How do you know when it’s malicious?
Some are more equal than others:
Green and other activists for transgender rights view it as deeply offensive to deliberately use the wrong pronoun for a trans person. Doing so could be an offence under the Malicious Communications Act, which makes it a crime to send messages that are indecent or grossly offensive, threatening, or contain information which is false or believed to be false, if the purpose for sending it is to cause distress or anxiety.
People can view anything as anything; that doesn’t make it true. People can “view” something as deeply offensive when it isn’t, or when reasonable people would agree it isn’t, or when reasonable people would disagree over whether it is or isn’t, and so on. “Deeply offensive” is an opinion word, and also an emotion pump. We’re supposed to feel an extra flush of anger because of the “deeply” – the offensiveness must be at the level of blasphemy or similar.
The reality is that many activists for transgender rights have made a lot of things “deeply offensive” by shouting about them for a long time without stopping. Sometimes when people do that it’s a good thing: slavery is “deeply offensive”; genocide is “deeply offensive”; white supremacy is “deeply offensive”; rape and sexual abuse are “deeply offensive.” But other times when people create a new category of “deeply offensive” it’s not a good thing. Whether and when and in what circumstances and for what reason someone “uses the wrong pronoun for a trans person” can vary, plus of course the claim that the pronoun is “wrong” is already debatable.
With all that, and more that one could say, it’s a little dubious to accept the claim that it in fact is “deeply offensive” to use a disfavored pronoun in a world where calling women cunts is laughed off.
It’s also questionable that being “deeply offensive” should be a crime. This is the defense the Islamists use when they hack someone to bits for causing offense. It’s the defense the Christians and/or Jews use when they are demanding someone behave in a particular way around them. It is “deeply offensive” for an orthodox Jewish man to be seated by a woman on an airplane; we certainly don’t think either the airline or the woman should be charged with a crime (though they usually make the woman move).
It is part of free speech to be “deeply offensive” in most situations. We can criticize nasty speech, ask for Twitter to cancel accounts, etc (which trans people seem to be good at getting done, while women? not so much). But to make a crime out of someone hurting our feelings? Maybe it should be a crime every time a trans activist refers to me as a “cis-woman”? I find that “deeply offensive”. I do not consider it a crime, even though it is marginalizing me in a whole new way, by putting on me an identity that labels me as an oppressor, in spite of the fact I have not oppressed anyone.
A few cases have crossed my news feed recently in which police became involved because someone “misgendered” a trans person. It’s always a trans person, never otherwise. Perhaps the thing to do is switch all the pronouns, and call all men “she” and “woman”. I suppose the trans lobby would catch on eventually, though.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world-us-canada-47642335
Trump’s Trumping again! Bemoaning the lack of thanks he got for allowing McCain to receive a state funeral*, and saying that McCain let down ‘vets and the VA’ by not repealing Obamacare.
He’s feuding with a dead man, for fuck sake, and he’s not even winning that!
*Not his call, Senate decides.
**I would love to know the connection here, but I’ve a feeling it doesn’t even exist in Trump’s near-vacuum of a mind.
Sorry, Ophelia, wrong post!
I’m a lot less likely to use the “preferred” pronouns of tranns activists who are being abusive (like RM and MO), and might just refer to them using their last name, but at this point, I’m going to be inclined to use he/him/his because I’m disinclined to offer a courtesy to someone undeserving of it. It feels like an imposition and a demand for validation of a delusional belief that is being used for political ends. The validation itself is half the battle and a concession to the delusion. Things have progressed (regressed?) To the point that I am unwilling to make that concession, or have it extracted against my will. When I say “woman” I mean natal woman, but as that is the only kind of woman I recognize, I will drop the “natal” part only to make my meaning clear and avoid confusion. On Morgane Oger’s Twitter profile, the first item in her description is Adult human female. I do not accept that assertion. Oger is human, perhaps an adult, not female. Using she/her/hers for Oger is like calling Tibet “Tibet” instead of the name for this region preferred by the Chinese government, Xizang Autonomous Region.
Not Bruce, you’re quite on the money. It is why I still refer to Burma, rather than the name imposed after a military coup.
OTOH, I am happy to refer to Sri Lanka instead of Ceylon and Turtle Island instead of USA. :-) Turtle Island really gets the white racists confused.
On the other hand, I’m quite happy to refer to Muhammad Ali instead of Cassius Clay; he changed name to reflect his personal choices, but he didn’t insist on something that existed outside of reality.
Speaking of which, notice how ‘deadnaming’ is only an act of sin when referring to the birth name of a trans person. There are plenty of people that have changed their names for various reasons, yet you don’t hear similar outcry when it is pointed out that e.g. Yusuf Islam was born as Steven Demetre Georgiou.
Never mind that it is a matter of historical fact that a trans person’s name was different in the past, pointing out that Caitlyn used to be Bruce Jenner is an act of terrorism or something.
Although I’ll grant that there certainly are obnoxious people on that point; after all, Caitlyn Jenner’s name *is* Caitlyn rather than Bruce, as it was changed legally. Those that continue to say Bruce in place of Caitlyn are doing it to be jerks deliberately.
You say:
Hmmm. I think I’d take issue with that. If your response to those things is that they’re offensive, I think you’ve missed the moral point. The wrong in all those cases is fundamentally different. Indeed, I think that one of the problems with the way that this debate has gone – and twitter-morality in general – is that everything has been reduced to whether or not its offensive. And that, in a way, trivialises everything. My response to genocide or rape is qualitatively different from my response to being called a pig-faced poo-brain. And, I’d contend, it’s rightly different.
“Offence:” might be harder to criticize than actual harm, as you can’t look inside someone’s brain to see if they really are offended. It’s like self- identification in that it’s completely subjective and can’t
Enzyme, I think that’s the point she’s trying to make. She put “deeply offensive” in scare quotes for a reason. Yes, they are more that that, and that is why the idea that calling something “deeply offensive” while not actually causing real harm is in a different category. The trans activists often compare their disputes with so-called TERFs to many of these things that are “deeply offensive” and also the fundamentally wrong, in order to elevate their status as oppressed.
They want us to see using the ‘wrong’ pronoun, even by accident as equivalent to the Holocaust, when it is more accurately seen as the equivalent to you being called a pig-faced poo brain. I don’t go around calling people such things as that, and I am willing to use the pronouns they prefer, but I do not see “misgendering” as equivalent in any way, shape, or form to putting six million Jews to death for nothing other than being Jew. And I certainly don’t see that for the non-malicious “misgendering” of a person accidentally because they happen to have done nothing to transition (except maybe put on a dress, but a lot of them don’t even do that).
Ophelia was just pointing out the ridiculousness of their demand.
Re Holms #8
I have a friend who is pretty solidly into trans ideology. She had a horrific childhood, and changed her name several times to distance herself from her family. She gets angry at people who mention one of her old names, calling those actions “deadnaming”, and uses herself as an example of why “deadnaming” trans people is so terrible.
Not that she’s open to discussing the issue, but her painful history is not universal. Lots of people do change their names, and it shouldn’t be assumed that it’s automatically a terrible thing to note what they changed from.
Enzyme – I agree, but what I meant was that making a lot of things “deeply offensive” by shouting about them for a long time without stopping can be a good thing. It’s the shouting for a long time without stopping that can be good, because it wakes us up and produces moral revulsion.
Oh sure, and likewise people in witness protection arrangements, where the person is placed at risk of murder if their old name gets out. Those are very good reasons to not mention the old name, and even to hide its very existence. However, I do not see that this is analogous to the old name of a trans person, who changed their name for decidedly non-lethal reasons. Although I am guessing that a trans person or ally will inform me that using their old name* is ‘literal murder’ due to one of those absurd equivocation chains:
using the old name increases the stress of the trans person ==> increasing stress is physical harm ==> deliberate physical harm is assault ==> the grades within personal injury law differ in degree but not in type ==> causing stress is of the same type as murder
Using a birth name is murder.
*I find the term ‘deadnaming’ silly and melodramatic, so refuse to use it.
Holms, I was clumsily trying to provide an example where someone considered “deadnaming” (expressly using that term) a sin in reference to someone who is not trans. I suspect this example usage is a side effect of the Kool-aid, so to speak.
I agree with your points, and I agree the term “deadnaming” is silly.
But using a transperson’s birthname suggests that they were once the opposite sex, and we know because we have been told that if Bert Jones, 53, decides today that from now on he is a she called Brenda, then she has always been a woman called Brenda and therefore Bert never existed, official records notwithstanding.
“Those that continue to say Bruce in place of Caitlyn are doing it to be jerks deliberately.”
When I do so, as I sometimes do, it’s to make a point that I think is valid and can be best made this way. Not to “be a jerk.” The definition of “being a jerk” has been vastly emotionally inflated, too.
There’s also the point I think I mentioned recently, that doesn’t get enough attention (in fact any, that I’ve seen), that the names & pronouns thing is conditioning. That is presumably why it’s such a hot ticket, but it’s also a reason to resist it.
#18
What I had in mind (but forgot mention) was a face to face conversation. Directly addressing someone with their old name, despite knowing that they have legally changed it, is a deliberate jab at them. Trans person or not.