This thing where people want to say horrible things without consequence is just so weird. I have the right to judge your statements just as much as you have a right to say them. I have the right to leave jobs when it turns out the people working there hate people like me, and companies have the right to hire people who aren't going to alienate future potential employees.
When people bring up posts like this they never say what the "heresies" are. People aren't getting "cancelled" for their takes on taxes. People aren't getting fired for picking nomad over kubernetes. People are getting called out for denying the existence of people who aren't like them. When someone gets fired for, as an example, purposefully misgendering their colleagues- that isn't getting fired for having a bad opinion, that's being fired for making a hostile work environment.
What's always interesting to me is that these "free speech absolutists" are explicitly calling out the left here, when the right is the one passing "don't say gay" legislation and refusing to allow trans children the healthcare needed to save their lives. The right is also kicking everyone out of their party who doesn't bow before Trump. To say that the left is creating heresies while ignoring that the right is literally creating new dogma is just delusional to me.
> When people bring up posts like this they never say what the "heresies" are. People aren't getting "cancelled" for their takes on taxes.
There are plenty of examples of stuff that is way less clearcut "that's bad" than your example. See e.g. David Schor getting fired for retweeting a black professor's paper arguing riots are bad for black political movements.
See also, e.g. a friend ending our friendship because I gently challenged her fat acceptance rhetoric, "Anti-fatness is more toxic to women's bodies than fatness has ever been." At best it's not falsifiable, but really it is just not a realistic statement.
I don't personally spend a lot of time talking to my social milieu - left/liberal about the right, because there's not a lot to say. Watching my immediate vicinity devolve into... whatever you want to call the current moment, is frustrating as hell. The left has a lot of cultural power that the right simply doesn't, and watching it be wielded by fanatics towards ever morphing, questionable goals makes me want to push back.
I'm very confused as to why you're suggesting that people being disagreeable or unreasonable is a thing that is specific to "the current moment" or is specific to any one political identity. But please correct me if I misunderstood.
Edit: Another response brought up a good point. Your pushing back on body image issues seems pretty tone deaf. Those are pretty personal and the point there is that it doesn't help to shame people for being overweight. Nobody responds well to that, it usually just causes hurt feelings. You can still promote healthy lifestyles without making it about "anti-fatness".
I personally think I owe it to other people to object when they promote ideas that seem clearly false to me.
I could be mistaken about their idea's falsity, or they could be mistaken about its truth, but we'll never get closer to knowing if I don't engage.
Obviously I also owe them kindness and respect.
If they choose to interpret a kind, respectful disagreement as oppression or violence against them, they're hurting themselves.
In a mildly-related vein, it took me a long time to be able to recognize personal criticisms as a gift from the critic, and I'm still working on it, but the basics of that mindset shift seem to be settling in at this point. When someone tells me what they really think of me and my actions, they're engaging with me and giving me a chance to understand them a little better. I strive to be grateful for that even when the delivery is rude or hurts my feelings.
Genuine rejection and harm to others looks like physically injuring them, verbally abusing them, or barring them from societal spaces and services.
Telling someone what you think they're wrong about or how they're flawed is not usually doing violence or harm. Done in good faith, it's giving feedback and giving them the chance to show you how your own perceptions might be wrong.
>Telling someone what you think they're wrong about or how they're flawed is not usually doing violence or harm. Done in good faith, it's giving feedback and giving them the chance to show you how your own perceptions might be wrong.
You have to earn people's trust and respect in order to do that. For an activist in a marginalized group, it can be very hard to figure out who to trust.
On the other hand it seems very easy for pg to gain the trust of commenters here, probably because he's a rich investor offering to give everyone big wads of cash for a skill they already possess.
> On the other hand it seems very easy for pg to gain the trust of commenters here, probably because he's a rich investor offering to give everyone big wads of cash for a skill they already possess.
> You have to earn people's trust and respect in order to do that. For an activist in a marginalized group, it can be very hard to figure out who to trust.
Sure, same for combat vets. It still incumbent on them (and everyone else) to reality test their beliefs. Creating social conditions where people say unreasonable things and the only acceptable response is to say nothing and think to ourselves, "it's okay, she's a woman/black/whatever" seems bad to me. I don't think it helps anyone.
> On the other hand it seems very easy for pg to gain the trust of commenters here, probably because he's a rich investor offering to give everyone big wads of cash for a skill they already possess.
You make interesting points but mix it in with shitpost stuff. Would be great if you chilled on that
I don't understand why you think that's a shitpost. Or rather, if it is, everything else is here so who cares? Look at the rest of the replies in this comment thread. It's true, isn't it? I actually can't read pg articles without looking at them through this lens, they otherwise make no sense to me and there is no other reason for them to be posted here and gain 800 replies when they're also filled with the same baseless posturing you would probably refer to as shitposty. He would just be another anonymous nobody with a blog and a chip on the shoulder. I'm only saying this because these sentiments ("You can't say everything you possibly could ever want to say around persons A and B because they'll get offended and mad and not want to talk to you anymore, isn't that terrible") are so old and tired at this point, but for some reason we seem to be giving them a pass here and I would guess it's only because pg said them and he is a Famous Person. I'm sorry if that seems blunt but is that not what you asked for? I'm saying what I really think.
To me it's like, look, do you really want to go to work with someone who says things like "you are ugly" and "you are stupid" and "your mother is a whore" to everyone every day? I know people who would do that even in professional settings, it's just as bad as you'd think. It's not declaring "heresy" when they get fired because nobody wants to deal with that every day. Pg is of course entitled to his own opinion of what he wants on his startup incubator and forum, which is why there's moderation on this site and why he has kicked people out of YC before for literally just saying things. It's not enacting "heresy" when you ban somebody from YC or hacker news for saying stupid and callous things! So why the double standard? That's why this whole comment thread and article is just absurd to me, I'm so saddened that so many people are actually commenting on this.
> You have to earn people's trust and respect in order to do that.
I would rephrase this to "People are unlikely to listen to you if they don't trust and respect you."
Obviously you can tell people when you think they're wrong without them trusting or respecting you, but you're clearly right that it may not have many useful results in that case.
> On the other hand it seems very easy for pg to gain the trust of commenters here...
I have a slight bias against pg.
His earliest essays I enjoyed, but his writing in the past ten or fifteen years strikes me as suffering from the blindness induced by being rich and myopically focused on startups and technological advances, with the apparent assumption that those things must be inherently good.
If I happen to agree with him on this particular point, it's not because I'm inclined to like his stances by default.
> See also, e.g. a friend ending our friendship because I gently challenged her fat acceptance rhetoric, "Anti-fatness is more toxic to women's bodies than fatness has ever been." At best it's not falsifiable, but really it is just not a realistic statement.
Is this really a topic you needed to weigh in on? I’m assuming you weren’t concern trolling or playing devil’s advocate, but it’s very easy to imagine how a “gentle challenge” might get interpreted as such if your relationship with the other person doesn’t generally include similar discussion topics.
She's a professor and aims to be a public intellectual; she's written a book. I really think this in and of itself is invitation for dialogue. Also, our relationship was been fine talking about politics when I agreed with her, but any disagreement was treated as hostile/moral failure on my part. I'm really pretty good at listening and being respectful; these sorts of failure modes in communication in my life have come exclusively with dedicated self-identified activists.
I don't think you can't really blame someone for that when their activism is a core part of their identity. People wouldn't become activists if they weren't deeply affected by these things. It's not their prerogative to (in their view) waste time with people who are just going to argue and push in the other direction. That's my experience from talking to a lot of activists, anyway. They have to be very careful to pick their battles.
Someone can be affected by things and still end up with false beliefs. It’s possible to still be kind to someone and argue a belief they hold is wrong.
What’s true can be in conflict with deeply held beliefs (and often is). Part of the core issue is when one side won’t engage in actual discussion of the content and only argues at the meta level about identity.
I think roflc0ptic’s examples are good ones - thankfully it seems the discourse around this kind of stuff is shifting back to being more moderate.
You're absolutely correct, but that still isn't helpful to someone who is already committed to being a single-issue activist. You're taking completely the wrong angle. You have to address the why and not the belief itself.
Edit: It's not particularly important or relevant to what's been said here if you see the mainstream discourse as shifting to being "more moderate". This is a given with any single-issue activist, it's your business if you deal in organizing activists. The shift to being moderate only happens through this process, there's no other process.
If you don't concern yourself with organizing activists, then this isn't your wheelhouse, and I don't see why it was brought up.
Ah I understand - you’re commenting more on strategy around being able to get through to someone when a core value is in conflict with what may be true.
Yeah, on that I agree - requires more deft communication skills. I think you can still “blame them” for holding false beliefs though (or phrased differently not give them a free pass on dogma) while still understanding it’s going to be an emotional thing for them, but this sounds like it might be us just disputing definitions over “blame” and we mostly agree.
> It's not their prerogative to (in their view) waste time with people who are just going to argue and push in the other direction
I think this is a good point. An issue that coexists with this is that activist circles here in the 20x0s, of which I have been both a part and adjacent to, are in general not open to evaluating the truth value of their beliefs under any circumstances, not even around questions like "is this tactically/rhetorically an effective strategy?". There's also a related issue where basically their only tool for communicating across difference is opprobrium. You can see this laid out persuasively in this (uncommonly good) quilette article: https://quillette.com/2021/01/17/three-plane-rides-and-the-q...
What you're describing is an activist culture that has writ large given up on convincing people of their correctness, and functions instead via social coercion. And sure, there was a combative element to the civil rights movement - we're on the bus, you can't fucking ignore us - but it was coupled with cogence and reason. I'm pretty sure microaggressions exist, and also think they're a toxic framework for evaluating the world.
>What you're describing is an activist culture that has writ large given up on convincing people of their correctness, and functions instead via social coercion.
No, not at all and I'm very confused as to how you managed to connect those dots. I'm describing a culture where people make their activism an immutable part of their identity because it's all they know and they have no reason to pursue outside perspectives; if you're in a marginalized group it can be very easy to end up in a situation where there's nobody to look out for you besides yourself. This is not a new happening in any way shape or form, from my knowledge it's been this way for as long as there's been free societies that allowed protesting. This is what the civil rights movement was built on. It just doesn't happen if there isn't an outside condition to allow activism and protesting in the first place.
Can there toxic social pressure in activist spaces? Absolutely, but that can be present in any social group where there are leaders and followers. That also isn't new in any way at all. I take it you haven't spend much time on social media in the last decade or so?
> I take it you haven't spend much time on social media in the last decade or so?
less of this please.
> This is what the civil rights movement was built on. It just doesn't happen if there isn't an outside condition to allow activism and protesting in the first place.
> >What you're describing is an activist culture that has writ large given up on convincing people of their correctness, and functions instead via social coercion.
>No, not at all and I'm very confused as to how you managed to connect those dots. I'm describing
If you take the "don't listen to other people because you don't know who to trust" knob and turn it way up, you get to "listen only to people who agree with me", turn it farther "anyone who disagrees with me is an enemy." I _don't_ think this was the dynamic in the mainstream civil rights movement, but even if it was it wasn't the rhetorical tactic outside of the black panther/WUG fringe. I _do_ think it's the dynamic/rhetorical strategy in the current activist milieu which has bled into the broader world.
You're right to say this, sorry I just legitimately can't understand how you could be extrapolating this if you had actually seen a lot of the high profile stuff that happened on e.g. facebook in the last decade. There's just so much unreasonable behavior and tribal "us vs them" attitudes coming from all sides at all times. I've seen lots of people do like you're doing now trying to blame this on "activists" for no real reason when to me it's every group doing it constantly all the time, even the ones that you would think would be relatively reserved. I honestly think you might be in a activist bubble and you need to get out from it, I can't understand why you would be otherwise focusing so much on the tactics of some "activist milieu".
Right, I'm not claiming it's ~cancel culture~, it is however anti-heretic behavior. See other comment; she's a professor and aspiring public intellectual. This combination of "I'm an authority so you have to listen to me" and "you can't challenge my beliefs because it's oppression" is a recipe for bad thinking.
> There are plenty of examples [...] e.g. David Schor
I think it's rather the opposite. There are, to be sure, tragedies and abuses of woke rhetoric that gets directed at the wrong people and/or implemented in outrageous ways. But they're pretty rare, and generally get a ton of media coverage for exactly that reason. Those are what PG is writing about.
But in my experience, the overwhelming majority of people entering this kind of argument are actually just wanting more cover to say things they used to say that are... well, kinda off. Not "lose your job" off, but casually "x-ist" in a way that most of us would prefer not to engage with.
And really, that's the rub here, and the biggest problem with PG's essay here. Where are the examples? If there's something you want to say but feel you can't, then say it. This is a reasonably anonymous forum. PG is reasonably immune to that kind of criticism. But the problem is that when you say it the debate becomes a debate about your opinions and not your oppression, and that's ground these folks won't win on, like this one:
> I gently challenged her fat acceptance rhetoric
You literally had a friend walk out of your life because you couldn't respect her boundaries about something as senselessly unobjective as body image, and the lesson you seem to have taken from it is that you were the oppressed one?
Want to note that you're putting words into my mouth:
> the lesson you seem to have taken from it is that you were the oppressed one
I never said I was oppressed. You've invented that whole cloth.
If you find yourself thinking "they're just using this for cover to say bad things", consider that in the context of you abjectly misreading/inventing details to what I'm saying here. If you fill in details that match your own negative biases and then say "wow, these people really live up to my negative biases," you're not evaluating evidence, you're just testing your own beliefs against your projections of your own beliefs. Certainly looks like what you're doing here.
Can you explain what it means to "deny the existence" of someone? I see this expression often, but I'm genuinely puzzled by what it means in practice.
I agree with you that "purposely misgendering one's colleagues" should lead to firing, but I think this article isn't about that. It's about people who are tolerant of others and in general try to be nice people, but just disagree about certain things - for example, how criminal transgenders should be incarcerated, or whether affirmative action is a good way to help disadvantaged people.
>I agree with you that "purposely misgendering one's colleagues" should lead to firing, but I think this article isn't about that.
I do think the article is about that. I think it was purposefully left vague so he could take advantage of people giving the benefit of the doubt. I don't think people's pronouns should be up for debate, and I believe PG does.
> Can you explain what it means to "deny the existence" of someone?
Here's an example:
"There's no such thing as a trans person. Trans is not a real thing, it's a mental illness and a delusion that needs to be cured. "
If you hear that and you are trans, then you are bound to feel like someone is denying you actually exist. Its a strange feeling that someone whose existence has always been validated by society cannot really relate to. I imagine that's why you are puzzled by its meaning.
I mean that hypothetical argument doesn't really make sense. Are mental illnesses not real ? And shouldn't we try to cure these people, in the most extreme cases by sex change surgery + hormone therapy ? (Or what kind of cure would that be ?)
(Is it more about denying trans people's suffering perhaps ?)
I guess that this dismissal of mental illness (and here also of trans people) also comes from equating "anormal" with "bad". At least I can see where the conservatives are coming from with this, but I have much more trouble to understand it when progressives fall into this trap !
Just replace trans with gay. We've been through this whole thing before, and the only reason we are having this debate about trans people at all is because conservatives have so thoroughly lost the culture debate over gay rights, yet the animus that motivated the debate persists.
But back then we heard all the same things. "Oh, we can't have gay men teaching young boys because they are sexual predators and they are trying to recruit our young children to be gay." Or that "being gay is a mental disorder that needs to be cleansed through re-education".
It's just striking to me how similar the arguments are, right down to the legislating intimate space use like bathrooms and locker rooms, and the moral panic over children (who are yet again being used as moral shields). It used to be you couldn't even be gay in the military. Now they let gays in and it turned out to be not a big deal at all. But without missing a beat they've recycled the same baseless arguments but crossed out "gay" and filled in "trans", seemingly without any recognition or reflection about how badly their anti-gay arguments aged.
Yet the situation is radically different, since trans, in addition to having "social issues", also have "body issues" ?
(Then there's also the situation with (real) pedophiles, which, unlike for gays, we have decided to keep in the mental illness category - and understandably so, considering the danger for children.)
Interesting - I would never knowingly refer to someone by pronouns other than those which correspond with their birth sex, it would violate my conscience to do so. Obviously not a majority position in SV but also not an extremely rare position to hold in the world more largely. I suppose that means you would fire me and others of the same opinion if you had the chance.
I don't know whether this is the kind of example Graham had in mind, but it does seem that the particular zeal that some have to exclude from normalcy even widely-held minority views is relatively unique to our time.
You can believe that gender is irrelevant and only sex matters, but you should still make an effort to be polite and nice to your coworkers - for example call them by the name they go for even if it is different from the one on their ID, use the pronouns that they prefer, etc.
Of course, like all things related to politeness, there is no absolute rule - if I change my pronouns every week I shouldn't expect people to keep up. But it should not be surprising that you can be fired for not making a minimal effort to be nice to your colleagues.
In case anyone is genuinely confused: this is the kind of bigotry people expect to get away with sans consequence, and complain about “heresy” when they’re called out on it.
Somewhere in the last 10 years a norm emerged that transgender identity is sacrosanct and its doubters are bigots, but transracial identity is a lie and people like Rachel Dolezal are frauds.
GP's brusque language aside, can there be any amount of uncertainty on either of these points? Doesn't it seem a bit arbitrary that these two new norms are opposite to each other?
Even though gender and race are both social inventions, they’re not really interchangeable like that.
To cite one example: race is considered heritable, and there have historically been harsh consequences of that lineage. In the US, the one-drop rule ensured that anyone with even a single Black ancestor would be subject to the legal discrimination that status entailed (this is called “hypodescent”). So the idea of someone saying “I identify as Black” is… fraught, to say the least.
Society deems it so? If you were of the opinion you were a cat the diagnosis would be that you are delusional.
Still, if there is no other negative effects, then accepting them as a different gender seems like a simple way to ‘heal’ the condition. Certainly in the absence of a way to fix it in the other direction.
I don’t think a lot of people would be well served by accepting that someone is a cat.
It is not compassion to lie to people and pretend they are what they are not.
Gender dysphoria is real, social contagion is real, and we shouldn't accept or embrace a self-destructive ideology that radically derails the lives of teenagers and younger.
Adults can behave however they want, but it should be considered child abuse to foster transgenderism and transsexuality in minors.
You're simply using a completely different concept of gender to this person. I'd argue that not only do you both have reasonable points of view, your assertions don't actually conflict! You can both be correct.
I don't think it is reasonable for you to hold that your definition of gender is the only correct one.
If people don't perceive your actions as kind, can they actually be said to be kind?
We observe much worse acute and long term outcomes, across a variety of dimensions, when transgender people are not permitted to transition.
Homophobes insist that they are telling "the truth" when they insist that all gay people are going to hell and that marriage should not be allowed for gay people. Racists insist that they are telling "the truth" when they insist that black people are simply more violent than white people and that black people should be treated differently by the justice system. Sexists insist that they are telling "the truth' when they insist that women are not capable of holding positions of leadership in business or politics and that their role is only to raise children.
I see no reason why transphobia would be different.
I don't think any of those examples are good analogies. None of those involve 'pretending to believe obvious lies' or self-mutilation.
The harm of social transition is relatively minor and easily reversible. It's not as concerning, but it still perpetuates the phenomenon as 'tolerable'.
The harm of physical transition is permanent and devastating. We should consider the precautionary principle when engaging in irreversible actions.
Puberty blockers, sex hormones, mastectomies, and the rest are not compassionate treatments for dysphoric youths, but children are being fast-tracked into these decisions without much thought for how likely they'll be to regret it. Certainly many do, and it's an awful tragedy.
As all humans have before two seconds ago, we should let children grow into their bodies, and then they can make better-informed decisions as adults.
My main point being: this stuff is absolutely unacceptable for children, and adults are free to behave however they want, but I won't 'accept' it or go along with it.
And I do think they are perfect analogies. I see zero of your concerns as any more valid than the ones in my post. The same "social contagion" arguments were used against gay people, women, and black people, to the same harmful effects.
I'm asking you to be kind. I hope you understand why people perceive you as unkind.
Your argument sounds like 'these ideas are wrong so yours is wrong too' without contending with the content of my arguments and examples.
I'm totally willing to be kind and treat other people with respect. Never claimed otherwise.
But I also hope people see the errors of their ways, how harmful it can be, and to not try to indulge children and teenagers who get caught up in it. Leave the kids alone.
There are ample other spaces where people have contended with your precise arguments. I am not saying that you are wrong because these other people are wrong. I am saying that, after evaluating your viewpoint, I find it to be equally as wrong as these other viewpoints.
A large number of transgender people will find your viewpoint to be fundamentally disrespectful. It will not be possible for you to come across as respectful, no matter how much you insist on it. This is why I ask you to consider how the recipients of your words experience them as a better judge of whether you are behaving kindly.
I don’t think people want to say bad things without consequence. They want to be able to discuss a topic without the rabid tone police descending on it.
Like, I say I cannot understand trans people at all, and people will jump on me because I’m rejecting them and making them feel bad, when I’m just stating a fact.
“I don’t understand it but I’ll trust their feelings and the recommendations of their doctor” is very different from “I don’t understand it so I’ll call them mentally ill, misgender them, or insist that legislation prevent access to medical care”.
I've seen more than a few posts where people have said "I really don't get this whole issue, but live and let live" and haven't been descended upon, that's just anecdata though.
On one hand, you're right. The nuance is sometimes lost. On the other hand, think about what we're talking about: a political party is trying to erase the existence of a class of people, and they are wielding the power of the state to do so, especially in places where there's one party control and no hope of electing any opposing party.
When you say "I don't understand trans people", trans people have heard this many times before. Unfortunately for you, many people who have said this phrase before followed it up with "...and therefore I hate them. I will legislate against them; I will pass laws against their existence in public space; I will demonize them; I will jail them; I will murder them."
Those are the stakes, so the pushback is in proportional to the life and death nature of what's going on here. When you say "I don't understand trans people" they are expecting you to follow it up with more of the same. And I get that's not great for the general public's understanding of trans people. But understand that it's a reaction to years and year of abuse from other people who also proclaim that they "don't understand."
Your general confusion is being received in an environment where people are literally fighting for their lives. Maybe in a different time, when people aren't facing down the vast power of the state to dictate their existence, there would be more room to treat you gentler. But the pressure has been ratcheted up to 11 by powerful forces bent on a 21st century new moral panic, and that's not the fault of trans people and their defenders, but the people who are trying to make their lives hell for no reason other than intolerance.
I didn't say anything about genocide, I said they are facing down politicians in state legislatures who are passing laws that deny the rights of trans people to exist in public places and to participate in public life. These lawmakers use rhetoric that does indeed question the very existence of the concept of a transgendered person. They deny that these people exist, and claim they are in fact mentally ill and not trans at all. If republicans had their way it would be illegal to be trans. That's the erasure of a class of people, but it's not genocide, I wouldn't go that far.
Seems like a weird thing to say. I don't understand FORTRAN at all and as such I stay away from people discussing it.
Why do you want to tell trans people that you don't understand them? Wouldn't it be easier to read some literature so you can gain a basic understanding?
Perhaps replacing "trans" with "black", "Jew", "Muslim" or any other marginalized minority group, would help you understand why such blanket "I cannot understand X at all" causes people to object?
I don't think that's fair. Nobody is debating what it means to be black, jewish or muslim. People's attitudes to people who are those things vary, but for the most part everybody is in agreement about which people are black, which people are Jewish, etc.
On the other hand, there is no such agreement around gender. People are using terms such as "gender", "man" and "woman" to refer to vastly different concepts ranging from "how someone subjectively feels inside" to "what physiological traits someone has" to "how someone is treated by society".
To the extent that not understanding someone comes from not understanding how they personally define gender and how that fits with how other people are using the same term, it seems quite reasonable to be confused.
No - there's very much active disagreement on which people are black (colorism in general in the black community is alive and well) and who thinks you are a jew might change a good bit if you ask the local white supremacist or a rabbi.
Just because "I know it when I see it" applies to your personal lens its an inarticulate way of viewing the world.
Right, but when we discuss racism we're not discussing who is black or not black with the proviso that "of course it's fine to treat them badly if they're actually black", whereas it is commonly accepted by people on all sides of the gender debate that people should be treated differently on the basis of their gender.
> Nobody is debating what it means to be black, jewish or muslim. People's attitudes to people who are those things vary, but for the most part everybody is in agreement about which people are black, which people are Jewish, etc.
If this is the case, it’s only the case in the most vanishingly contemporary moment of ours. Both the Holocaust and the American system of chattel slavery were fundamentally predicated on questions of identity (“one drop”). Both moments also fundamentally shifted how and when people consider themselves Black or Jewish, because they are aware that others might consider them so for the purposes of persecution.
What I see as different here is that people on both sides of the gender debate seem to see differential treatment of "men" and "women" as just. The primary argument is over which people belong in which group. This is different to at least a modern take on slavery where we're usually less concerned with people being mislabelled as black and more concerned with the mistreatment of those who were labelled as black.
Incidentally, my view on a lot of gender issues is that's it's not so different, and that the reason trans women experience so much pushback as it least partially due to stigma which is also directed at cisgender men.
> What I see as different here is that people on both sides of the gender debate seem to see differential treatment of "men" and "women" as just.
I think this needs qualification: I don't think that treatment of individuals on the basis of gender (or sex) is just in the abstract, but I do think there are social policies that are inequal in scope that are justifiable on the basis of making all individuals more equal.
> Incidentally, my view on a lot of gender issues is that's it's not so different, and that the reason trans women experience so much pushback as it least partially due to stigma which is also directed at cisgender men.
I think a lot of people agree with this! The tension is again in scope: the stigmas and cultural pressures that cisgender men are subjected to don't generally induce people to kick us out of our homes as teenagers, to threaten us in bathrooms, &c.
> I think this needs qualification: I don't think that treatment of individuals on the basis of gender (or sex) is just in the abstract, but I do think there are social policies that are inequal in scope that are justifiable on the basis of making all individuals more equal.
I pretty much agree with that. But I think that most people are thinking about rights being as assigned to gender in the abstract. It seems to me that the reason there's so much fuss about statements like "trans women are women" is because the assumption is that "women's rights" are assigned to women in the abstract, and that who gets them is therefore determined by who counts as a woman.
> the stigmas and cultural pressures that cisgender men are subjected to don't generally induce people to kick us out of our homes as teenagers, to threaten us in bathrooms, &c.
That's only true if you accept that cisgender men won't want to act in ways that we associate with trans or cis women (e.g. wearing dresses or make up (and if you define gender in terms of identity then you could even include making changes to their bodies here)). And IMO that assumption is pretty sexist. I also think that there is a tendency to assume that such men are trans women, but identity doesn't work like that, and if we want to talk about assigned-gender-non-conforming people in general then we should talk them instead of trans people. I guess I don't really accept that that trans women are under more pressure to behave in certain ways than cisgender men are. But if you have a good argument as to why you think they are, then I'd be interested to hear it.
XKCD386-- there is a LOT of dispute over who is White/Black, particularly as its become popular in some circles to define racism as something which can only happen to black people. And thus a discriminatory policy against asians isn't racist to those adopting that definition when they conclude that asians are "white".
The same kind of postmodernist thinking that is comfortable redefining well understood biological terms like "male" and "female" to be about "not doing the dishes" or "liking climbing trees" instead of generally unambiguous biological properties is just as comfortable deciding that you're "white" on the basis of not wanting to extend the protection of anti-discrimination laws and norms to you.
"This thing where people want to say horrible things without consequence is just so weird."
It's really easy to think/say horrible things. The main defense humans have against it is following orthodoxy, which is a social construct that imperfectly represents historical knowledge about good and bad.
If you think you are naturally good (whatever that means), you are wrong. If you think you are good because of your intellect, you're also wrong. It takes many generations to build up the kind of orthodoxy that keeps humans good. And the lessons behind it are too many to learn in a lifetime.
So, we need to mostly follow orthodoxy, at least in our actions. But that poses an intellectual problem: orthodoxy is imperfect, and to discuss and advance it, or even understand it well, you have to challenge it. If merely by challenging it you transgress, then it will never be understood very well and certainly not advanced.
Granted, there are good and bad places to challenge orthodoxy, and the workplace is usually a bad one. But sometimes orthodoxy changes very rapidly in certain areas, to the point where something orthodox ten years ago is firable today. That's not a good situation.
Remember: gay marriage was illegal almost everywhere 20 years ago. Imagine the surprise to, say, a 60 year old, that "misgendering" (by using pronouns associated with one's biological sex) might be a firable offense today.
>> orthodoxy, which is a social construct that imperfectly represents historical knowledge about good and bad.
One issue is that there are multiple orthodoxies. Each human culture has its own orthodoxy which is reflected in the culture's norms and practices.
>> there are good and bad places to challenge orthodoxy, and the workplace is usually a bad one. But sometimes orthodoxy changes very rapidly in certain areas, to the point where something orthodox ten years ago is firable today. That's not a good situation.
When and why is it right or just to judge one culture against another?
We can try to place ourselves in someone else's shoes, but it is very difficult to understand without having lived their lives and experienced it ourselves. Perhaps the best we can do is to be compassionate and tolerant of others who think or live differently than us. We can educate, persuade, and help, but condemning them and punishing them strikes me as unfair and perhaps unjust depending on the circumstances.
>This thing where people want to say horrible things without consequence
People say horrible things all the time! In fact, I reckon that if you said anything, a non-negligible fraction of the world's 7.5 billion people would think you horrible for saying it. It is not possible to avoid saying horrible things, especially out of context.
Even if you limit yourself to racist and sexist speech, how do you deal the fact that roughly 100% of the people on this planet, of ALL races and sexes, are themselves racist and sexist, and say racist/sexist things all the time? What are the consequences for a homophobic black person? What are the consequences for the Japanese woman who hates the Chinese? What are the consequences for the Libyan mother who circumcised her 4 daughters, with the support of her government and community?
The culture war that the left has started is an intellectually bankrupt grab for cultural power, who's primary effect has been to piss off the good people of the left, and to inspire a once-in-a-century outbreak of insanity on the right. I get that you want to make the world a better place, and it makes sense that punishing people for wrong views could make it so, but you've done the experiment now. Tell me, how is it going?
Does the right have hold of corporate culture however?
I think the issue is the consequences of speech which are permissible themselves -- I think being shunned by a friendship group seems always permissible. Being marginalized in one's workplace, shunned by one's colleges, and so on -- this seems far less permissible.
I dont think this is a strictly left/right issue; and what today is called "left" is rather a kinda of corporate politics --- "corporate correctness" rather than "political correctness". This is about embracing "diversity and equality" of your workplace identities (vs., diversity of skills; and equality of treatment, for example).
I'd imagine if work/life were better seperated, and the workplace better managed, these issues would be felt less seriously.
The question of "free speech" is a massive red-hearing. Everyone accepts some concequences to some speech in some situtations. The only useful conversation to have is: what concequences are permissible, and when.
Presumably, likewise, no one believes abitary ones, whenever -- yet this seems to be the implied position of many who think you can just stop the argument at the point where some "anarchism of speech" is shown to fail. Nope.
I think it's ridiculous to think the left has hold of corporate culture. I think a lot of different companies have a lot of different cultures, and I think for the majority of companies the right holds power. I think that tech companies are a major exception to this, in part because it seems that a much larger percentage of queer people are in tech (both directly and indirectly, via companies that support tech)- but if you pick any random company in the US you're going to find a fairly conservative culture.
The only reason I brought up left versus right was because that's the reductionism PG resorted to here. I also think it's a bit more nuanced. I also think focusing on this being a free speech issue, as PG does, is a red herring for other cultural issues.
Yes, which is why i say "corporate correcntess" isnt actually leftwing. But I do think many self-describing "leftwing" people are actually, in this sense, just peddling a certain corporate respectability ideology. Their upper-middle class concerns of who's who in the elite culture, is more-or-less just using the trappings of leftwing thought to beat a path to the top. And corporations gladly play the same game as a branding exercise, today ran by the same upper-middle who delusionally think their use of "diversity" corresponds to something actually morally significant.
As far as where this culture is present, at least: tech, academia, etc. Ie., the places where we do see this counter-reaction. Though the counter-reaction is dressed in the language of free speech -- I think its more just about the capture of corporate policy, in these industries, by a certain descendent of political correctness.
People have to turn up to work in these industries, or otherwise participate in them, whilst holding their nose at this mawkish soapboxing display of which rich idiot is "changing the world" all the while those who are repulsed by this are ever-more seen as inherently immoral for not singing from the same hymm sheet.
If we recast this whole issue as one where previously political activity has spilled over into most areas of life, such that many now cannot espcae it --- then we see what the problem is.
It isnt free speech. Its the lack of quiet places. It's that if you want to work in these areas, you're bombarded with the loud noises of loud opinions that you can't escape.
Take this statement: "all trans people are misgendering themselves and _should_ conform to the gender assigned to them based on the sexual organs they had at birth".
This effectively denies the existence of people who believe or desire to be their non-assigned gender. The statement tells trans people that in the eyes of the speaker, their personal identity is a fabrication.
I've read comments on articles about LGBT issues (often trans topics these days), and there are a lot of people that say things like "Being gay is a choice".
If that's not denying the existence of a different kind of person to you, I don't know what is.
I think Graham's essay conflates two phenomenon when he describes heresy as thought that people equate to a crime. In fairness to him, societies have conflated them also. But if we're talking about modern American society, they are fundamentally different but can smell the same to somebody who doesn't see the distinction.
A heresy is a position that damages trust. When someone publicly espouses a heretical position, they damage other people's trust in them to make good decisions and have good judgment. Now, you can also breach trust via committing a crime, so the overlap is clear. But nobody is going to jail for their heretical opinions. They can have privileges revoked or be passed over for promotion or advancement, but that's how organizing people to do hard things has always worked. Somebody who says women don't belong in space is going to end up as unqualified to be director of NASA as somebody who fundamentally and with great conviction mis-states the tyranny of the rocket equation. Both mark the person as a poor fit for a high-trust job were there opinion on those topics matters.
And people who believe themselves against "canceling" seem to often be in agreement even if they don't realize it of themselves. A talk was famously pulled from a security conference several years back because after the talk, people concluded that the speaker didn't know what they were talking about. The difference in opinion is on what constitutes a breach of trust, not on whether people can respond to such breaches by routing around other people.
“But nobody is going to jail for their heretical opinions.”
This is not true. You don’t have to look hard for examples of people being jailed in the US for holding unorthodox positions.
Defining heresy as “a position they damages trust,” implies that an accused heretic is at fault for believing something that “damages trust.” That is entirely subjective relative to the one whose trust was damaged.
Society has claimed heresy to suppress political and religious opponents since the beginning of human history. We have also shown a track record of being very wrong with regard to how we define heresy in the past.
Why should we believe that we are any better than our ancestors on this front?
>This is not true. You don’t have to look hard for examples of people being jailed in the US for holding unorthodox positions.
This rings alarm bells for me. Could you give an example of someone jailed in the US for the mere holding of an unorthodox position, rather than a concrete action, in the last, say, 30 years?
>> nobody is going to jail for their heretical opinions. They can have privileges revoked or be passed over for promotion or advancement, but that's how organizing people to do hard things has always worked.
That's because no trials are held in modern mob justice for heretics. The mob justice punishments are more like lynchings.
Medieval heretics could at least expect a "witch hunt"-style trial. The monarchy or church was the authority and there was a semblance of rule of law.
Modern heretics face mob justice by self-appointed vigilantes and mob justice punishments. The lack of due process is concerning.
1) Whenever people call it the "Don't Say Gay" bill, I ask them if they've read the text of the bill. So far it's like 0-8.
2) I think you're conflating two different groups of people to make your argument sound better. I don't like cancel culture and I don't like the Florida bill either. People aren't just "ignoring" it.
3) > denying the existence of people who aren't like them
This is such a weird, vague statement and I have no idea what it means - which is great because it perfectly captures the mob mentality of the far-left cancel culture. The reason everyone is so afraid of it is because you never know exactly what you can say, and it changes by person by day.
In my professional experience, even "acknowledging the existence" of trans people is a minefield. The term to describe someone who is transitioning has changed like four times in the past five years and using the outdated term is considered wildly offensive. Certain people think changes of pronouns should be handled differently and if you disagree with them you eventually get a meeting invite from your supervisor called "Discussion".
> The term to describe someone who is transitioning has changed like four times in the past five years and using the outdated term is considered wildly offensive.
I understand the euphemism treadmill can be difficult, but understand why it exists: when people in a group use certain words to self identify, those words are then coopted by outsiders of the group to vilify insiders. Therefore the old self-identifying words are abandoned by insiders and left as markers of those outsiders who are attempting vilify them. Meanwhile new words of self identification are adopted by insiders that have no negative connotation.
Take for instance people with mental disabilities. The words lunatic, insane, retarded, disabled, mentally disabled, special etc. have all been used to describe the same mental state, and have all been at times the "correct" way to refer to such people, and also the "insensitive" way to refer to such people. Calling someone "retarded" used to be clinical. Now you say "retarded" and it's a grave insult.
This is just the price of diversity, and existing in a world where people want to use powerful words to shame and demean. Words have amazing power, and when they are wielded in evil ways you have no other choice but to abandon the word and move to a next one.
This is why the N-word is so forbidden to say; Black Americans took a stand and said: "No more. We are reclaiming the power of this word, and you just can't use it anymore, period." It took a huge movement to make that social change, and it'll take the same similar movement to stop the euphemism treadmill for trans people.
In the meantime, try to keep up. If you make a real effort people notice and they have tolerance for that. However if you make clear that you have no idea why you have to keep up with all these words in the first place, and it's really all just a bother to you that you'd rather not deal with, you're implicitly signaling you're more aligned with someone who may use those words in a harmful way, and that may be why you are met with hostilities.
* Heresy supporters give themselves a license thinking it is about issues of real racism, sexism, and other real bad problems, but...
* The tools of censorship are then used for normal speech. Proof: Ron Paul had a YouTube channel. He left politics before the covid and no videos had been posted since the pandemic started. But they censored his YouTube channel full of videos by censoring all of the videos and the channel.
* This censorship of the political right happens in a long list of cases that have nothing to do with racism, sexism, or false propaganda. Ron Paul's YouTube channel being censored is one example in a list of thousands just like it.
> The bill would prevent teachers from keeping secrets about children from their parents. It enforces more speech, not less.
If teachers must disclose student confidences to parents, it discourages students in unsafe homes from letting on to their teachers that they’re questioning their sexuality. That’s a chilling effect on speech.
Here's one: I don't believe that gender identity is a valid concept. Does that make for a hostile work environment or "deny the existence" of anyone? I submit to you that the answer is no, except for die-hard adherents of the new ideology. Well, that simply isn't my religion, and I resent attempts to force it on me.
> Here's one: I don't believe that gender identity is a valid concept. Does that make for a hostile work environment or "deny the existence" of anyone? I submit to you that the answer is no, except for die-hard adherents of the new ideology. Well, that simply isn't my religion, and I resent attempts to force it on me.
Here's the question:
Are you tolerant of people who do? Or do you make the lives of those people (who viscerally feel their gender identity to be true) more difficult than those who share your belief?
The latter is a fairly broad concept with multiple shades and blurry lines within. Which is why people with good intentions can still disagree badly on whether something someone did was okay or not.
Has GP crossed the line merely by expressing his/her/their opinion? This probably depends on his/her/their social status as well. The CEO of a company saying something in an official meeting carries a different weight for all employees than some random employee saying the same thing.
Or does GP need to say or do something personal to someone in order to be considered to have crossed the line? Be careful there: add too many constraints and we will end up giving a free pass to people who genuinely offend and cause serious discomfort to those around them.
These are the kinds of issues about which we as a society need to have reasonable discussions and make consensus-building efforts, but it all descends into name-calling too soon.
It does not really matter what your stance on that topic is. If your co-workers don't what to be called a certain way, just respect that. E.g. I don't want to be called by my full first name but rather a short version of it. If you deliberately disrespect my request that is simply hostile.
I think my point is more that there are tons of various requirements that people have that are at best unreasonable and as a society we don't indulge every request that people make. One day someone comes in and says I must now refer to them as xe or emself after years of knowing them without mistake is not reasonable. I still refer to lots of women as their maiden names because that how I remember them. It isnt out of meanness or vitriol. That is just the label my brain still applies to them because I knew them for many years as that.
I dont care if you are male or female or whatever you want to be. I just want everyone to be happy to the extent they can be, but be tolerant of those who remember you as you were to them as well. It isnt just a switch you can turn off instantly.
> One day someone comes in and says I must now refer to them as xe or emself after years of knowing them without mistake is not reasonable.
This seems to be a common fear, but it’s not rooted in reality. As long as you make a good faith effort, no one is going to get mad at you for messing up their pronouns. You might get corrected; just apologize and move on. It’s not a big deal.
If someone suspects you’re messing up in bad faith, they might be harsher with you. Which is, I think, entirely reasonable.
Maybe you have friends who wrongly assume bad faith when you mess up. I’ve never seen that happen, but that’s not to say it doesn’t! You could have some shitty friends who don’t give you the benefit of the doubt. But comments like that “your highness” hypothetical really aren’t doing you any favors.
(People on Twitter probably assume drive-by repliers are speaking in bad faith by default; that is, unfortunately, just a feature of the Internet)
I have taken to referring to everyone as "they". It's much easier than trying to remember individual pronouns for everyone. It doesn't really seem reasonable to me for people to be bothered by this. Your view is that people must refer to your gender when speaking about you?
It doesn’t seem reasonable to me for people to get offended if I use the pronouns that best match the gender presentation I see. This is what English speakers have been doing since there have been English speakers.
But there are people out there that tell me it is bothersome. Out of respect, I modify how I speak and write. Why shouldn’t I get the same courtesy?
>> I have taken to referring to everyone as "they". It's much easier than trying to remember individual pronouns for everyone. It doesn't really seem reasonable to me for people to be bothered by this. Your view is that people must refer to your gender when speaking about you?
What is the point of specifying pronouns then? Isn't this just a lazy form of misgendering?
Instead of using someone's name you could just refer to everyone as "Hey You", but that seems discourteous and disrespectful. Why not just use their preferred name and pronouns?
When used as a singular it’s the pronoun for people that identify as non binary. You are absolutely misgendering people but you get a free pass because contra fosefx this whole pronoun thing is about power and who has it, rather than universal respect.
But I am not an unknown person. If you know who I am and you’ve had an opportunity to see my preferred pronouns but choose to disregard those preferences you’ve misgendered me the same as if you’d referred to a transwomen as he.
> you’ve misgendered me the same as if you’d referred to a transwomen as he.
I think it's more analogous to referring to a transwoman as "they", which I also do. "They" does not gender you at all, so it can't misgender you. I don't think you (or anyone else be they cisgender or transgender) have a right be referred to by your gender, whether you prefer it or not. I think that's different to be referred to by a gender you consider worng. In that case someone is actively labelling you as a gender. By calling you "they" I'm saying I think you're genderless, whereas by calling someone "he" I think you are saying you think they're male.
If you had a strong preference to be referred to by your gender then I probably would make an effort to do that, but I don't think you are owed that (to be honest I wish trans people weren't so hung up on pronouns too - I think it's silly to be so fussy about language - but I have seen cases where they're used maliciously so I can somewhat understand why they are).
I'm saying I think you're genderless, whereas by calling someone "he" I think you are saying you think they're male.
Right. As it turns out, I identify as male not genderless. But this is not something you are obligated to honor under threat of being fired for some reason.
>> this whole pronoun thing is about power and who has it, rather than universal respect.
That is my point.
If I provide my name and preferred pronouns, if you respect me and my wishes, why not use my name and preferred pronouns when addressing me or referring to me?
Using "they" when I don't want it as a pronoun is misgendering.
transphobic people transphobic people would bring up to support their ideology
No one has said anything about trans people, we were talking Gen z butchering the English language. Also, is it a disorder (“phobic”) or an ideology? Or do you not understand that distinction either?
So, your new colleague says their name is Richard. You decide it’s hilarious to call him “dick” and refuse to stop even after he’s asked you multiple times.
Pronouns aren’t any different - if you had a masculine looking female coworker at work - say she was into bodybuilding - and you keeping calling her “he” as a “joke”… persisting when you were asked not to, by your boss, by hr perhaps even. What kind of person are you being here?
You can not believe in gender identity, I don’t care. But be respectful to your colleagues at work. Is that so much to ask for? To literally not be as asshole? Is that what you’re defending - your right to be a flaming asshole to your coworkers without any consequence??
You've picked the worst interpretation of the above. Addressing people how they'd like to be addressed is basic decency. Demands for affirmation beyond this is how I read the comment you're replying to.
The poster perhaps should have noted how they intended on treating their coworkers. Instead we are left to infer that their intent was to lean into their ideology against basic decency.
And in the end this is what the “culture wars” are about: the right to not be decent to certain people.
I think the problem is more in people automatically assuming the worst possible interpretation of any remark as soon as it is about race/religion/gender.
I know people who thinks like you, but they don't shut the fuck about these things, and take every possible the opportunity to proselytise about it.
I've seen it happening in workplaces, for example. But also parties, random people on the street.
Not shutting the fuck about it is fucking annoying and if it's in the workplace I'll be complaining the fuck about it until you stop and/or looking for another job.
Now, I'm a 100% neutral part on this, and even me don't wanna hear about your bullshit. Imagine now if you were to use this to actively hurt people.
what do you do when you are asked to respect someone else's choice of gender identity? do you go along with it, while quietly keeping your own opinion? or do you complain and purposefully ignore their request? or maybe do something else entirely? how do you keep a friendly work environment when the mere questioning of someones gender identity can be considered hostile?
you ask that your rejection of the idea is considered not hostile, yet you consider the enforcement of rules of interaction as something hostile.
you wouldn't consider it "positive affirmation" of most people to simply accept the name and gender they provide, it is simply the bare minimum for normal interaction.
why do you consider it beyond reasonable accommodation for some people? do you think you know some deeper truth about these other people than they know about themselves? why do you think you can reliably identify that case? couldn't you simply leave them alone, and not make a big deal out of it?
if you think it doesn't matter, prove it. refuse to recognize anyone's identity. start misgendering and misnaming people you wouldn't do that to before. see how far that gets you.
> do you think you know some deeper truth about these other people than they know about themselves? why do you think you can reliably identify that case?
I think the debate is less about what someone's inner life is like, and more about whether gender words (like man, woman etc) refer to inner feelings or to someone's physical sex. Historically they have been used to refer to both, and many people. use their own gender label to refer to their physical sex rather than any inner feelings.
In many normal circumstances, I am entitled to disagree with people about who or what they are.
Someone might think they're charming, and I might find them a great bore.
It's obvious in this example that equivocating that with deciding for that person, anything at all, is asinine.
Most social settings, and all professional ones, require that I be more polite to this "charming" person than I would otherwise be inclined to, given my own feelings on that subject.
> You don't get to decide for other people who or what they are.
Yeah, but neither do they. There is such a thing as objective truth. I have no right to be treated as four-legged, because I do not have four legs. Neither can I claim a right to be treated as the Queen of Englang, because I am not the queen of England. Nor do I have a right to be treated as a member of the opposite sex because I am not in fact a member of the opposite sex.
I agree with this, but I do think that there is a genuine debate to had about:
1. Whether people of different sexes ever ought to be treated differently (and if so, in which circumstances).
2. Whether people of different gender identities ever ought to be treated differently (and if so, in which circumstances).
My own view is that in the vast majority of cases we shouldn't be treating people differently on the basis of either sex or gender identity, and that identity-based gender and sex-based gender are about as bad as each other!
> Here's one: I don't believe that gender identity is a valid concept
One funny thing I learned from studying high demand religions: you don't have to believe something for it to be true. It's existence is entirely orthogonal to a person's opinion.
Often you can see the religion, or at least the outward sign. This is the basis for laws about large-scale religious display such as head scarves, turbans, ... It seems that groups of people don't like seeing differences no matter what they are.
When people bring up posts like this they never say what the "heresies" are. People aren't getting "cancelled" for their takes on taxes. People aren't getting fired for picking nomad over kubernetes. People are getting called out for denying the existence of people who aren't like them. When someone gets fired for, as an example, purposefully misgendering their colleagues- that isn't getting fired for having a bad opinion, that's being fired for making a hostile work environment.
What's always interesting to me is that these "free speech absolutists" are explicitly calling out the left here, when the right is the one passing "don't say gay" legislation and refusing to allow trans children the healthcare needed to save their lives. The right is also kicking everyone out of their party who doesn't bow before Trump. To say that the left is creating heresies while ignoring that the right is literally creating new dogma is just delusional to me.