Should you use the language?
Is he right?
Before I get to that question – note Fred Wallace thinking anyone wants to get a good look at his thigh, let alone beyond it.
So. Should we use the language?
New question: how can we use the language when we don’t believe in the ideology that mandates the language? It’s like saying we should refer to people as rabbits if they say they are rabbits. It’s like saying we should refer to The Holy Father when we’re not Catholics.
That’s all the more true with this particular ideology because the language basically is the ideology. “Identifying as” is the ideology. The belief that “identifying as” is more real than being is the ideology. The belief that declaration creates reality is the ideology.
We can’t refer to men as “she” without endorsing the ideology. The two aren’t independent of each other. If we call men “she” we are surrendering and submitting to the ideology, when we think the ideology is poison as well as riddled with stupidity.
He’s drawing on the convention that, other things being equal, we call people what they say they are called. That’s the default, that’s normal. But it’s cheating to use the default to justify absurdities. I can’t go around saying my name is Nelson Mandela and you have to call me that. I can do that in a literal sense but it will get me nothing but contempt.
In ordinary circumstances, sure, we call people what they say they are called. In the other kind of circumstances, it depends. Here ends today’s lesson in etiquette.
Yes. Using the language is giving away the game. It’s not true that “it costs nothing” to “use the language.” Quite the opposite. It exacts a heavy price. Caving in on “transwoman” instead of “trans identified male” gave them far too much power and argumentative clout. It gave them camouflage, and a foot in the door, allowing them to take things that weren’t theirs and gain access to facilities never meant for them. This is usually called “theft” and “trespassing.”
Think of all the news stories about prisons, hospital wards, violent crime and sports rewritten with “trans identified male” in place of “transwoman,” using “he” instead of “she.” They’d be much more truthful, and much less persuasive of the merits and justice of so-called “inclusion.” “Exclusion” would make a lot more sense. It would be seen as rational and prudent rather than the bitter, mean-spirited spite of so many bigoted Karens. This distortion of reality and sense is exactly what “using the language” is meant to do. Who’s going to believe “Trans Identified Males Are Women!” however many claps they care to add?
Yes, they’re leveraging the convention to demand acquiescence to a lie, which is really quite rude if you think about it. They’re rudely demanding we treat them politely.
YNnB, quite right. Not only are they rudely demanding that we treat them politely, but are inventing a whole new version of politeness which is actually quite rude to anyone who isn’t one of the cult.
The other issue is that their language is sorely lacking: it has no means to adequately describe observably material groups like adult human females, nor biological sex, nor power structures between the sexes or much, much more. We cannot communicate effectively with it.