Comment by Dobbs | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Dobbs | Hacker News Reader

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I really wish more details about this was available.

> it seems that SE is unwilling to protect trans moderators from vitriol by other mods.

Reading Monica's post made me pretty sure this was trans related. I'm sad that I was right.

> [From Monica's Post] unlike the rest of the CoC, this rule mandates specific, positive actions.

This is something I've heard many times from anti-trans activists in order to justify their purposeful, and intentional misgendering and dead-naming of trans individuals. I'm not saying that is what Monica is advocating, but my spidey-sense is definitely tingling.

> [From Monica's Post] chastising me for raising issues and saying my values were out of alignment.

Again this is something I hear from anti-trans activists. We saw similar rhetoric from homophobic individuals back in the 90s. That their religion and values dictated that gay people were bad therefore they couldn't <insert action here>.

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Without knowing more it is hard to say, but even if this isn't about trans people Monica's arguments aren't inherently right. One person's religious beliefs don't justify the disregard for others. A very extreme example would be that many KKK member's religion states that black people are inherently inferior, and we don't give that belief consideration.

If you know more, please do share, because right now it seems like one sides arguments are valid, but they can quickly fall apart depending upon the specifics.

I understand your scepticism, and was thinking hard about this before I published the linked post.

Anti-trans and anti-CoC sentiment are certainly part of the issue at hand, but likely not by Monica. Some of the resignations may be partially motivated by hate, many of the responses definitely are. However, there are many other aspects of the firing that are problematic by themselves, regardless of the reason for the firing.

It doesn't matter what Monica believes, only how she acts and speaks. It is my understanding (based on hearsay) that at no point in this incident did she make statements that would be considered transphobic by a reasonable person. While she was uncomfortable with upcoming CoC changes, she was also asking for clarification and guidance in good faith. Definitely not in that “I'm just asking a question!” trolling style. Asking sincere questions would be the sign of a potential ally, it is illogical to shut those down. However, some of the relevant correspondence is in personal emails, so we'll never know the truth.

I'm confident that she didn't say or do anything that would violate the current or upcoming SE CoC, but that the director firing her felt that Monica's questions were evidence that she would not uphold the upcoming CoC. This is silly: if a mod feels they are unable to fulfil their position they can just resign, no need to boot them in advance. I dislike the “thoughtcrime” meme, but here it might actually fit.

There's also an aspect that I find more troubling, which is the legitimacy of CoCs. They only protect the community when violations are investigated fairly. Normally the problem is that the CoC is not enforced enough. Here, a CoC was enforced without there being a violation, and that gives ammunition to the idiots who think the sole purpose of a CoC is to silence insufficiently progressive speech.

Edit 1: the first resignation is in that explicitly lists the CoC as reason for resignation [1]. The CoC will apparently require that correct pronouns are used.

Edit 2: the new CoC will allegedly require pronouns, i.e. will not allow the avoidance of pronouns. As a person who prefers non-standard pronouns, such a requirement is counterproductive because it requires some people to act against their conscience, whereas avoiding pronouns still avoids misgendering and lets everyone save face.

[1]: https://christianity.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6718/b...

Thanks. I do appreciate the details, and the discussion around this. As I said I don't know what Monica said so I'm trying to reserve judgement, but I am sceptical because of how I've seen many of these arguments play out. I would be interested in seeing the details of the particular conversation, because this is one of those situations where details really truly matter.

I'm not perfect, but I understand the need to use the correct pronouns. Ultimately Stack Exchange needs to make this new CoC public. People should know the guidelines to post on a site and not unintentionally break rules that one can't read...

I think that you're spot-on. Some 2% of the population is neither man nor woman; if Monica doesn't use "they" to refer to them, then how does she refer to them?

Well in this case biology doesn't give the question a consideration, even though the issue is not anyone, even the moderator in question, attacking anyone for being transsexual. No one even knows one gender on stackoverflow, you just assume it from name or write neutrally.

What does biology have to do with what I wrote? If someone says call me Pete and you then insist on calling them Sam, you are being a jerk.

Also “write neutrally” tends to not actually be written neutrally. “Guys” being one of the common examples, it is used neutrally but inherently has a male biases. This can be frustrating to many women, trans or cis. Invisible Women has a lot in it about this problem and knock on effects of it.

Why are you using the word transsexual? It is largely a medical term at this point referring to the someone who has undergone full SRS. As it is generally considered quite rude to talk about people’s genital configuration the LGBT community has largely moved on from this term to transgender.

Well I'm not an American or native speaker, it's rude to think we all live in the same culture and moral code too.

The other threads show that there has never been a complaint about misgendering anyone on purpose but the new CoC lays out bunch of very difficult to characterize commandments.

The biology has to do with it that no matter what we decide how to speak in society, it doesn't inherently change the fact sex has very much biological meaning and words don't change that. That is the belief consideration we give a lot of power even though we should not.

Of course sex has a biological meaning. Trans people are more aware of that than anyone else. That is why many trans people change their primary and secondary sex characteristics through hormones and surgery.

You can change your sex but not your gender.

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