Gender pronoun entitlement vs religious entitlement

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Gender pronoun entitlement vs religious entitlement

Bone Crimes: Mar 7, 2007

Cingulate posted:

It's not as simple - if Donald Trump demanded to be referred to as lordsir, pronoun wise, you'd flip him off. What is the difference between misgendering someone, and referring to Donald trump as "he" even after he has stated an explicit, and possibly even genuine, desire to be addressed as lordsir? There is one, but I hope this shows how it's not quite as simple as you're making it out to be.

I'm not saying it's complicated, but it's not as simple as what you're saying.

Could someone answer this? I think it would help a lot with my understanding. I get very confused when it's said that gender is an individually asserted part of identity, but other elements of identity do/don't deserve the same consideration by others.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2016 16:08

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Bone Crimes: Mar 7, 2007

OwlFancier posted:

The answer is because if donald trump says he wants to be addressed as lordsir it's not because he has an identity crisis causing him severe distress it's because he's a knobhead.

But I don't actually know that? I mean it's not unreasonable that he is distressed? Clearly being called "short-fingered" has caused him distress, so maybe?

# ¿ Mar 29, 2016 16:16

Bone Crimes: Mar 7, 2007

OwlFancier posted:

Because it's a poor analogy and equivocating the two is disingenuous.

I think you can see a difference between the two and are possibly arguing in bad faith.

I am asking because I don't actually see the difference. Maybe I'm an idiot, but I would like nothing more than a clear logical difference laid out. I'd be happy with a link to something if you don't want to type it out.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2016 16:24

Bone Crimes: Mar 7, 2007

OwlFancier posted:

Do you actually think that there is no real difference between donald trump not being addressed as lordsir at all times and a trans person not being identified as their actual gender?

Do you genuinely believe each of these complaints is equally legitimate and worthy of concern? That each is suffering equally as a result of their situation?

In that desegregation is a necessary part of creating a better society. Enforcing the gender binary is not.

I'm asking because I'm struggling to find a logical distinction. It is not obvious to me. Is it an appeal to oppression of marginalized groups? Is gender identity more relevant than other elements of identity? I honestly don't know. If there is an easy/obvious difference please let me know, it would be great. I mean, it certainly feels like I should use individual and pronouns (and I would), but I don't actually see the difference in respecting other peoples identity, but that leads to 'lordsir' . So I am asking for the difference.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2016 16:36

Bone Crimes: Mar 7, 2007

OwlFancier posted:

All of the above.

Look I'm assuming you have an intuitive feeling that indulging donald trump's egotism is probably not a thing you need to do, while your friend who happens to be trans maybe you should be a bit nicer to. That intuitive feeling is there for a reason and just about any post-hoc rationalization you can come up with will probably be correct. There are an abundance of small reasons which individually perhaps don't mean much but taken as a whole should lead you to the conclusion that donald trump is already very privileged and doesn't need indulging, whereas the average trans person is probably in a lot of pain as a result of their condition and you should do what you can to make their life easier and accept them as a person.

I do have an intuitive feeling, but I am looking for a logical framework, if someone asks why they should do that (like my parents) I'd like to have some force of logic, and not feelings.

silence_kit posted:

The answer is that in the social justice ideology there exists a cosmic scale of oppression of various social groups. Those who are at the top of the cosmic scale of oppression (most oppressed) get their concerns listened to and society is to kowtow to their demands. Those who are at the bottom's demands (least oppressed) are trumped by the those who are higher on the scale. Christians are lower on the cosmic scale of oppression than transexuals, so we that's why we kowtow to the transexuals and not the Christians.

The problem is that it's not totally clear how to rank on the cosmic scale of oppression which group is the most oppressed. Not surprisingly, each marginalized group views itself as being the most oppressed and it isn't clear how to resolve conflicts when social justice proponents can't agree on which group's concerns should trump the other. The fact that determining the cosmic scale of oppression isn't straightforward is a major source of headache in the social justice community and this issue is granted the fancy term of 'intersectionality'.

This is a super useful post. Thank you. I'll need to read up on intersectionality. This doesn't seem like a more/less oppressed question though, but that there is some threshold at which society should allow preferred nomenclature. This seems like a better framework, but still pretty arbitrary. Why is demi-wolf (or other animal identity) ridiculous? It seems like you might decide is not a sufficiently-oppressed group, but that doesn't make it ridiculous.

Cingulate posted:

...
Here is the major difference I see. Donald Trump does not stand in a long and ongoing tradition of being injured over his identity. In fact, Trump stands in a long tradition of being rewarded for his identity. (Criminals also stand in a long tradition of being persecuted over their identities; but we think it only just to persecute them precisely to the degree with which the cause others harm, and our trans person does not cause anyone harm by asking for a specific pronoun.)
This aspect does in fact make a gigantic difference. It's the most important difference in the world. Consider free speech, or freedom of religion, or any other liberty. They're not important in themselves, as an abstract good, they're important in what they are for. The point of defending free speech is not to keep it legal to call Black people niggers, it is to keep it legal to criticize the government and not be tortured to death by the king's personal guard over it. The point of freedom of religion is not to allow schools to not teach evolution if it makes being a fundamentalist Christian a bit harder, but to prevent pogroms against Jews. The point of freedom of the press is not to instigate hatred of immigrants, but to keep venture capitalists and lobbyists at least a bit accountable instead of allowing them to sue you into oblivion and shut down your newspaper.

Thanks for this post.
I guess where I might be getting confused is the difference between oppression being group-based, with a historical basis attached, and the individual perspective of oppression/offence. I guess this goes back to the cosmic scale of oppression. For example, I could totally see that Trump would perceive he was being oppressed, and want his terms used. I'm struggling with oppression being some universal obvious thing (which groups are oppressed and how much) whereas we are appealing to feelings of groups in other contexts. I think I need to think on this further.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2016 19:22

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Gender pronoun entitlement vs religious entitlement