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Comment by jawarner | Hacker News Reader

My point in using the extreme example is not to suggest that people are insisting on their use. I chose a fringe example, for which it is socially acceptable to express skepticism, in order to illustrate the point that there are gray areas in how society validates some identities and is less inclusive of others.

In the link you provided, one Redditor "struggles to stay progressive about" neo-pronouns. Another Redditor considers such skepticism to be "extremely gatekeepy and transphobic."

I don't have any reason to believe that someone preferring kitten-folk pronouns is being dishonest or disingenuous, even in this more extreme example.

But what is the principle under which some identity claims are accepted more than others? I have my own thoughts, but I'm curious to get yours. Do you think there is room in society for people on occasion to feel uncomfortable with someone's proposed identity?

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Obviously there is not some simple set of rules that will help you to navigate every difficult question relating to personal identity. But now you are talking about hypotheticals, not real problems that occur in choosing a suitable pronoun for someone in a realistic situation.

I’m highly skeptical that there are people who go through life getting angry with every person who won’t call them ‘kitten’. But if you know of any actual examples of this, feel free to provide them.

It’s sad that debates about issues that affect real trans people so often get sidetracked into these irrelevant hypotheticals. This isn’t an academic debate. We don’t have to solve all the edge cases before we can start doing the right thing in the common case.

All too often in these discussions, one side is just saying to be kind to everyone, while the other insists on a philosophical debate, so they end up talking past each other. I would hope that someone learning about trans people is able to update their beliefs about gender: “I used to believe that gender is always tied to sex, but there seems to be a sizeable majority of people for whom this is not the case, and so I will update my beliefs and learn.” Anybody who isn’t capable of this is honestly stubborn, and there are also assholes who go out of their way to harass or debate this topic in contexts where they shouldn’t. The majority of discussion around gender should focus on these points and being humble about your beliefs and kind to others.

But these are all points agreed on by myself, GP, and GGP comments. The question you replied to asked, “Yes, we should be kind to people and refer to people how they prefer. But, there are some non-binary identities that I don’t have buy-in for. I will of course refer to people by their preferred pronouns to be kind, but can anyone give another reason?” There is a place for this kind of conversation, too, on occasion.

You can see that lliamander doesn’t actually agree with all of those points from replies upthread (they are being asked to “lie”).

> But, there are some non-binary identities that I don’t have buy-in for. I will of course refer to people by their preferred pronouns to be kind, but can anyone give another reason?

In the general case your question answers itself. If you don't believe that someone is really (e.g.) a woman, then obviously there is no reason to refer to them using their preferred female pronouns except general politeness and kindness.

If I understand correctly, you are concerned about cases where someone does not accept either 'they', 'he' or 'she' as acceptable pronouns. I would urge you to find a real example, as discussing such cases in the abstract based on Wikipedia articles is frankly ridiculous. But again, the answer to your question in the abstract is obvious. If you don't believe that the person's identity is real, then you can either use their preferred pronouns to be polite – or not.

I fail to see any real philosophical issue that's raised here, given that you already accept that gender and biological sex are not inextricably linked. I guess there's the question of "How do I tell if someone's reported identity is real?", but that seems to be just a special case of "How do I tell if someone is being honest?". The answer is of course that you do so using your general nous.

> that seems to be just a special case of "How do I tell if someone is being honest?"

Is it that simple? Nobody is doubting the honesty of anyone involved. The real matter is there is a cultural tradition called gender, and some people see it as a flexible thing, and to others it’s not, or less so.

You linked to the HRC FAQ, so you must have felt it was relevant to what lliamander was saying. I’m curious what information it contains that could convince someone to be more flexible in their gender definition? What would you say to someone who doubts the validity of non-binary identities? What would it take to convince you that those “extreme,” to reflect your language, neopronoun-based identities are real and valid?

> If I understand correctly, you are concerned about cases where someone does not accept either 'they', 'he' or 'she' as acceptable pronouns.

That’s not what I said at all. I’m not sure how you got that impression. I brought up neopronouns to show that most people have a degree of inflexibility in their conception of gender. These examples you’re asking for are besides the point.

Edit: Do you see how I’m using devils advocate? I personally believe that transgender identities are real and valid, for whatever that’s worth. But if you consider an extremely liberal position on gender, it’s useful to see how you react to it.

>I brought up neopronouns to show that most people have a degree of inflexibility in their conception of gender.

People's objections to neopronouns are usually practical and linguistic in nature rather than stemming from any particular inflexibility about gender. I don't really doubt that some people have gender identities that fall completely outside the usual male/female classification scheme. What I do doubt is that any significant number of these people think that the pronominal system of any given language must necessarily encode the relevant conceptual aparatus in its morphology. After all, there are plenty of languages where pronouns don't have gender at all. If someone is talking about you in Chinese, then 'tā' is all you're getting – and who could reasonably complain about that? That's not to say that I'm reflexively (tee hee) opposed to all neopronouns. Adding additional gender-neutral pronouns to some languages might make sense, conceivably.

I can see how it would be nice to have a general argument that would prove to a skeptic that any arbitrary non-binary identity was 'valid'. However, there are a couple of reasons why I don't think this is a reasonable thing to ask for. First, different identities are different. If the 'validity' of a given identity comes into question, then one has to argue on a case-by-case basis. Second, while it is almost certainly very rare for people to be delusional or dishonest about their gender identities, it is clearly possible in principle. Thus, the requested argument would either be an argument to a false conclusion, or would have to presuppose the honesty and sanity of the relevant person, at which point it would beg the very question that is usually at issue.

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