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Comment by soulofmischief | Hacker News Reader

> Not to mention his refusal to respect the pronouns of trans, queer, and nonbinary folks.

I'm sorry, but this isn't a prerequisite for working in the software industry. You are not allowed to vilify someone over having an opinion about gender, just like you shouldn't fire someone for having a different opinion on it than you.

"Leah was at the time struggling with gender dysphoria and substance abuse. Since then, she has been managing these issues. She agrees that her behaviour was rash and is determined to find a unifying solution."

The people involved have moved on. The internet, however, is still trying to sling mud where there is none in an embarrassing display of social lynching and lack of loyalty to people who have done so much for human freedom.

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I don't know anything about the RMS incident -- but I work for a public university system in California, and last time I had the mandatory every-other-year sexual harassment prevention training, it said it was un-lawful for me not to use a person's identified pronouns.

I guess that it could be seen as employer discriminating on employee on basis of sex or something which could make the company liable, but on personal level First Amendment still applies and there is no way you could be prosecuted for that.

https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2019/may/fired-for-refusing-...

"""We were referred to a statement released by the school's attorney, which says: "Mr. Vlaming insisted on treating a transgender student differently than other students in the classroom, singling out the student on the basis of gender identity. In addition, Mr. Vlaming refused to comply with administrators' directives to follow division policies. During the public hearing before the school board, Mr. Vlaming again stated that he would not comply with these directives. Accordingly, the school board voted unanimously to terminate his employment. """

The fired individual does not have the monetary resources to fight this in the courts.

When I am performing my duties as a supervisor employed by the state, what do my personal first amendment rights have to do with anything?

They're not being entirely honest with you. That's not what the law says. However, you are an at-will employee, and if they document that you make another employee uncomfortable for not respecting their preferred pronoun, you can be fired.

It's not un-lawful however. If you asked them during the training for a specific law and a pointer to why they thought that it was un-lawful, you'd see pretty quickly they didn't actually have the force of law behind them.

I've been through a lot of training both at UC and in industry and a bunch of what is said simply isn't true. WHen I challenged the instructors, it became pretty clear they were just reading a script without any understanding of the actual laws and rules behind what they were saying.

it is online training, and it does have lots of citations. I took it about 22 months ago.

"The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has also addressed pronoun use with respect to transgender individuals in the workplace. In 2013, the EEOC held in Jameson v. U.S. Postal Service, EEOC Appeal No. 0120130992, 2013 WL 2368729 (May 21, 2013) that repeated, intentional misuse of a transgender employee’s new name and gender pronoun may constitute sex-based discrimination or harassment. It noted that “supervisors and coworkers should use the name and pronoun of the gender that the employee identifies with in employee records and in communications with and about the employee.” In its decision, the EEOC cited guidance from the Office of Personnel Management, which encourages federal employers to use pronouns appropriate to an employee’s expressed gender identity." -- https://www.natlawreview.com/article/he-saidshe-said-pronoun...

that's definitely not enough to say that it's unlawful.

> and last time I had the mandatory every-other-year sexual harassment prevention training, it said it was un-lawful for me not to use a person's identified pronouns.

The trainer probably wasn't a lawyer and certainly wasn't your lawyer and definitely wasn't being paid to give you legal advice. What they were telling you was what they expected you to internalize so that your behavior would keep your employer well on the safe side of the law, which includes avoiding behaviors which are not individually unlawful per se but which could easily, in combination with other factors, be part of a pattern that might support a claim of a hostile work environment.

on-line training. I'm pretty sure these are vetted by OGC. They usually do a good job of explaining all the new legislation and case law that have come up in the last two years.

https://legal.thomsonreuters.com/en/insights/articles/prepar...

https://ogletree.com/insights/2016-03-21/the-new-california-...

In some places, people have been charged with hate speech crimes for this very thing. I am extremely opposed to this kind of authoritarian censorship masquerading as human decency. Why? Because of things like this: https://www.newsweek.com/gun-control-hate-crimes-house-bill-...

People aren't seeing the forest for the trees, while one by one prerequisite precedents are being established for a new wave of authoritarian control. In any specific context, it seems laughable-- how could the RMS snafu and authoritarian power creep possibly be connected? But it's just one data point among many.

> I'm sorry, but this isn't a prerequisite for working in the software industry. You are not allowed to vilify someone over having an opinion about gender, just like you shouldn't fire someone for having a different opinion on it than you.

Oh yes you are allowed to vilify someone for bullying LGBT folks. People who do this are literally attacking other people over who they are and what they cannot change. Just imagine it would be about the color of their skin. Gender identity or sexual/dating preferences are the same thing.

The IT industry must grow up and accept people who are not white, cis alpha males.

If the IT industry only accepted alpha males it would be an industry empty of people.

Then you must agree that you are allowed to vilify someone for bullying autistic folks. After all people who do this are literally attacking other people over who they are and what they cannot change. Right? The IT industry must grow up and accept people who are not neurotypical.

does white mean something besides color of skin?

Attacking someone and stating your own opinion about gender are two wildly different things. Do not falsely equate them in order to villify RMS. What you are doing is called a Motte and Bailey. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Motte_and_bailey

Of course you're not supposed to bully anyone. That has nothing to do with this conversation.

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