> (…) if a society's practice of tolerance is inclusive of the intolerant, intolerance will ultimately dominate, eliminating the tolerant and the practice of tolerance with them. Karl Popper describes the paradox as arising from the fact that, in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must retain the right to be intolerant of intolerance.
> "In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise."
There is a large difference between not valuing something and devaluing it. The former is neutral, it does not care what people engage in within the boundaries of not causing harm; the latter is actively against something and tries to stop people from doing it (we can say it is intolerant to it).
I’m not aware of an example of someone having been neutral on gender identity in the “the project”¹ and having been made unwelcome. But I’m not a Pythonista myself, so I’m not intimately aware of the internals. Could you share a concrete example? Preferably one that includes some degree of community support, not just the ramblings of a single individual, as the latter would not be representative.
¹ It’s unclear what you’re referring to. The PSF? The Pyhon language core? The Python community?
Let me ask you a question. Would you argue the same for national identity? Would you feel safe in a community where user profiles feature the flag of the country they identify with? Where its normal to name your country with your name? You probably wouldn't want to affirm that, either. It gives "bogus criteria" vibes like from the hacker ethics.
You might now understand how i and some others feel about gender identity. Some people want to have a social life without dealing with that. And this isn't accepted by people who want affirmation for their gender expression, regardless of cis or trans.
For ¹, i meant it in a generic fashion, as python is not the only project where this happens.
It seems that what you understood from my comment is that not being actively positive about something is being intolerant. That is not what I said, I only touched on neutrality and negativity, not positivity. “Tolerance”, after all, does not mean “active support” but “acceptance”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toleration
Again, there is a large difference between being neutral on something and being against it.
> Would you feel safe in a community where user profiles feature the flag of the country they identify with? Where its normal to name your country with your name?
Yes? People do that all the time on social media, putting a flag near their name. Sometimes they even do it to support other countries (such as Ukraine).
> You might now understand how i and some others feel about gender identity.
Not at all. If anything, I’m even more confused. I’m curious why you wouldn’t feel safe in such a community, and why “safe” is the word you chose. What’s the danger? I mean, in the country case I could see a point: there’s tribalism and rivalries amongst countries which can lead to war, but never have I felt unsafe around someone who expressed their gender identity.
> Some people want to have a social life without dealing with that.
Just recently I spent several days in a group where one person used pronouns fluidly. They were incredibly sweet, positive, good natured, and open-minded. I’m not sure what is there to “deal with”.
Perhaps this is related to different countries and cultures.
One thing I want to make very clear, especially considering how you stated the previous comment, is that I’m not calling you intolerant, or a bigot, or any other insult. I don’t know you, and it wouldn’t be right to judge you as a human from a single random comment. I am trying to understand your point and what to you is (apparently) scary or wrong about gender identity.
> Just recently I spent several days in a group where one person used pronouns fluidly.
Pronouns and names are easy. Its not easy dealing with whatever weird ideas of masculinity and femininity some people come with. Especially if your world is not as pink/blue split as theirs. Some people are chill but more aren't.
I think this would be a non-issue if gendered people had more awareness that gender is a) culturally local and b) not everyone does it.
Annoyance is a far cry from fear, and you used the word “safe”. While there are people who have good reason to fear those who misgender them (those who do so on purpose and are threatening to them because of it) I haven’t quite seen the case for the reverse.
Every group has annoying extremist people and it’s understandable to want to avoid those, but judging a whole community on account of some outliers on a bad day does not seem fair.
> Expressing your gender identity signals that you consider it to be significant.
Not necessarily. It seems to be more common to see people doing so in solidarity, basically to signal “if you’re the type of person to whom this is important but are afraid to say so, this is somewhere where you can be safe from aggression”.
Worth noting that “gender identity can correlate with a person's assigned sex or can differ from it” so most people express their gender identity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_identity
> Pronouns and names are easy. It's not easy dealing with whatever weird ideas of masculinity and femininity some people come with.
This person was non-binary, which is why they used the pronouns fluidly.
I don’t see why considering masculinity and femininity to exist on a spectrum is weirder than thinking there’s a hard line. And why do you have to “deal with” it? I’m struggling to understand that part. Every person is different anyway, there are women who do not wear makeup and men who do not like sports, it’s much simpler to not ascribe any behaviour to a gender.
> Especially if your world is not as pink/blue split as theirs.
While they were good natured, I wouldn’t classify their world in those colours. At the time I met them they were in fact quite fearful for the results of an election in their country. The kind of election were some people would treat them as subhuman.
> I think this would be a non-issue if gendered people had more awareness that gender is a) culturally local and b) not everyone does it.
Now I’m curious again. Since you’re presumably talking about other people, are you saying that you don’t consider yourself to be gendered or have a gender yourself? That is interesting to me. I invite you to share more on it, I’m not sure what question to ask yet and wouldn’t want to make you uncomfortable.
> I don’t see why considering masculinity and femininity to exist on a spectrum is weirder than thinking there’s a hard line
This stab goes into the wrong direction. I consider both fiction. What people do seems like role play to me. It is okay with people commit themselves to it, but they need to know the limits to it. Or ask for consent beforehand.
The pink/blue was not a reference to US politics, it was a reference to the gender binary as displayed on the transgender flag. People who classify every other thing as masculine or feminine are difficult.
And to me, i don't have a gender identity, just like every other newborn human, beyond what other people attribute to me. against my wishes. I reject the "marginalized minority" approach to it as i consider it patronizing, I'm a self-responsible adult.
That’s what I understood.
> The pink/blue was not a reference to US politics, it was a reference to the gender binary
Again, that’s what I took it as. Especially since I’m not American and neither was the non-binary person I mentioned. I didn’t take your comment as political.
Unfortunately, I think the medium of asynchronous text comments may be working against us here. I feel it would’ve been beneficial to have this conversation in person. Your take seems nuanced and not outright dismissive so I think it would be worth exploring further and attempt a consensus. But it’s getting late and I still have stuff to do.
Still, thank you for a civil conversation and indulging in my questions in good faith. Have a nice <insert your time of day> and week.
There are 3 ways about this:
You codify that you remove them from communication. It’s pretty common on HN to say “author”, “op” or “parent” instead of he or she. Many parliaments have similar ways of talking, where you don’t use 3rd person pronouns.
Gender identities are assigned to people and they just have to accept it (this could be by a central authority like a government or on-the-fly by whoever is communicating or a mix), and communication can use 3rd person pronouns naturally.
Or, people assign their own identities, in which case, other people might have to be told which pronouns to use. Older systems, often still in use by airlines and hotels asks for salutations, but they are problematic as they are both too specific and not specific enough. They tend to require some sort of job or educational background in order to be gender neutral and they are often interpreted as containing marital status information for female salutations (miss vs Mrs)
I think it’s weird to say the Python community is excluding you because they went with option 3 and not 1.
And lastly I think that saying that a community that asks you to voluntarily add a country sticker to you profile is exclusionary is a more than a stretch.