Hacker News Reader

> It's a niche thing.

One needs a very special kind of schooling and/or social circle to even imagine there's a difference. It seems to be very limited to (some) Americans.

Some people suffer from phantom limb syndrome. The pain is real, but the limb is not. We've not yet reached a point where the politically correct thing to do is to pretend otherwise.

View on HN

Everyone understands that in the vast majority of times we use man/woman, he/she, or him/her, the intention is not to specifically draw attention to a person's reproductive organs. It doesn't take special schooling to detect this distinction, though it does require some thought to figure out what to make of it.

There would only be PC pressure to pretend a trans man has a penis if "having a penis" were a vital component of being a man, which it is not. In any case, the circumstances under which one finds themselves having to confirm the presence/character of another persons genitals usually either fall outside of or supersede the jurisdiction of "political correctness".

Reply on news.ycombinator.com