How do you manage reading every code of conduct and honoring it?
The trouble I'm having with social changes, expectations, per person pronouns, and other things is that managing all of these interactions can be a crushing amount of cognitive load.
Now that I think about it, it's the same challenge I have with microservices. Formerly simple interactions are now hellza complicated. I'm not fighting the trend. I'm just fatigued.
>How do you manage reading every code of conduct and honoring it?
I don't think perfect adherence should be expected. If there's a code of conduct and someone runs afoul of it, just give them a gentle poke and point them to what they ran afoul of. If they're cool with the code of conduct, great. They fix their behavior and everyone's happy. If they don't like the code of conduct, then they're welcome to join a community with a code of conduct that better matches their outlook. If they continue to stick around anyway and violate the code of conduct after being informed what they're doing wrong, they get the boot.
Where this gets stickier is when you build monolithic communities like Stack Overflow where "the boot" is actually seriously punishing. I only ever moderated little game forums where the consequences of a ban were far less severe. Which is why I tend to think it's better to have small distributed self-managing communities rather than monolithic communities. Makes it easier for diverse outlooks to live-and-let-live without requiring minorities to conform to the majority.
Given small enough communities: no one, and that’s okay. If you start behaving in a way I don’t like after inviting you to my home, I’m well within my rights to kick you out, and there isn’t (and shouldn’t be) anyone policing me on that.
No, this doesn’t work at Facebook scale. I think we had a good thing going on the early web with lots of small discussion boards.
Exposure to unfamiliar ideas is exhausting. Doubly so when the social behaviour that typically becomes second nature in adolescence no longer fits (IMO that’s why video calls are exhausting too - the usual subtle social cues don’t apply).
For some of this stuff, I'm pretty sure the difficulty of keeping up with it is the whole point - it's effectively a way of signalling that you're part of the right group of people with the right views and connections, and what stops outsiders from just learning to imitate the signals is the way things which were mandatory suddenly flip to horribly offensive without rhyme or reason.
> The trouble I'm having with social changes, expectations, per person pronouns, and other things is that managing all of these interactions can be a crushing amount of cognitive load.
Are per-person pronouns really such a big deal to manage? I've known more people who have changed their name in marriage than changed their pronouns.
I can't always remember what a person's name either. No one gives me crap for asking what their name is. I don't feel like asking what someone's pronouns are is a safe question yet.
I'm more concerned about getting crap from someone who only thinks there should only pronouns for their notion of binary genders. For now I just use "they/them" for any given person if I'm not sure, because it's safer than asking in many cases.
"changing your pronouns" has a link to "tying your identity to how you are being referenced" (i claim this from observation). Using the wrong pronoun is such much more likely to be seen as a personal attack than using your pre-marriage name.
Have you seen anyone personally take offense, or just high-profile cases? I've definitely seen a few of the latter (e.g. Jordan Peterson) but the common denominator there seems to be antagonistically refusing to use pronouns or doing so to make the point that you reject them, which is different from an honest mistake.
Yes, i left Open Source projects because referring to co-contributors is such a minefield. I don't wish to work with self-identified transgender people due to this anymore. They take everything so personal even if its not about them.
And just for saying this, same people will accuse me of hating trans people and rejecting their right to exist. But you know what - people with successful HRT who also pass don't exhibit this behavior. They also don't self-identify as trans.
> They take everything so personal even if its not about them.
Is this an actual experience? I've worked with/interacted with quite a few queer people. And I've misgendered people on more than one occasion. Nothing a "shit sorry" hasn't been able to fix.
This forces me to wonder why our experiences are so different. Do the queer people I work with have different norms than yours? Do I have some level of legitimacy among them that you don't? Or is there something else at play?
Assuming you are from the US (im not) and work at Google, i guess its that your ideas about the LGBT community might come from people who actively participate in identity politics. If they do, they have interest in not passing and constantly outing themselves to demonstrate their minority status, because this is what they think makes their voice 'valid'.
If you go trans because you suffer from gender dysphoria, your 'fix' is to become accepted as the gender you identify as.
To achieve it, you do HRT and a surgery (if you suffer from bottom dysphoria), and you present yourself as the gender you identify as, NOT as trans.
This goes so far that these people correct you if you call them trans - they are a "Man" or a "Woman" now.
If these people pass, they also pass as cis and are thus not easily recognizable as having undergone transition.
I'm active in a fan community of an Anime that features dissociation, so it accidentally attracts people with gender dysphoria.
I had affairs with some people from this community and, this way, also got into the gay/trans community, which has an significant overlap.
This is how i learned that identity politics is not representative of queer people.
Heck, even the CSD/gay pride with the rainbow flags isn't representative of the gay community - many sexually deviant people just want to live a normal life and not be associated with pants where your butt cheeks peek out.
I'm one of them.
> If they do, they have interest in not passing and constantly outing themselves to demonstrate their minority status, because this is what they think makes their voice 'valid'.
This is a bit of an outdated view on being "trans". I'll elaborate a bit because this old view on transness I think is the main difference in our views.
As background, I assume we'll both agree that gender is (in western society anyway) stereotypically expressed as a binary: masculine and feminine. The extent and degree of this binary has shifted over time. At one point women wearing pants was unacceptable.
The historical view of transness was that people who are trans wanted to present as the other part of the binary. "I want to be seen as a man instead of a woman". This raises a question: why? The answer follows: "Because I feel like I should be a woman."
If you stop at the first question, your view of trans identities make sense: a trans identity is only valid if it fits snuggly into the existing gender binary. You are a biological male who identifies as a women, or a biological female who identifies as a man. And while both of those work under the second framing, gender nonconforming identities, which don't feel like they should be a woman, but instead feel like they shouldn't be a man (or a woman). I'll note that I'm intentionally simplifying here which has the consequence of erasing some identities like gender-fluidity. The framing still works for those, but the answers are different.
So "old" trans was about perception, "new" trans is about identity. Passing (or not) doesn't make someone's voice valid. Identity does. If you identify as trans, you are and that identity is valid is really how I'd summarize things. There's the potential for abuse of this, but in practice it doesn't happen.
So I reject the notion that one need to be visibly non-passing to be valid in any circle. This I think also addresses much of your second paragraph: there are many people who choose to identify as trans even though they are passing or mostly passing, if only because the shared experience is useful to identify. And they may do so only in certain circles (e.g. Be "out" only in queer circles where they feel more free to discuss their trans experiences).
> many sexually deviant
I'd be careful conflating sexual deviancy with LGBT identities for two reasons. First, "sexual deviancy" has historically been used as a pejorative for LGBT people in the US, and I assume elsewhere. And second, it's not particularly relevant. In psychology, "sexual deviancy" refers to paraphilias or kinks, which are explicitly sexual in nature. But a trans or gay person could be totally asexual. Even still, they could be romantically attracted to same sex people or have some gender dysphoria. Neither implies anything about the act of sex itself.
> The historical view of transness was that people who are trans wanted to present as the other part of the binary.
This is still how trans people think today.
And if you are into language details, you'll realize that 'transgender' literally says that - getting across to another gender.
Same way like transport meant getting to another harbour.
> I'll note that I'm intentionally simplifying here which has the consequence of erasing some identities like gender-fluidity.
> So "old" trans was about perception, "new" trans is about identity.
If the identity of gender-fluidity can be externally erased by your wording, its perception, not identity.
I'm sure the same applies to trans.
The wrong assumption here is that your LGBT status can make your voice valid or invalid.
The idea that interpretation sovereignty for things comes from your subjective identity is appalling.
I'm not sure how you read that into my posting.
> Identity does. If you identify as trans, you are and that identity is valid is really how I'd summarize things.
Only a very privileged person (or lack of social experience) would be in the position to even assume that this is how things work in reality.
Subjectively identifying yourself does not work for anything except your name.
Its all about how others perceive you.
And i tell you, they explicitly told me that they want to be seen and accepted as women.
This is like, the greatest wish of people with gender dysphoria. This is definitely "perception".
> There's the potential for abuse of this, but in practice it doesn't happen.
What about Jessica Yaniv?
> I'd be careful conflating sexual deviancy with LGBT identities for two reasons [...]
I meant 'deviant' literally. As in, "deviance".
Remove the "sexual" if it bothers you.
I don't have contact fears with that word and will use it to refer to myself to reclaim it.
You better not have any problems with that.
You are repeating the mistakes of identity politics.
Like, if it was just a random opinion, fine.
But identity politics are (due to their observably wrong dogma) alienating to both LGBT people and allies.
If people go on like you, acceptance might fall enough that LGBT rights will be rolled back (already happening in the US).
And this will hit LGBT people, not you.
Some trans people find external validation important, yes. But being trans is not defined by external validation (and certainly not external perception), but instead self perception.[0] This is obvious: it would imply that a man in drag is a trans woman, which is obviously untrue.
> If the identity of gender-fluidity can be externally erased by your wording, its perception, not identity. I'm sure the same applies to trans.
No, gender-fluidity can be erased only due to the simplification that feelings are permanent. If we accept that how one self-perceives can, for some, change over time, then that leads obviously to gender fluidity. Like I said, I was simplifying, and specifically the simplification erased some identities. Removing the simplification doesn't erase any other identities. The identities were never invalid. The simplified definition I was using just didn't extend to them.
> Its all about how others perceive you.
Self perception certainly isn't all about how others perceive you. It may indeed be influenced by external factors, but I identify as a man not because of how others perceive me but due to my innate feelings about myself. Dysphoria is a mismatch between self-perception and external validation. The self-perception isn't defined by the external validation, if it were you couldn't experience dysphoria.
So I'll reiterate: trans people are trans based on how they identify, not based on how they are perceived. A biological male who is a closeted trans woman is still trans, no matter how I perceive them. The same person is still trans if they eventually become a passing woman.
> The wrong assumption here is that your LGBT status can make your voice valid or invalid.
When discussing the experience of being LGBT, of course it does. In general, of course it doesn't. You seemed to imply otherwise when you said "because this is what they think makes their voice 'valid'."
Which, like I said, isn't the case. None of the trans people I work with or know believe that being physically non-passing makes their voices any more valid than it would be if they were passing. Let me just reiterate that: None of the trans people I associate put any particular weight on being non-passing, this was something you invented, and it entirely contradicts how the trans people I know define their transness.
In other words, to make that claim is to misrepresent what being trans is for many trans people.
> This is like, the greatest wish of people with gender dysphoria. This is definitely "perception".
Yes, for some trans people that is absolutely the case! I'm not denying that people who are "classically" trans are trans. They absolutely are. Their dysphoria is still driven by a self-perception mismatch.
Let try to approach this another way: if we agree that classical trans identities, those that align closely with the gender binary, are valid, then the question is what about people who have less severe dysphoria? Like if we accept that it is possible for someone's self-perception to completely mismatch their body, why do we reject the idea that there can only be partial mismatch. In other words, they don't perceive themselves as either strictly a man or a woman. This is where you get various non-binary trans identities.
Again, all I'm doing is adding more people under the trans umbrella, I'm very much not denying any particular trans person's experience.
> What about Jessica Yaniv?
I'm glad you asked! Here's Contrapoints again to dive into the concept of "trans-trenders" and specifically Yaniv better than I ever could.[1]
> acceptance might fall enough that LGBT rights will be rolled back (already happening in the US)
If you honestly believe that LGBT rights are at risk because of a perceived backlash to "identity politics" (which, to be clear is a phrase I still don't understand the meaning of), and not simply the US religious right doing the same things it's always done, you haven't been paying attention. Education and normalization does more to protect LGBT people than staying silent.
> But being trans is not defined by external validation [...]
Did i say so?
My observations and your 'definitions' are different.
> Like I said, I was simplifying, and specifically the simplification erased some identities.
Language is inherently symbolic and thus an simplification (an reduction).
This makes "Identity erasure" an very toxic concept - you are guilty of it because there wasn't a way to comply with it in the first place.
> The same person is still trans if they eventually become a passing woman.
Wow. You can't say that - that's really rude and a offense to transitioned people.
They are a woman - becoming so was the whole purpose of transitioning.
You should know that.
> and it entirely contradicts how the trans people I know define their transness.
If that's so, fine. The trans people i know don't even "define" themselves, because here people aren't obsessed with self-identity as in the US.
They only want to be accepted as Women.
> [...] they don't perceive themselves as either strictly a man or a woman. This is where you get various non-binary trans identities.
Only in identity politics.
In the outside world you get people that don't conform to various gender expectations, and the majority of them does not need to make up their mind around that being an identity.
They "can be".
> Education and normalization does more to protect LGBT people than staying silent.
Yes, but then do it correctly.
Identity politics as it is now has resulted in a large number of "shit liberals say"-outrage-memes.
People are making fun of self-identifying because it is so absurd - does "I sexually identify as an Apache Attack Helicopter" ring a bell for you?
I'm sure you have good intentions for LGBT people, but if you unironically argue with concepts like self-identification or identity erasure, people will be driven off.
I'm driven off.
Its neither how things work in practice nor how we will get LGBT acceptance in the future.
> "identity politics" (which, to be clear is a phrase I still don't understand the meaning of)
In the US, identity politics is the most vocal view on LGBT issues.
Its core feature is the strong emphasis on self-identity and that it must be 'respected'.
How the latter happens in detail is subject to being abused as leverage to control other people.
Its only a power play if you see through it, and it rejects the normal-ness of LGBT people, segregating people into groups.
Contrast it to the other parts of the LGBT community, where people are like, normal people.
And happen to have transitioned or a having partner of the same sex.
That's as normal as chewing gum.
Nothing 'special' that needs any kind of extra things to be respected.
Just personal life choices.
I've isolated the statement I was responding to at least twice: "because this is what they think makes their voice 'valid'." You seem to think that trans people believe that, even if you yourself don't.
> Wow. You can't say that - that's really rude and a offense to transitioned people.
I don't see how differentiating between passing and non passing when we're talking about the impact of external perception is offensive, but please elaborate, I'm open to criticism.
> They only want to be accepted as Women.
And as I explained, this limits the definition of Trans to only a very specific type of trans person. It seems like you're saying that those are the right kinds of trans people. Perhaps that's why you're met with friction with those people: you're choosing to invalidate their self-perception because they don't conform to how you think a trans person should be.
In your mind, the trans "identity" is someone in one gender role who swaps to another gender role quietly.
After this point, the rest of your post was really just a rant about how you don't want to accept trans people who don't conform to your perception of them. That's you playing identity politics, it's forcing an identity on to them. And this is why I mentioned that I don't get identity politics: it's not a liberal or US-centric thing. It's a lens. It's a form of analysis of the world, a framework for looking at interpersonal interactions. Forcing someone to conform to an identity is identity politics just as much as identifying with an identity in a way you disagree is. They're two sides of the same coin.
The argument that identity politics forces you to be controlled is the exact same argument that the US religious right used for years to push back against all the "personal life choices" you mention, like marrying a same-gender person. It's the same argument that the US religious right pushes when they try to ban trans people from using the right bathrooms. The argument that respecting someone else's personal choice is an imposition on you. It's the same argument.
> I don't wish to work with self-identified transgender people due to this anymore. They take everything so personal even if its not about them.
> And just for saying this, same people will accuse me of hating trans people and rejecting their right to exist.
I mean, what you posted is a textbook example of transphobia, no matter how light it may be. I've worked with many trans people and have many trans friends, none of them have gotten angry when I've had to ask for their pronouns if I can't remember or need clarification.
Yes, I did. It doesn't change anything. It's still transphobic to lump them together and then attempt to justify your attempt to avoid them on your perceived notions.
As a thought exercise, if you were to change your argument to be one about race, it would be a racist thing to say 'I don't wish to work with black people because they take things so personal'.
You probably missed what i meant with "self-identified", in context of an online community.
A better analogy than the one you provided:
If someone comes to an online community and announces that they are cisgendered and must be referred in way X, i don't want to work with them, either.
This isn't a question of gender, race or sexuality.
Its a question about not being self-absorbed prick that forces everyone around them to walk on eggshells.
Experiencing gender dysphoria is a driving force for engaging in this kind of behavior, this is why my complaint is focused on these few trans people.
> If someone comes to an online community and announces that they are cisgendered and must be referred in way X, i don't want to work with them, either.
This literally happens all of the time, though? It's the 'default'. If you called a cisgendered man 'she' or a cisgendered woman 'he', they would likely politely correct you in the same way anyone else would. The only way you'd avoid that is by collectively referring to everyone in gender neutral pronouns which is certainly possible.
> Experiencing gender dysphoria is a driving force for engaging in this kind of behavior, this is why my complaint is focused on these few trans people.
And this is objectively wrong. People experiencing gender dysphoria is not a driving force in engaging in this kind of behavior (ie what you call 'taking everything so personal') considering, again, I have friends who have dealt with such issues and do not behave in the way you claim.
It really sounds like you're stretching your argument in attempt to justify your own transphobia. At best you're unfairly stereotyping them based on your own experiences and at worst you're behaving in an irrational manner by attempting to avoid them because you seem to think of them being 'self-absorbed pricks'. You're essentially arguing that people should shut up and not mention who they are at all.
> This literally happens all of the time, though? It's the 'default'.
No. Our conversation is a good example of that. The default is to state your business, not your sexual identity or race.
Normal people don't want to be judged by their skin color or sexuality or things like that, this is why they don't lay it out.
Stop taking sexual identity so seriously - its not central to anything.
> People experiencing gender dysphoria is not a driving force in engaging in this kind of behavior
I say, craving validation is the connecting factor. If you have different experiences with that, so it be.
> I have friends who have dealt with such issues and do not behave in the way you claim.
No one of the trans people i had relationships with acted in this way, either.
But in online communities around open source software, there are always a few black sheep that turn really emotional if you accidentally don't "respect their identity", and this includes alot of otherwise innocent behavior.
> No. Our conversation is a good example of that. The default is to state your business, not your sexual identity or race.
Is it? You started your conversation literally around identity, and claiming you chose to avoid people based on that identity. Regardless if they self-identify or not, you're the one that brought identity into this debate. The fact that you seem to choose to downplay sexual identity is rather funny, considering I'm willing to bet if you went out of your way to refer to a cisgender man or a woman as the opposite gender they would eventually get angry. So claiming it's not 'central' is bullshit.
> I say, craving validation is the connecting factor. If you have different experiences with that, so it be.
People want to be identified as who they are. Not sure how this is controversial. If you're talking to someone named John and you keep referring to him as Johnny when he says he doesn't want to be called Johnny, that's 'craving validation' by your argument. Remembering 'John wants to be called by John and not Johnny' is about as difficult as 'Remembering [Person] wants to be called by She and not He'.
> But in online communities around open source software, there are always a few black sheep that turn really emotional if you accidentally don't "respect their identity", and this includes alot of otherwise innocent behavior.
Yes, there are always a few assholes in open source development. This isn't exclusive to transgender people, I've met my fair share of cisgender people that turn emotional if you don't follow their rules. Does that mean I should start avoiding cisgender people all together?
You might come from a social environment where people are much more fragile than in my environment.
I tried to outline a specific behaviour that predominantly comes from self-identifying transgender people. If you haven't experienced these behaviours, we won't find a common ground there.
Yes, there are always some difficult people.
There are red flags to watch out for, and "self-defining as trans" is one of them.
Putting much emphasis on your sexual identity is also a red flag in general.
It's funny that you claim I come from a social environment where people are 'more fragile' when I consider it simply basic respect to call people what they want. It seems like you managed to completely ignore my John / Johnny example as well, so I think it's becoming clearer that you're not really here to debate in good faith.
Also personally, one of the red flags I find in difficult people is those that choose to stereotype an entire group. Usually they'll end up causing further problems down the line by not wanting to work as a team or ostracizing said members they stereotype.
Before understood more about gender identity, yes. I think it's likely more that I was speaking to a person when they were low on patience for reasons that had little to do with me. But it's amazing how vividly remember upsetting the person, and how afraid I can be at times at doing it again.
As a parent of a teenage child, I see it reasonably often between teens and "boomers". Teens absolutely use offense of misused pronouns as a weapon against older folks. But in fairness, older folks also refuse to use preferred pronouns as a weapon back.
But, of course, this is all typical generational strife, and the pronouns are mostly an irrelevant detail to the actual hostility.
So many social and cultural interactions are covers for hostility of various kinds that attempting to sanitise a relatively small subset is bound to fail.
Hostility runs on a spectrum from over-reaction caused by previous trauma to outright aggressive narcissism and sociopathy.
Unfortunately we don't have the social sophistication to reliably identify and call out hostility, or to accurately parse the difference between conscious ill intent, unconscious hostility and ill intent, over-sensitivity, personality disorder issues, criminal issues, and other forms of power play.
It's also not a big deal to accidentally get someone's last name wrong. There is way more social pressure around knowing and always using the correct pronoun for everyone you know.
Most of the people I know are LGBTQ with a large contingent of nonbinary people and trans people. The common theme when people bring this up from the other side is it's nice when people get it right on their own, but it hurts more when people assume wrong and then double down.
Using the wrong one can activate a low-level fear response for people trying to "pass" on the binary, but it's easily quelled by generally being kind. The fact that you're concerned about being wrong tells me you aren't the kind of person they worry about. Conventions wouldn't hand out pronoun stickers and pins if the widespread expectation was that people would just know.
Most of the social pressure you perceive comes from well-meaning cisgender allies trying to use their privilege to mold the world into something a little safer. Sometimes they go overboard. Have you ever seen a cisgender person try to argue with a nonbinary or binary trans person about their own identity not realizing they're talking to a person they're arguing about? It's surreal. They mean well.
I agree that some good will can go a long way. It's also surprisingly easy to just not use pronouns at all.
I was friends with a couple of trans people on college, and I would always either directly address them as "you", or use their name where I would normally say "he/she". It's not a big deal, I just hate that there is a subroutine in the back of my brain shouting "Don't say the wrong word! Don't say the wrong word!". I think that's the cognitive load OP was talking about.
If learning new pronouns was really that difficult, none of your peers would speak more than one language. This is just the way society deals with issues that are personal or to do with respect: you don't ask people why they use Ms., you don't ask why someone hasn't had children, you (probably) don't fistbump strangers, and you feel guilt when you forget someone's name. Similarly, in most of these cases, it's worse to be on the other side.
The trouble I'm having with social changes, expectations, per person pronouns, and other things is that managing all of these interactions can be a crushing amount of cognitive load.
Now that I think about it, it's the same challenge I have with microservices. Formerly simple interactions are now hellza complicated. I'm not fighting the trend. I'm just fatigued.