An entire vocabulary has evolved
It’s not just the Yale philosophy department (or one member of it). Yale Medicine advertises its “Transgender Glossary: Terms You Can Learn” on Facebook. It was published in March.
An entire vocabulary has evolved around people who are transgender, and if you’re not familiar with the latest terms, you can easily hurt someone’s feelings, even if that’s not your intention. Figuring out a person’s terms can be challenging—the lexicon includes words with meanings that have changed over time and could change again. And because each transgender person is navigating their own path, the best words to use in a conversation with them could vary depending on their circumstances.
It’s funny how no other oppressed or marginalized group has ever made such a nonsensical demand. It’s funny how all this Reform Your Language is for trans ideology and nothing else.
It’s such a ridiculous trap, and thus such an impertinent, indeed outrageous demand. The vocabulary is always changing, and if you don’t memorize it and stay up to date you will hurt someone’s feelings. Hey what about our feelings? What about our feelings of rage and disgust on being told such things?
Learning the jargon may be difficult, because it has changed before and could change again, but don’t you dare get it wrong. Hahaha sucks to be you. It varies with each person so actually there’s just no way you can get it right, but you have to, hahaha, sucks to be you.
No one is expected to get this right at first, but you could make a huge difference to a transgender person by being knowledgeable and sensitive about language, says Christy Olezeski, PhD, director and co-founder of the Yale Pediatric Gender Program, which cares for transgender and nonbinary people up to the age of 25.
Hey I have an idea! How about if, instead, a transgender person makes a huge difference to me by not making any of these demands and just getting on with life like the rest of us? How about if nobody demands that we use a special vocabulary that shifts constantly, just for Special Them?
“It’s really about respect,” Olezeski says. “This isn’t anything new. Transgender and nonbinary people are everywhere.”
It’s the opposite of respect. It’s pandering. It’s babying. It’s wrapping in cotton wool and indulging. It’s not good for people.
Queer: An umbrella term for those who think of their gender identity or sexual orientation as being outside of societal norms. Once considered a derogatory term, “queer” has been reclaimed by many within the LGBTQIA+ community as a term of empowerment, but still may be considered offensive by some, especially if used by a person who is not in the community.
No shit, so what are you telling us? Use it but don’t use it? Use it but be aware that “some” of those pesky Ls and Gs may hate it and hate you for saying it? How do we know who is “in the community” and who isn’t? Especially when it’s such an incoherent “community” and so riven with conflict over exactly this issue?
It’s one long cringe.
O.K., I clicked in hopes of finding a definition of “woman” and it wasn’t there, in case anyone else is wondering.
Yes of course they are the most delicate of snowflakes, and any offense might send them into a suicidal tantrum. Just look at twitter, you can see them everywhere, the offended, the offended on other’s behalf. We have to pander to their every whim or we’re bigots, or Nazis, or members of some hate group. Step very gingerly people, we don’t want to hurt anybody’s itty bitty feelings.
Or…
They could grow up, face reality, and take responsibility. God forbid. :P
Blacks asked us to stop calling them derogatory terms. They suggested ways to address them as a group, but the best way was to address them as fellow citizens.
Same with Gays, Lesbians, Women, Indigenes, Atheists, and other similarly marginalised groups. They asked us (the more powerful) to cease something, and for us, we lost nothing. It was easy, and many of us were already doing this.
But they did not ask us to cede language and biology to their cause. We did not have to redefine words, just eliminate the hurtful ones.
There are many trans people trying to live their best lives in peaceful co-existence, and I admire and support them. Their struggles are real. Then there is the Ku Klux Klan of Gender Borgs who don’t want co-existence, they want total domination.
We don’t have a real-world precedent for such a massive, mandatory upheaval in permitted language, but we do have a fictional one — Orwell’s Newspeak. By subtly changing the meaning of words and banning certain words altogether, the goal is to make forbidden ideas and concepts literally impossible to express. And as in Orwell, in some countries the use of “wrong” language and expression of forbidden views is now punishable by the government, as “hate speech”.
Here are some words and phrases I bet you won’t find in their euphemistic, obfuscatory, dishonest little “glossary”.
Arrested brain development
Bone problems
Castration
Comorbidity
Delusion
Desist
Detransition
Fetish
Irrevesible
Lifelong medicalization
Mastectomy
Mutilation
Safeguarding
Sexual dysfunction
Sterilization
Watchful waiting
Just the first ones off the top of my head. These are words and phrases that are being kept from dysphoric youth, even though knowing them might make a world of difference to their health, safety and well-being.
Interesting ideas.
Twiliter asks us to ‘step gingerly’. However as a ‘ginger’ – that is someone with red hair, I am deeply upset at their use of the word ‘ginger’. Only gingers can call other gingers, ginger.
Moving on……
How about they badge themselves with the terms they prefer to be talked about in the third person?
First person is the ‘I / we’ perspective. No problems there that I can see. Second person is the ‘you’ perspective. Again, no problems. Third person is the ‘he / she / it / they’ perspective. So there it boils down to a choice between ‘he’ and ‘she.’
The badge could be of modest size, to be worn on the lapel or upper body. Or, it could range up to the size of a sandwich board. Though if the latter, it would be best not to walk into a bank while wearing it. Could be suspected of having a gun concealed by it, and become yet another tragic item for the evening news.
There is one group that presents demands, puts the onus on others to comply, vilifies noncompliance, and continually alters the demands so that others can never keep up and always fail in some way.
Indeed, but Narcissists aren’t generally candidates for Oppressed Minority Group status. Unless, that is, they call themselves trans.
To quote Olympic Women weightlifters, “No, thank you.”
To quote me, “Fuck no.”