussion a few days ago about how a few people say that the terms "assigned male/female at birth" should apply only to intersex people and the trans community appropriated them. But if you look into it, you find that the trans community invented those terms, and the people who originated the claim are outspoken transphobes who want to invalidate trans people in any way they can. And there's probably some well-meaning people who were taken by those assholes, unfortunately. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21139083

At the end of the day, all you can do is respect people's individual wishes when they express them, and when they don't, go with the consensus and try to extend the benefit of the doubt. Someone who's been hassled and harassed their whole life is gonna be high-strung about some things; you don't need to agree with them, but give them a little slack when you can.

Edit: I'm curious what their rationale for asking people not to state their pronouns was. I can't think of any way that could benefit anyone. Do you recall what they said exactly?

this is the problem cause 99.9% of us know how to get along just fine without these weird pronoun rules

theyre literally making EVERYONE work harder and waste time to not offend a single person who probably doesnt even agree with these rules

this article was posted here a while back:

https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...

I thought it was quite interesting.

It's not. People are having a hard time adjusting and overreacting. It's only a problem if you using singular they specifically and only for trans folk, ie singling them out.

Quite literally, Monica said she avoids singular pronouns in general, not just for any particular group or person, because she doesn't feel that singular pronouns are required to moderate a community in most cases. That was the problem that lead to firing her and starting an undercover witch hunt, with SO leaking private chat excerpts and talking to media to bash her.

This isn't about singling anybody out with pronouns.

thats not a problem either. you cant force people to say anything.

You can't "force" people to say things, but it's still a problem when people are deliberately insulting, obviously.

none of the pronouns are offensive and we use the ones that fit 99% of the time but they is fine if you really want to be neutral

its only offensive if you listen to the 1 in a million people who want to make a big deal and control everyone elses speech

> apparently "singular they" is offensive

I think the point was that 'singular they is offensive' only when people have specifically asked for certain pronouns (ie you're blatantly disregarding people's requests)?

except this is a code example on the site

im not going to write bob and alice and then worry about "well what if these fake people in this example i made up are actually trans" lol give me a break.

Agreed. If you're the author and Alice and Bob are the imaginary characters in your example, then you get to decide their gender.

Same as an author who is writing a novel, is free to invent characters and assign gender, sexual orientation, and any other character traits they want.

It's your story, they are your characters. You decide if it's a he, she, xe, or whatever.

You certainly haven't been keeping up with Twitter culture if you think this.

twitter culture is outrage culture. its a bunch of maniacs yelling at each other and they should all be ignored

Should, but aren't. That's the problem.

its the same people that are on twitter and then go to work and school and bring this with them. they should be ignored in real life too but nobody wants to deal with the hysterical accusations from the far left

What is this "Twitter culture" you're talking about? Could you sum it up?

most people on twitter and a lot of the verified people basically police each other for how "woke" they can be with social justice

and if anyone steps out of line against the insane number of rules about who you might slightly offend then you get mobbed and "cancelled" by being called a racist/sexist/bigot/transphobe/nazi and whatever cool word is in use until you lose your job and lifestyle and are permanently branded a terrible person

“Bob, a cis heteronormative middle aged white man from Seattle, wants to send a message to Alice, a bicurious housewife from Kentucky”