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Comment by tangled_zans | Hacker News Reader

The initial comment was just a joke, mate (clearly you're the one choosing to be outraged over my tone?) which came out of my assumption that it's impossible to both know that she is transgender and that she does not want to be called Bruce.

If that was indeed an honest error then you could have elaborated on how it was possible for you to hold both of these contradicting views simultaneously, and I would have admitted that I was wrong to assume that you were a prick.

Since instead of doing that you've decided to deflect with "STOP WITH THE OUTRAGE THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS!", I did surmise that you are simply not aware of what 'respect' is. Hence while it was wrong of me to take on that role of 'teaching' it to you (what a waste of effort), I stand by my implication that someone should have done that by now.

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Why should I have to explain why I accidentally called someone by the name they went by for 65 years. It's not a contradictory view. It's a slip up. My response was literally a 5 second google search, went with the name in the title, and posted.

No malice, no motives, just a mistake. Stop reading so far into it.

The way you worded your response was basically, "If it was an error why are you a bigot?"

Hmm, you are right, I read into it a bit too much.

Like I said, I felt insulted by you labelling my off-hand comment as "outrage", especially after you agreed that I was factually correct.

In hindsight I can see why you took offence to my original comment, but there is a massive difference in connotation between saying "I am offended" and "you are outraged". [0]

As I am a big proponent of free speech online, your implication of what I should and should not be able to say has been quite vexing to me, hence my annoyance. But I shouldn't have conflated that with whatever your views on trans women are.

[0] http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2164

>As I am a big proponent of free speech online, your implication of what I should and should not be able to say has been quite vexing to me, hence my annoyance.

See

>Stop reading so far into it.

and

>Be civil. [0]

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Yes I think I've already reached an understanding with the OP, but thanks for chiming in.

You're welcome! One last thing, I noticed that you referred to OP using a gendered pronoun. Given that women (and other genders too!) are allowed to use the Internet in many countries [0] it is best to not gender pseudo-anonymous entities who have not explicitly signaled their gender or preferred pronouns. Unlike in Portuguese, Spanish, or whatever your native tongue may be, in English there are gender-neutral pronouns available. Two possible alternatives are singular they [1] or the Spivak pronoun e [2]. Defaulting to masculine pronouns as you did creates an environment that is unwelcoming and hostile for some, so to foster a welcoming space for all you should default to gender-neutral language. Overall your English is pretty good, keep practicing! Just wanted to clear that up, and thanks again!

[0] https://www.itu.int/net/wsis/docs/geneva/official/dop.html

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they

[2] https://books.google.com/books?id=SK3VRr7bFVkC&pg=PA138#v=on...

I referred to the OP with a gendered pronoun because he misnamed Caitlyn and it is well known that men are more likely to mislabel trans women, as well as more likely to be trolls online - as you are being now, so I assume that you are male too. I will leave you to it now, well done for your little essay.

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