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Post by Zarnium on May 30, 2019 6:24:46 GMT -8
Well, maybe I'm wrong about existing law; I know some people have at least tried to fire professors who don't use the right pronouns, and others are trying to work towards being able to fire them. It gets more confusing when different countries are brought into the picture. To use Jordan Peterson as an example again, he's known for protesting against a Canadian law that was under consideration which would allow his University to fire him if he willfully used the wrong pronouns. (I'm not sure if the law ended up getting passed or not.) He also wildly misrepresented the law by telling people that the law would send him to jail, which it wouldn't.
Given that intentionally using the wrong name and pronouns outs people, which can potentially be a safety hazard as the number of hate crimes against trans people continues to rise, I'd argue that there are two mutually exclusive "rights" at play here, and we can't enforce them both. So, even if firing someone at a government body who doesn't use the right terms is not legal now, legal changes should be made that allow it.
EDIT: Additionally, using a slur in a speech given outside a university is different from repeatedly addressing students in a disrespectful manner. I mean, as an extreme example, if a professor always refferred to black students using the n-word, he could be fired, right?
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Post by Jeremy on May 30, 2019 11:49:26 GMT -8
Sure, academic freedom has its limits. A professor who engages in willful misconduct or behaves in a manner that puts the university’s reputation at risk (e.g. purports to speak for the university when presenting controversial opinions) could be fired without much trouble. Using the N-word when referring to black students would most certainly qualify.
Truth told, there have been many, many challenges to the limits of academic freedom over the decades, and most examples are a lot vaguer than that. Given how controversial and unsettled so much of the trans debate is, it just doesn’t seem like there’s enough precedent to label a lack of preferred pronoun usage as outside those limits.
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Post by Zarnium on May 30, 2019 12:29:52 GMT -8
Well, I don't think it would be easy, I just think it's something that should be done. There are enough people who find improper name and pronouns use to be offensive that I don't think the concept of firing someone who refuses to use the right terms would be dead on arrival. It certainly causes offense, exposes private information that the audience should not be privy to, and reflects poorly on the reputation of the institution. Not that different from using a slur to address students.
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Post by ThirdMan on Jun 9, 2020 21:23:43 GMT -8
The only thing I heard was Rowling saying "Biological sex is real", while those in the trans community responded that she was using a straw-man argument, because they never said it wasn't. I don't pretend to fully understand the intracacies of all this, but I do know a lot of it relates to semantics, when it comes to these groups feeling marginalized. What I've read from her online doesn't suggest she lacks empathy for marginalized groups, though.
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Post by Jeremy on Jun 10, 2020 14:14:28 GMT -8
I think the issue is that saying "biological sex is real" (i.e, directly tied to gender) technically conflicts with the concept of transgenderism, since it implies that people can't identify with the gender they weren't born with. That's where the controversy came from.
I've never gotten the feeling that Rowling is unempathetic for marginalized groups, either - but she sure gets that accusation a lot. Like, I keep hearing that the Harry Potter books are anti-Semitic because the banks in the wizarding world are run by goblins, which allegedly plays into an old trope about Jews being depicted as money-grubbing goblin types. The more likely explanation is that both the trope and the book were inspired by the idea that goblins are depicted in fairy tales as greedy and untrustworthy. Rowling chose to make them bankers as a satirical commentary on the fact that people often view real-life bankers that way, regardless of their ethnicity. If your mind makes a connection between "greedy goblin banker" and "Jew," maybe you're the ones being anti-Semitic, ya dinguses.
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Post by ThirdMan on Jun 10, 2020 15:29:46 GMT -8
BTW, with regards to "cancel culture", I'm mostly in agreement with you. So much of that is built on believing the worst in people, and arguing over semantics to try to act morally superior. And a lot of gaslighting goes on. In this particular case, I can see some reasonable points being made on both sides, and areas of conflict are often ill-defined, or at least incredibly convoluted.
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Post by Jeremy on Jun 10, 2020 19:19:10 GMT -8
It seemed like cancel culture had abated for a little while, but it's been back in full force these last couple of weeks. So much negativity, so little benefit of doubt. And now there's some Disney Channel star encouraging her followers to DM her with examples of random teenagers making racist comments so that she can post about it online and encourage her half-million followers to harass the commenters. I guess that's considered "heroic" in 2020. Blech.
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Post by otherscott on Jun 11, 2020 10:00:56 GMT -8
Yeah I was also was confused a little at the backlash to Rowling initially, and I still don't fully like the reaction behind it. It makes more sense in regards to what J.C. is saying about creating an argument that no one is trying to dispute.
Ultimately, I think the people who are actually reading what Rowling says (as opposed to the misinformed people who think she is saying that trans men are not men and trans women are not women) feel like she's dogwhistling. And I think that they are right, the fact that Rowling is drawing attention to biological sex, which no one really disputes, probably underscores some general discomfort with having trans women involved in the feminist movement that is very important to her.
That being said, I've always believed reacting to dogwhistles is kind of stupid. If you don't have a problem with the actual argument being made (much like the famous "It's okay to be white") then don't react to it. The only reason people use it is to get a reaction and make it seem like you are insane by arguing against an obviously true statement. Note it about the person that they likely have some issues with the topic being addressed, but reacting to the dogwhistled statement takes you nowhere fruitful with people who may be on the fence or looking to understand your viewpoint.
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Post by Jeremy on Jun 11, 2020 18:52:33 GMT -8
I think part of the confusion stems from the fact that Rowling's original tweet (where she was criticizing an article headline that awkwardly and purposely avoided using the word "women") was lost in the shuffle. If you only saw her follow-up tweet - the "sex is real" thread, which went viral - you might get the impression that she was just dogwhistling. But her argument did not materialize from nowhere.
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Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Jun 11, 2020 19:53:43 GMT -8
I think the issue is that saying "biological sex is real" (i.e, directly tied to gender) technically conflicts with the concept of transgenderism, since it implies that people can't identify with the gender they weren't born with. That's where the controversy came from. I don't even know if this is right. Like, if you're a transgender man who's shelling out thousands for phalloplasty, for instance, on the grounds that you want your body to align with your gender, I don't think you'd disagree that there's a connection between being/identifying as a man and being "biologically male." As far as I'm aware, the problem is that Rowling has over the past couple of years aligned herself with the more hateful side of TERFdom. And now she's seemingly chosen to double down on this on her blog, with a longform post containing some... dubious arguments for why the movement for transgender rights is bad. (Some of which are obviously false - like, she seems to say that 60 to 90 percent of transgender people detransition, which... um, no? ) She seems pretty disingenuous in her stated "love" for LGBT people, is my point. Daniel Radcliffe's statement was pretty classy, imo.
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Post by Jeremy on Jun 11, 2020 20:31:03 GMT -8
I don't even know if this is right. Like, if you're a transgender man who's shelling out thousands for phalloplasty, for instance, on the grounds that you want your body to align with your gender, I don't think you'd disagree that there's a connection between being/identifying as a man and being "biologically male." True. But the concept of transgenderism implies that gender is not inherently tethered to one's natural biology; it's about identifying as the gender you weren't biologically born as. Most trans people start by identifying as the opposite gender, and then alter their body to reflect that. The statement that "biological sex is real" counters the logic of this practice, because it asserts that your gender is inherently tied to your biology and cannot be changed with surgery. Also, re. the 60-90% statistic: Rowling is not referring to detransitioning, but to teens who experience dysphoria (confusion as to their gender) and eventually outgrow it - usually without undergoing any surgery at all. It's not uncommon for teens (what with hormones and all) to feel confused about their sexual identity, but most of them don't experience long-lasting effects about it. The argument here is that young people shouldn't be too hasty in deciding to transition; sometimes it's just a phase.
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Post by guttersnipe on Jun 13, 2020 16:31:07 GMT -8
I don't know if this is really the right place for this, but a lot of conversation has been running along these lines, so... Have any of my fellow lefty, pinko, liberal, commie, hand-wringing terrorist sympathisers found their alt-right foes simply throwing in the towel before a discourse has even started? I recently took arms against someone on my Facebook for posting a pro-Boris link (I wasn't the first to do so, I should add), and discovered upon checking the next day that his and my disparaging comments had been deleted (and I didn't even know you had the option of simply simply silencing your detractors), and then my query as to why was hastily removed too. Now a couple of days ago another friend (I use the term loosely in the extreme; I went to school with the guy and we hadn't said a word to each other in the interim) made a lengthy "white pride" post, which I might charitably describe as clumsily constructed and duly gave both barrels (quoted below, because I now actively expect people to expunge me), to which he deleted his own message! (You can probably gather the gist given the pieces I chose to quote) Okay, so I think it's fair to say you were just using the platform of Facebook in the manner of an echo chamber and weren't actually expecting a rebuttal, but here it is. So first and foremost we need to address the issue of "pride", and this is absolutely a semantic point, but here's where I agree wholeheartedly with George Carlin: "Pride should be reserved for something you achieve or obtain on your own, not something that happens by accident of birth. Being Irish isn't a skill... it's a fuckin' genetic accident!" As the act of being born isn't inherently an achievement, national pride doesn't make any sense. So when marginalised groups refer to their "pride", it's a request for a recognition of equality in the face of oppression - an act of defiance. Nearly all recorded history has favoured (and indeed been written by) the male, the white, the straight and the European-cum-Western. Anyone who didn't happen to be born into these circumstances has faced varying degrees of prejudice, violence and worse. Within the framework of this methodology, you can hardly claim to be oppressed, so there's not actually any injustice against which your "pride" is forced to operate against, save the paper tiger you've constructed in your head. Like I say, it's a semantic point, but I can't think of a better synonym than "pride", so I guess it sticks. To highlight this dichotomy, consider the difference between the phrases Black Power and White Power: the former is a plea for acceptance and a level playing field after centuries of anything but. The latter is an attempt to double-down on the systemic factors that afforded (just) those people that power in the first place - economic inequality, scapegoating, slavery etc. Now let's drill down into some of your other statements: "There are British Africans, etc... and then there are just British... that were born here" - anyone born here IS British. You're confusing nationality with ethnicity. "Muslim Council... Islamic banks... Muslim schools, etc" - now you're confusing nationality with religion. My brother converted about thirty years ago, so he is both a Muslim (religion) and white (race or ethnicity). There's no either/or here. "We fly our flag, we are racists" - the Union flag and indeed the St George's Cross by itself were used on Crusader shields, those lovely 200 years when knights ventured out into the Middle East slaughtering Jews and Arabs on sight. Needless to say, its continued use is a bit controversial, much like how the swastika is still fine on Asian temples but the version hijacked by the Nazis definitely isn't. Speaking of bastardisation, did you know that St George was a Turk who never set foot anywhere near England? Incidentally, that very cross is a Christian symbol instructing you to love your neighbour and warning that pride goeth before a fall, so... "Any other (once) white country" - there's no such thing; presumably you've never heard of Cheddar Man? White skin colour first appeared about 8,000 years ago and Africans first settled Europe about 40,000 years ago. So what's the more 'normal' type of human, if there is such a thing? This is what makes me chuckle about everyone who advocates "conservatism" and "traditional values" - they're just talking about the status quo of their own youth and accordingly treat progress as some sort of violation thereof. You never hear anyone trying to remove English from the land (an umbrella language of Latin, Norse, German, French, etc) so we can return to Gaelic, Welsh, Pictish and other, much older tongues. "You rob us, carjack us, and rape our daughters" - I don't know where to begin with this, but I assume (and hope) you don't actually believe there's some sort of biological imperative for ethnic groups to do these things. What about Sutcliffe, Shipman, Fred and Rose West, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, Jack the Ripper, etc? Presumably you don't think white Brits have more of a compulsion to become serial killers than swarthy immigrants? I actually have a boatload of other points to make, but I think that'll do for now. I didn't expect much in the way of actual debate with this guy, but I'm both surprised and a little disappointed that someone would remove their own missive when faced with objection, especially when he took such a defiant, plant-your-flag stance to begin with. (I mean, yeah, I probably went overboard, but most people simply don't bother to respond when I've boxed their idiotic statement into a corner rather than pretend they didn't say it in the first place.)
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Post by ThirdMan on Jun 14, 2020 13:55:37 GMT -8
You're a very intelligent, articulate fellow, and he knew he didn't have the intellectual or emotional capacity to debate you, without making himself look even MORE foolish and bigoted.
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Post by guttersnipe on Jun 15, 2020 8:35:48 GMT -8
Shucks, thanks. I actually put a fresh post out on his wall informing him that I'd saved all the text if he was willing to debate it properly - as politely-phrased a goading bit of blackmail as you could ask for (I also suggested he partake of I Am Not Your Negro as it happens to be on TV this week). Then he deleted that.
I probably wouldn't have bothered pursuing this except for the fact that it took me a while to type on my phone (I rewrote the first couple of paragraphs after accidentally refreshing the page) and there's a 'tis-the-season feel to it given that open season has been declared on controversial statues around the UK and elsewhere.
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