blastula said:
Oh good, the gender platonists have chimed in.
And you say that right after my post, so I reckon you very probably are talking about me. Your claim is false. I am not a Platonist, on gender or anything else.
I do think, however, that obviously words have meaning. If Alice and Bob are in an office, and Alice says there is a car parked on the street in front of the building entrance, and Bob says that it is not the case that there is a car, but a vehicle that is not a car, there is a fact of the matter as to who is right. And the same happens if Alice says there is a lion in the Zoo that is in their city (there is only one zoo there), and Bob says there is no lion there. And the same happens if Alice says that Alice is a man, and Bob says that Alice is not a man. One of them is correct, one of them is mistaken. At least, this is so in nearly all cases. But words such as 'man' and 'woman' are not an exception when it comes to the 'nearly' part. Rather, concepts in human language are not defined to any arbitrary degree of accuracy.
For example, take the concept of a lion. Surely, there is a fact of the matter as to whether
Cecil the lion was a lion. He was. Now consider the father of Cecil (call it C(2)), then the the grandfather, etc., until you reach, say, a common ancestor between Cecil the lion and
Secretariat, call it C(N). I do not think there is a fact of the matter as to what is the minimum n between 1 and N such that C

is not a lion. The word 'lion' is not precise enough for that kind of usage. Or at least, we do not know whether there is a fact of the matter. And yet, we can still talk about whether something is a lion or not, make true or false statements, etc.
When it comes to gender, usually the Woke do claim or imply that there is a fact of the matter. They just condemn - usually loudly -, and sometimes boycott, bully, etc., those who disagree with them about what the fact of the matter is.
I have seen many transgender claims. I have not seen evidence (including arguments, empirical evidence, etc.) on the basis of which the claims would probably be true.
blastula said:
To call banning misgendering political is like saying banning racial epithets is political.
I see no reason to believe so, in the context of "content political ideology.".
Racial epithets are generally not claims, but insults, at least partially. Either they are content-free, or they have some derogatory content, but that is not all they have: they also contain an insult. And that gives a reason for banning them that is not based on content.
On the other hand, if I say, for example, that
Elliot Page is a woman, I am not insulting her. I am making a claim about her - which by the way is not disparaging -, but that is it. Depending on context, I might also be making a point about the meaning of the words. But again, that an insult, and the ban is due to
content.
Of course, if, instead of racial epithets, they ban - for example - claims asserting that people of race X are morally worse than those of race Y, that would be content-based indeed, and it may or may not be based on an ideology, depending on the person (but probably it is, given general human behavior).
blastula said:
That some people would disagree with a ban doesn't necessarily make it political, except in the trivial sense that there is difference of opinion about it.
But what makes it political, then?
In this case, we have:
1. Ban based on content, not attitude.
2. It affects some ideologies or negations of ideologies, rather than others.
3. The motivation seems to be to further the cause of the Woke, or not to incur their wrath, or both.
Regardless, if you prefer "ideological" that works for me too. I think "political" fits due to the previous "content political ideology.", but again, no problem in going with "ideological" which is more precise anyway.
blastula said:
I misspoke anyway, I should have said it has nothing do to with the user's politics, meaning, for example they don't take down only conservatives for misgendering.
Of course they do not. But that's not the point. If they make a ban and take down all arguments in support of Christianity - not just those made by conservatives, or for that matter by Christians -, that certainly is content-based ban, and it would be rightfully characterized as a taking a religious stance, even if they do not do it due to religious conviction but not to piss off Christians.
Remember, it's not that they just ban something like 'trans men are bitches' or something like that, but rather, 'trans men are not men', or 'trans men are women', or 'trans women are not women', etc. It's the content what they go after, not just the insults.
blastula said:
I will say there is one bias I suspect from social media companies, which is a pro-Muslim favoritism: that they more often get a free pass for bigoted speech and that speech against Islam gets comparatively over-censored. Just my impression.
But that's part of the big Woke bias. The Woke also support Islam because they put Muslims high in the 'victim' category. The motivation for the pro-Muslim favoritism is usually not that they actually believe Muslim nonsense. Rather, it seems that they believe Woke nonsense, or are afraid of Woke retaliation, with boycotts, (other) media attacks, etc. That fits well with their general massive pro-Woke favoritism, like banning an argument that says that trans men are women, for example.