YOU become responsible
McKinnon shared this extraordinary tweet last night:
Missgendering is a HUGE trigger for suicidal ideation. Every time u MISGENDER a trans person YOU become responsible for their suicide attempts. If u have ever misgendered someone and as a result they committed, then YOU are to blame for said person losing their life. #transrights
Seriously? Is that true even if the “misgendered” person is not present when you “misgender” zem? And how does anyone know the person who “committed” did it because YOU “misgendered” zem?
If both of those claims are true then talking to or about people at all becomes a terrible hazard. Maybe we’d better all just stop doing it?
Don’t forget, McKinnon is an academic, whose field is philosophy. McKinnon teaches philosophy to students, and also retweets (to endorse, one must assume) the nonsensical dreck above.
I am ok with this, providing It’s fucksticks like McKinnon and Yaniv…
Just so much emotional blackmail.
Besides, McKinnon himself disproves the thesis: if calling him “him” were truly triggering of suicide, he’d be dead by now. He isn’t. Therefore, I think transgender people are emotionally robust enough to handle being correctly sexed.
I just don’t get it.
One of the things therapists are trained to be aware of is what’s called the “Werther Effect,” named for an 18th century fictional character who killed himself, thereby setting off a rash of nonfictional suicides inspired by the romantic depiction. Suicide is in a sense contagious, and telling vulnerable populations that there’s a good chance they will die by their own hand is verboten. Even portraying victims as somehow noble or beset upon is risky — good intentions can backfire. You wouldn’t want to set up a program in high schools warning teens that the most popular reason for teen suicide is breaking up, for example. It would lead to an increase in teens killing themselves after a breakup. When Netflix put out a series called “13 Reasons Why” they were strongly criticized by people who work with adolescents.
And yet somehow telling and saying and explaining over and over again that TRANS PEOPLE WILL KILL THEMSELVES if they aren’t VALIDATED is just a dandy thing to say, sensitive and caring and valiant. The fact that pretty much everyone from psychologists to the media sets up the expectation in every trans person— particularly the young — somehow isn’t considered a grave lapse of responsibility and good sense. No, it’s now a good idea. And when they trot it out themselves, jump.
Another thing most therapists are taught is that it’s important to help people establish an inner locus of control, the strength and resilience to be able to live life happily without being dependent on what other people say or do. And again, this cardinal principle of psychology is thrown on the floor and danced upon when it comes to transgender. Not “I don’t need the approval of other people, I am sufficient in myself “ but “look what YOU MADE ME DO!!!!”
Seriously, wtf.
One of the more annoying mischaracterizations regarding “preferred pronouns” is “address people using their preferred pronouns”. No, you don’t generally use these 3rd-person pronouns when addressing anyone, only when talking about them, possibly without them present. The ideology enlists people’s friends and supporters to police the language of others.
Nobody seems to give a crap about misgendering anyone other than trans people. Despite the insistence that people can have whatever pronouns they want, whether they are trans or not, the only people they seem to care about are those who are trans and choose pronouns that do not match their sex. Is it misgendering to use “he” to refer to a man who acknowledges being a man but prefers some gender-neutral set of pronouns?
Sastra,
FTFY
Rhys!
Rhys!
Rhys!
He, he, he, he, him, him, him is an asshole.
If you tell a philosopher that they are a shit philosopher who couldn’t construct an argument that would fight it’s way out of a wet paper bag, and then they change career because they realise they ARE a shit philosopher; are you responsible? Or, are they responsible for being a shit philosopher?
Sea levels rising, Polar ice melting in torrents, global temperatures edging up, forest ecosystems in flames, ISIS back in business, America being dismantled one Tweet at a time, racism and misogyny fueled by our leaders, children in concentration camps, genocides ignored, the market in trumpmoil, 75% of us are one major illness away from insolvency, girls are being trafficked globally, but for the want of a pronoun it all came tumbling down.
Makes a horseshoe nail pretty substantial and important in comparison…
Pliny, I almost feel that you’re implying a sense of perspective is required. We all know how that turned out for Trin Tragula’s wife.
Why is it so appealing to depict “your side” as crystalline, fragile folk unable to bear even the slightest slights?
“We” have all just accepted the often-quoted suicide stats.
There must really be great power in victimhood.
So what is DOCTOR WORLD CHAMPION RACHEL MCKINNON personally responsible for when wishing that terfs die in grease fires?
Nothing, of course! Nothing nothing nothing!
I think we all need a refresher in ontological totalitarianism: https://janeclarejones.com/2018/12/08/ontological-totalitarianism-by-numbers/
You have all heard a version of the old rhyme told to children as a warning against lying, I assume. I remember it as Every time you tell a lie, a little fairy has to die, but I’m sure there were regional variations.
With that in mind, I give you Every time that you misgender, another trans returns to sender.
I have a question. If one misgenders a transperson and causes that transperson to go through some self-reflection, resulting in him/her reaching a ‘what the fuck was I thinking’ moment leading to a de-transition, would BigMc hold one responsible for the death of the alter ego that has been discarded?
Missgendering.
Hahahahaha!
Missgendering, he says.
But…I thought he wanted to be missgendered!
Abusive emotional blackmail, plain and simple.
Continuing Sackbut’s comment (#4):
More than that – if I want to refer to someone without revealing their gender, my preferred non-gendered 3rd-person pronoun construction is “them” (avoiding awkward she/he constructions and other possibilities).
Example: “A student in my class raised an important question; they wanted to know if I would be using people’s preferred pronouns.”
Now, imagine the student in question has identified “she” as a preferred pronoun. According to this ideology I have somehow violated their rights – and ideologues in the room might be tempted to call me out! BUT: The whole point of using “them” is to avoid gendering the student in question, regardless of their actual preferred pronoun.
The 3rd-person pronoun is a choice made by the speaker, not the subject.
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