Good news in the pronoun wars: $400k payout for professor

[Trausti]

It would seem the foundation of the First Amendment is the liberty to be a curmudgeon, regardless of the fashionable mores of the day.

It doesn't, however, protect people from social pressures and disapproval.

Only from government prosecution. That's quite different.
Tom

Which is why the public university settled here.

 

[Trausti]

It is commonly known to be rude to address people in ways that they prefer not to be addressed. You know this right? Stories of doctors who throw hissy fits after being addressed with a title of "Mr." abound.
When disrespect is offered to an individual it is also a common reaction for that individual to return that disrespect. See the aforementioned doctors.

I beg those with Master's degrees to act with similar arrogance. It's not "Mr." You address me as "Master."

 

[Trausti]

Oh how dumb the World is today.

 

[laughing dog]

The terrible discipline that this state university committed is

The university determined that Meriwether created a "hostile environment" for the unnamed student, eventually placing a written warning in his personnel file and threatening "further corrective actions," according to ADF. source - Shawnee State settles lawsuit

The ADF is the professor's legal counsel. I suspect the university settled to avoid further escalating legal bills.

IMO, it does not rise to $400,000 in damages. That professor is a class one snowflake and asshole.

 

[Bomb#20]

Jordan Peterson became a public figure based on this very issue. Forcing people to use certain language is not about respect, it's about power.

No... it is about respect and courtesy.

When did courtesy become politicized?

People should be punished, lose their jobs, fined, possibly jailed because you feel disrespected?

Exactly my point. When did the idea of common courtesy become partisan, that some people feel the absolute divine right to be an ass?

It became partisan when standards for what it takes to be considered courteous became linked to social hierarchy, i.e., thousands of years ago. The partisanship is right there in the word itself: courteous, a French word meaning "having manners fit for a royal court". Back then it was courteous for a commoner to tug his forelock in the presence of a gentleman; today it's courteous for an enlisted man to salute an officer. It was courteous for dhimmis to keep their religious observances inconspicuous to Muslims. In my youth it was courteous for atheists to "stand for the national anthem and remain standing for the Lord's Prayer". "We don't ask that they believe, only that they bow their heads with us.", as I heard one Christian put it. And today it's courteous for Christians to no longer insist that others feign agreement with their beliefs, but to instead feign agreement with others' beliefs. When has courtesy ever not been about who outranks whom?

 

[Metaphor]

Ah yes, the pronoun militants, who believe using pronouns that match a person's sex makes them a cunt.

It is commonly known to be rude to address people in ways that they prefer not to be addressed.

Is it? So, if you prefer to be addressed as 'His Royal Highness Zorq', I'd be rude to not comply?

Yes, provided "I" made my preferences clear, indicated their importance to me and they weren't actually troublesome "I" would be very grateful for you not to insult me by addressing me incorrectly.

That you think you can determine whether your preferences are not 'actually troublesome' indicates to me your preferences are actually quite troublesome.

If you can utter an audible tone that indicates disrespect, you can utter a similar audible tone that indicates respect. It really isn't physically troublesome at all. Neither tone actually hurts you.

And I could utter Muslim prayers five times a day. The tone doesn't actually hurt me. Should I be forced to utter Muslim prayers five times a day?

You know this right?

No, I don't 'know' any such thing. To 'know' something means I believe a statement to be true, I have good reason to believe it to be true, and it is, in fact, true.

So, no, I don't know it.

Wait, you are so isolated from reality that you have never heard of the concept of people not liking it when you address them incorrectly? WTF?

I do not address people incorrectly.

And do the people you address agree with you?

I often ask for feedback early on when I'm trying to pronounce a first name that is unusual.

I don't ask for feedback and have never received feedback about using pronouns, because the correct pronoun for somebody doesn't depend on the person's opinion.

Yes, your bad. I feel emotions and your blatant desire to completely disrespect them shows your empathy is quite selective.

Here's a secret, I know that you feel emotions, and I care about your emotions but I know that you are playing dumb. One of the tools I have chosen to use to make you stop playing dumb and come to the facking obvious epiphany that treating other people like shit

Stop. I don't treat other people like shit.

for silly arbitrary reasons

Respecting my philosophical beliefs is not a silly arbitrary reason. Next.

is a bad thing to do

It isn't. Next.

is to treat you a little bit like shit. When you decided to play dumb, I just decided to play your "I'm dumb" game with you. Why? To help you learn a lesson.

I can assure you zorq your pedagogical skills are severely lacking in this respect.

Yes indeed. Meriwether refusing participation in the gender cultist religious rites means he was the one creating the hostile environment.

Dude, he literally insists that the reason he refuses to offer to this student an amount of respect most people consider a bare minimum is because of HIS religion. HIS irrational belief system based on not on facts, but ... FAITH,

Non. It is a faith belief that pronouns for humans are based on personal preference and not on sex. This is in conflict with nearly the entire history of spoken English.

If we are to believe the article, this guy probably doesn't give a shit about the history of the English language. He says he cares about his magic. He thinks that the magic won't work for him if he doesn't say the magic words right. He doesn't care who he hurts in the process either. If his magic book told him cannibalism is the path to paradise, he'd probably do it. Ask a Catholic.

it is the pronoun cultists who believe in magic, not this professor.

You REALLY are playing dumb, yikes. I mean the fact that the guy is a Christian made it to word number 7 in the title of the article you posted. He believes in real magic. Really! He thinks it is real! LOL!

And gender cultists think you can change sex, and that others must lie publically to appease them. The first part is indeed a magical belief. The second part is a tyrannical impulse.

It is faith to think that any language exists in any absolute terms. They are all arbitrary invented symbols and most are constantly in flux.

I never claimed it did.

But neither you, nor any gender cultist, has the moral right to force language from me or anyone.

Great! We agree!

So why are you still talking?

But in the end language exists for communication. Most humans have highly developed brains honed over hundreds of thousands of years of evolution and living socially to be sensitive to social cues and empathetic towards other members of their tribe. They understand that you can hurt other people using language. If this professor wanted to he could choose to not hurt other people with his words, but he doesn't give a fuck.

No, the gender cultist male who insisted others see him as and refer to him as a woman, doesn't give a FUCK about hurting other people. It was he who made threats.

Yeah, a lot of people have this weird notion that when they are paying for a service that it shouldn't come with insults and arbitrary disrespect.

Having a pronoun used for you that aligns with your sex is not an insult. Next.

The student in question asked for a token of respect to be paid to her but instead was subjected to continued abusive language.

Having a pronoun used for you that aligns with your sex is not abusive language. Next.

I suspect that isn't something the enrolment contract warned her to expect either. Students have rights too you know.

Students do not have the right to force others to utter lies for them to continue their fantasies. Next.

led him to act like an asshole, and that makes everyone else "cultists"? Reality check. I bet you that he can't even find an entry in any of his preferred "holy texts" that actually forbid him from using pronouns in ANY way whatsoever. The guy is clearly a nut.

Eh? I don't have any holy texts, and I would not address a male as 'she', most especially I wouldn't do it if he demanded I do it.

Then you're probably an asshole. It's such an small ask, and it means so much to some people.

It's a small ask for you. It's a big ask for me to utter lies at the behest of gender cultists.

You care more about the "history of the English language" than the emotions of a human standing in front of you?

It is you who clearly does not give a flying fuck about the emotions of people you disagree with.

Does it feel bad to be disrespected? Huh... How about that? If only you could relate this feeling to some other context.

Yes, it's a bad situation that gender cultists have such institutional power that they think nothing of trying to force others to lie to cater to their delusions.

Regardless of the dickishness, you should really consider offering more respect to other humans from a self preservation perspective too.

Yeah, threats of violence are a dick move. Did you know they were a dick move? They're a dick move.

What? The student didn't threaten violence. What are you talking about?

You brought up the spectre of 'self preservation'.

I try to avoid situations similar to the one Peter Dinklage inflicted on Will Ferrell. And it could be worse-- in the US, you never know who has a gun. And all that over some imagined slight to the gods of the "history of the English language"? No thanks.

Yeah, darling, that gender cultists might fucking shoot and kill you for not conforming to their religion is not persuading me to respect your position, luv.

Unfortunately, I don't live in a country with an equivalent first amendment, but I do live in a country where people don't pack heat while grocery shopping.

It's not just the minorities who are a danger to you when you disrespect them, it is everyone. Really, this is an important life lesson. You should strongly consider offering the people you meet a little more respect until they show you that they don't deserve it. Arbitrarily pissing people off is ALWAYS a hazard.

Thank you for your advice that I should capitulate to the tyrannical demands of others so that they do not punish me.

The university didn't agree to any such thing. They were rightfully forced to do the right thing.

Eh.

No employer should be forced to employ an employee who insists on unnecessarily disrespecting some of their customers.

So, you don't agree with the USA's First Amendment? And the 'employer' here is the government.

You understand that the first amendment isn't a blank check right? There are some things you can't say. And there are some things the Government can't say. There is plenty of nuance there for a devil to hide in.

And the government has said that it can't force people it employs to 'respect' the forced prayers of gender cultists.

Eh. I think I need to remind you that this professor's lawyers weren't able to convince every judge they showed the case to that they were right.

Of course they were not. Gender cultists hold enormous institutional power. A UK judge might have ordered the professor be hanged, drawn and quartered.

And, the actual verdict is likely a little more nuanced than you or the "Daily Mail" are making it out to be.

The finding, as it stands, is good news. It won't be the end of the story, of course, since I've already said that gender ideology has enormous institutional power.

 

[TomC]

I don't ask for feedback and have never received feedback about using pronouns, because the correct pronoun for somebody doesn't depend on the person's opinion.

I completely disagree. The only important thing that correct pronoun usage depends upon is that person's opinion.

Why should your opinion matter at all?
Tom

 

[Metaphor]

I don't ask for feedback and have never received feedback about using pronouns, because the correct pronoun for somebody doesn't depend on the person's opinion.

I completely disagree. The only important thing that correct pronoun usage depends upon is that person's opinion.

Why should your opinion matter at all?
Tom

The facts matter, not my opinion.

However: good luck conforming to your pledge to use somebody's 'preferred pronouns', when you get a bug/bugself attention-seeker.

 

[bigfield]

However: good luck conforming to your pledge to use somebody's 'preferred pronouns', when you get a bug/bugself attention-seeker.

I lay awake at night worrying about it.

 

[Metaphor]

However: good luck conforming to your pledge to use somebody's 'preferred pronouns', when you get a bug/bugself attention-seeker.

I lay awake at night worrying about it.

I don't. I'm just not going to do it.

 

[zorq]

Ah yes, the pronoun militants, who believe using pronouns that match a person's sex makes them a cunt.

It is commonly known to be rude to address people in ways that they prefer not to be addressed.

Is it? So, if you prefer to be addressed as 'His Royal Highness Zorq', I'd be rude to not comply?

Yes, provided "I" made my preferences clear, indicated their importance to me and they weren't actually troublesome "I" would be very grateful for you not to insult me by addressing me incorrectly.

That you think you can determine whether your preferences are not 'actually troublesome' indicates to me your preferences are actually quite troublesome.

If you can utter an audible tone that indicates disrespect, you can utter a similar audible tone that indicates respect. It really isn't physically troublesome at all. Neither tone actually hurts you.

And I could utter Muslim prayers five times a day. The tone doesn't actually hurt me. Should I be forced to utter Muslim prayers five times a day?

Well, if you happen to be employed as some kind of prayer director at a mosque, then, yes, your employment depends on that sort of communication. You see, you say the word "forced" but it's not a force with the threat of violence behind it. If you insist on using the word "force" with respect to this case it is only a "force" that might kick you out of employment for failing to fulfill the conditions of your employment contract. If you are employed by anyone, even the state and your religion prevents you from fulfilling the conditions of your employment contract you may have to make a choice about which you value more. Whether you worship a magic man in the sky or "the history of the English language," it really comes down to a choice.

You know this right?

No, I don't 'know' any such thing. To 'know' something means I believe a statement to be true, I have good reason to believe it to be true, and it is, in fact, true.

So, no, I don't know it.

Wait, you are so isolated from reality that you have never heard of the concept of people not liking it when you address them incorrectly? WTF?

I do not address people incorrectly.

And do the people you address agree with you?

I often ask for feedback early on when I'm trying to pronounce a first name that is unusual.

I don't ask for feedback and have never received feedback about using pronouns, because the correct pronoun for somebody doesn't depend on the person's opinion.

So in other words, despite this being one of your favorite hobby horses, you have never actually had a conversation with a trans person in real life. You really dedicate a lot of energy to being an asshole to people you've never even met. Why?

Yes, your bad. I feel emotions and your blatant desire to completely disrespect them shows your empathy is quite selective.

Here's a secret, I know that you feel emotions, and I care about your emotions but I know that you are playing dumb. One of the tools I have chosen to use to make you stop playing dumb and come to the facking obvious epiphany that treating other people like shit

Stop. I don't treat other people like shit.

for silly arbitrary reasons

Respecting my philosophical beliefs is not a silly arbitrary reason. Next.

is a bad thing to do

It isn't. Next.

The people you insist on disrespecting, if you ever actually met any of them, would likely wholeheartedly disagree with you. Why should we value your opinion over theirs? Your disrespect is obvious, their taking offense to it is understandable.

Your insistence that English pronouns can only and should only refer only to the contents of a person's underpants at birth is a ridiculous fundamentalist take on a system of communication that ... ultimately... has no enforceable rules and no authoritative body with the power or will to enforce them. You should understand that your "personal philosophy" if it is actually based on the "history of the English language" as you claim (I suspect it is actually based on prejudice.) is based on a system with boundless capacity for change and a boundless history of adaptation to uncontrollable forces and influences. It's like water. It has no permanent form or shape and never did.

You can act like the little Dutch boy and try to plug the dikes with your finger, but you need to understand that the finger you are using is your middle finger and it doesn't reflect well on you.

is to treat you a little bit like shit. When you decided to play dumb, I just decided to play your "I'm dumb" game with you. Why? To help you learn a lesson.

I can assure you zorq your pedagogical skills are severely lacking in this respect.

I didn't say that I was expecting you to actually learn the lesson. I know better than that.

Yes indeed. Meriwether refusing participation in the gender cultist religious rites means he was the one creating the hostile environment.

Dude, he literally insists that the reason he refuses to offer to this student an amount of respect most people consider a bare minimum is because of HIS religion. HIS irrational belief system based on not on facts, but ... FAITH,

Non. It is a faith belief that pronouns for humans are based on personal preference and not on sex. This is in conflict with nearly the entire history of spoken English.

If we are to believe the article, this guy probably doesn't give a shit about the history of the English language. He says he cares about his magic. He thinks that the magic won't work for him if he doesn't say the magic words right. He doesn't care who he hurts in the process either. If his magic book told him cannibalism is the path to paradise, he'd probably do it. Ask a Catholic.

it is the pronoun cultists who believe in magic, not this professor.

You REALLY are playing dumb, yikes. I mean the fact that the guy is a Christian made it to word number 7 in the title of the article you posted. He believes in real magic. Really! He thinks it is real! LOL!

And gender cultists think you can change sex, and that others must lie publically to appease them. The first part is indeed a magical belief. The second part is a tyrannical impulse.

Sex, and gender are complicated and not binary. You likely refuse to acknowledge this fact, but it is a fact. I suspect you would have an easier time with this topic if you weren't so poorly informed about the world.

It is faith to think that any language exists in any absolute terms. They are all arbitrary invented symbols and most are constantly in flux.

I never claimed it did.

But neither you, nor any gender cultist, has the moral right to force language from me or anyone.

Great! We agree!

So why are you still talking?

Because there is no language being forced from anyone in this case. There is a guy acting rude to a client in his workplace and he didn't like the prospect of facing consequences for breaking the terms of his employment as his employers saw them. The disagreement went to court. But nobody was "forced" to do anything. The guy was and is free to be rude all the time to anyone he wants to in any way he wants to, but it is a fact of the world that this sort of behavior is considered unacceptable in many work environments.

But in the end language exists for communication. Most humans have highly developed brains honed over hundreds of thousands of years of evolution and living socially to be sensitive to social cues and empathetic towards other members of their tribe. They understand that you can hurt other people using language. If this professor wanted to he could choose to not hurt other people with his words, but he doesn't give a fuck.

No, the gender cultist male who insisted others see him as and refer to him as a woman, doesn't give a FUCK about hurting other people. It was he who made threats.

Yeah, a lot of people have this weird notion that when they are paying for a service that it shouldn't come with insults and arbitrary disrespect.

Having a pronoun used for you that aligns with your sex is not an insult. Next.

The student in question asked for a token of respect to be paid to her but instead was subjected to continued abusive language.

Having a pronoun used for you that aligns with your sex is not abusive language. Next.

Again, why should we value your opinion over anyone else's?

Consider Will Farrell's character from the scene I posted above. He is an expert on elves, having lived, and worked with elves for the past 40 years. He thought he had found an elf when he saw Peter Dinklage's character so he calls him an elf and insists on referring to him as an elf despite the fact that Peter Dinklage's character is not an elf, and requests several times that it not continue. That Will Farrell was wrong, is almost incidental to the fact that he was using a word that he didn't think was an insult, but was in fact very insulting to Peter Dinklage's character. Who is the asshole in this scene Metaphor?

I suspect that isn't something the enrolment contract warned her to expect either. Students have rights too you know.

Students do not have the right to force others to utter lies for them to continue their fantasies. Next.

Again, the guy who won't say certain words lest the magic not work for him is the one clearly leading a more fantastical life. But besides that, I suspect that at this school, students do have the right to expect professional, non-abusive behavior from the staff.

led him to act like an asshole, and that makes everyone else "cultists"? Reality check. I bet you that he can't even find an entry in any of his preferred "holy texts" that actually forbid him from using pronouns in ANY way whatsoever. The guy is clearly a nut.

Eh? I don't have any holy texts, and I would not address a male as 'she', most especially I wouldn't do it if he demanded I do it.

Then you're probably an asshole. It's such an small ask, and it means so much to some people.

It's a small ask for you. It's a big ask for me to utter lies at the behest of gender cultists.

You care more about the "history of the English language" than the emotions of a human standing in front of you?

It is you who clearly does not give a flying fuck about the emotions of people you disagree with.

Does it feel bad to be disrespected? Huh... How about that? If only you could relate this feeling to some other context.

Yes, it's a bad situation that gender cultists have such institutional power that they think nothing of trying to force others to lie to cater to their delusions.

But is it a lie? Or is it that you have faith in the binary nature of sex and gender? Or that you have faith that pronouns can only refer to biology? These are your articles of faith, they aren't facts.

Regardless of the dickishness, you should really consider offering more respect to other humans from a self preservation perspective too.

Yeah, threats of violence are a dick move. Did you know they were a dick move? They're a dick move.

What? The student didn't threaten violence. What are you talking about?

You brought up the spectre of 'self preservation'.

Here's a hint, the signs you see alerting you to high voltage aren't threatening to electrocute you. They are advising you to take care. Not everyone is out to get you, dude.

I try to avoid situations similar to the one Peter Dinklage inflicted on Will Ferrell. And it could be worse-- in the US, you never know who has a gun. And all that over some imagined slight to the gods of the "history of the English language"? No thanks.

Yeah, darling, that gender cultists might fucking shoot and kill you for not conforming to their religion is not persuading me to respect your position, luv.

Unfortunately, I don't live in a country with an equivalent first amendment, but I do live in a country where people don't pack heat while grocery shopping.

It's not just the minorities who are a danger to you when you disrespect them, it is everyone. Really, this is an important life lesson. You should strongly consider offering the people you meet a little more respect until they show you that they don't deserve it. Arbitrarily pissing people off is ALWAYS a hazard.

Thank you for your advice that I should capitulate to the tyrannical demands of others so that they do not punish me.

Well, if a bad fate befalls you, don't say you weren't warned.

The university didn't agree to any such thing. They were rightfully forced to do the right thing.

Eh.

No employer should be forced to employ an employee who insists on unnecessarily disrespecting some of their customers.

So, you don't agree with the USA's First Amendment? And the 'employer' here is the government.

You understand that the first amendment isn't a blank check right? There are some things you can't say. And there are some things the Government can't say. There is plenty of nuance there for a devil to hide in.

And the government has said that it can't force people it employs to 'respect' the forced prayers of gender cultists.

Eh. I think I need to remind you that this professor's lawyers weren't able to convince every judge they showed the case to that they were right.

Of course they were not. Gender cultists hold enormous institutional power. A UK judge might have ordered the professor be hanged, drawn and quartered.

At this point I can't tell if you think you are serious or just exaggerating for effect. Well, I'll just go ahead and assume the worst and try to assure you that there is NO chance that a UK judge would order a capital punishment, especially using such a cruel and unusual method, to be performed on an employee who fails to fulfill the terms of his employment contract. Yikes.

And, the actual verdict is likely a little more nuanced than you or the "Daily Mail" are making it out to be.

The finding, as it stands, is good news. It won't be the end of the story, of course, since I've already said that gender ideology has enormous institutional power.

Yeah, as they say, truth will overcome, and it has already overcome quite a lot.

 

[Metaphor]

Ah yes, the pronoun militants, who believe using pronouns that match a person's sex makes them a cunt.

It is commonly known to be rude to address people in ways that they prefer not to be addressed.

Is it? So, if you prefer to be addressed as 'His Royal Highness Zorq', I'd be rude to not comply?

Yes, provided "I" made my preferences clear, indicated their importance to me and they weren't actually troublesome "I" would be very grateful for you not to insult me by addressing me incorrectly.

That you think you can determine whether your preferences are not 'actually troublesome' indicates to me your preferences are actually quite troublesome.

If you can utter an audible tone that indicates disrespect, you can utter a similar audible tone that indicates respect. It really isn't physically troublesome at all. Neither tone actually hurts you.

And I could utter Muslim prayers five times a day. The tone doesn't actually hurt me. Should I be forced to utter Muslim prayers five times a day?

Well, if you happen to be employed as some kind of prayer director at a mosque, then, yes, your employment depends on that sort of communication. You see, you say the word "forced" but it's not a force with the threat of violence behind it. If you insist on using the word "force" with respect to this case it is only a "force" that might kick you out of employment for failing to fulfill the conditions of your employment contract. If you are employed by anyone, even the state and your religion prevents you from fulfilling the conditions of your employment contract you may have to make a choice about which you value more. Whether you worship a magic man in the sky or "the history of the English language," it really comes down to a choice.

If you are employed the by the State, the State has no business forcing religious words from you. This includes respecting the religious demands of the gender cultists.

You know this right?

No, I don't 'know' any such thing. To 'know' something means I believe a statement to be true, I have good reason to believe it to be true, and it is, in fact, true.

So, no, I don't know it.

Wait, you are so isolated from reality that you have never heard of the concept of people not liking it when you address them incorrectly? WTF?

I do not address people incorrectly.

And do the people you address agree with you?

I often ask for feedback early on when I'm trying to pronounce a first name that is unusual.

I don't ask for feedback and have never received feedback about using pronouns, because the correct pronoun for somebody doesn't depend on the person's opinion.

So in other words, despite this being one of your favorite hobby horses, you have never actually had a conversation with a trans person in real life. You really dedicate a lot of energy to being an asshole to people you've never even met. Why?

What on earth are you talking about? I don't discuss somebody's "preferred pronouns" with any person, trans or not. In fact, I don't enquire.

What kind of asshole demands I subscribe to their religion? I'll tell you one kind: gender cultists.

Yes, your bad. I feel emotions and your blatant desire to completely disrespect them shows your empathy is quite selective.

Here's a secret, I know that you feel emotions, and I care about your emotions but I know that you are playing dumb. One of the tools I have chosen to use to make you stop playing dumb and come to the facking obvious epiphany that treating other people like shit

Stop. I don't treat other people like shit.

for silly arbitrary reasons

Respecting my philosophical beliefs is not a silly arbitrary reason. Next.

is a bad thing to do

It isn't. Next.

The people you insist on disrespecting, if you ever actually met any of them, would likely wholeheartedly disagree with you. Why should we value your opinion over theirs? Your disrespect is obvious, their taking offense to it is understandable.

You don't have to value my "opinion". You have to not force the prayers of gender cultists from my lips.

Your insistence that English pronouns can only and should only refer only to the contents of a person's underpants at birth

Ridiculous strawman. Next.

is a ridiculous fundamentalist take on a system of communication that ... ultimately... has no enforceable rules and no authoritative body with the power or will to enforce them. You should understand that your "personal philosophy" if it is actually based on the "history of the English language" as you claim (I suspect it is actually based on prejudice.) is based on a system with boundless capacity for change and a boundless history of adaptation to uncontrollable forces and influences. It's like water. It has no permanent form or shape and never did.

You can act like the little Dutch boy and try to plug the dikes with your finger, but you need to understand that the finger you are using is your middle finger and it doesn't reflect well on you.

zorq let me assure you that your evaluation of my motives and personality is both wrong and unsolicited.

is to treat you a little bit like shit. When you decided to play dumb, I just decided to play your "I'm dumb" game with you. Why? To help you learn a lesson.

I can assure you zorq your pedagogical skills are severely lacking in this respect.

I didn't say that I was expecting you to actually learn the lesson. I know better than that.

Yes indeed. Meriwether refusing participation in the gender cultist religious rites means he was the one creating the hostile environment.

Dude, he literally insists that the reason he refuses to offer to this student an amount of respect most people consider a bare minimum is because of HIS religion. HIS irrational belief system based on not on facts, but ... FAITH,

Non. It is a faith belief that pronouns for humans are based on personal preference and not on sex. This is in conflict with nearly the entire history of spoken English.

If we are to believe the article, this guy probably doesn't give a shit about the history of the English language. He says he cares about his magic. He thinks that the magic won't work for him if he doesn't say the magic words right. He doesn't care who he hurts in the process either. If his magic book told him cannibalism is the path to paradise, he'd probably do it. Ask a Catholic.

it is the pronoun cultists who believe in magic, not this professor.

You REALLY are playing dumb, yikes. I mean the fact that the guy is a Christian made it to word number 7 in the title of the article you posted. He believes in real magic. Really! He thinks it is real! LOL!

And gender cultists think you can change sex, and that others must lie publically to appease them. The first part is indeed a magical belief. The second part is a tyrannical impulse.

View attachment 38261

Sex, and gender are complicated and not binary. You likely refuse to acknowledge this fact, but it is a fact. I suspect you would have an easier time with this topic if you weren't so poorly informed about the world.

Sex in mammals cannot change, barring perhaps the far future with sci-fi technology. I don't care if you don't believe this. That you are delusional does not harm me, except when you force me to partake in your delusion.

It is faith to think that any language exists in any absolute terms. They are all arbitrary invented symbols and most are constantly in flux.

I never claimed it did.

But neither you, nor any gender cultist, has the moral right to force language from me or anyone.

Great! We agree!

So why are you still talking?

Because there is no language being forced from anyone in this case. There is a guy acting rude to a client in his workplace and he didn't like the prospect of facing consequences for breaking the terms of his employment as his employers saw them. The disagreement went to court. But nobody was "forced" to do anything. The guy was and is free to be rude all the time to anyone he wants to in any way he wants to, but it is a fact of the world that this sort of behavior is considered unacceptable in many work environments.

The State has no business forcing the prayers of gender cultists from anybody's lips. In the United States, at least, the State is prevented from doing so.

But in the end language exists for communication. Most humans have highly developed brains honed over hundreds of thousands of years of evolution and living socially to be sensitive to social cues and empathetic towards other members of their tribe. They understand that you can hurt other people using language. If this professor wanted to he could choose to not hurt other people with his words, but he doesn't give a fuck.

No, the gender cultist male who insisted others see him as and refer to him as a woman, doesn't give a FUCK about hurting other people. It was he who made threats.

Yeah, a lot of people have this weird notion that when they are paying for a service that it shouldn't come with insults and arbitrary disrespect.

Having a pronoun used for you that aligns with your sex is not an insult. Next.

The student in question asked for a token of respect to be paid to her but instead was subjected to continued abusive language.

Having a pronoun used for you that aligns with your sex is not abusive language. Next.

Again, why should we value your opinion over anyone else's?

I'm not asking you to value my opinion.

Consider Will Farrell's character from the scene I posted above. He is an expert on elves, having lived, and worked with elves for the past 40 years. He thought he had found an elf when he saw Peter Dinklage's character so he calls him an elf and insists on referring to him as an elf despite the fact that Peter Dinklage's character is not an elf, and requests several times that it not continue. That Will Farrell was wrong, is almost incidental to the fact that he was using a word that he didn't think was an insult, but was in fact very insulting to Peter Dinklage's character. Who is the asshole in this scene Metaphor?

I don't know the movie and I'm not going to speculate on it.

I suspect that isn't something the enrolment contract warned her to expect either. Students have rights too you know.

Students do not have the right to force others to utter lies for them to continue their fantasies. Next.

Again, the guy who won't say certain words lest the magic not work for him is the one clearly leading a more fantastical life. But besides that, I suspect that at this school, students do have the right to expect professional, non-abusive behavior from the staff.

Having a pronoun used for you that aligns with your sex is not abusive. Next.

led him to act like an asshole, and that makes everyone else "cultists"? Reality check. I bet you that he can't even find an entry in any of his preferred "holy texts" that actually forbid him from using pronouns in ANY way whatsoever. The guy is clearly a nut.

Eh? I don't have any holy texts, and I would not address a male as 'she', most especially I wouldn't do it if he demanded I do it.

Then you're probably an asshole. It's such an small ask, and it means so much to some people.

It's a small ask for you. It's a big ask for me to utter lies at the behest of gender cultists.

You care more about the "history of the English language" than the emotions of a human standing in front of you?

It is you who clearly does not give a flying fuck about the emotions of people you disagree with.

Does it feel bad to be disrespected? Huh... How about that? If only you could relate this feeling to some other context.

Yes, it's a bad situation that gender cultists have such institutional power that they think nothing of trying to force others to lie to cater to their delusions.

But is it a lie? Or is it that you have faith in the binary nature of sex and gender? Or that you have faith that pronouns can only refer to biology? These are your articles of faith, they aren't facts.

Sex is binary and cannot change in mammals. This is not a faith statement but a biological fact.

"Gender identity" can be anything because it is a thought in a person's head. I have no interest in anybody's "gender identity", any more than I have an interest in hearing them evaluate their own personality.

Regardless of the dickishness, you should really consider offering more respect to other humans from a self preservation perspective too.

Yeah, threats of violence are a dick move. Did you know they were a dick move? They're a dick move.

What? The student didn't threaten violence. What are you talking about?

You brought up the spectre of 'self preservation'.

Here's a hint, the signs you see alerting you to high voltage aren't threatening to electrocute you. They are advising you to take care. Not everyone is out to get you, dude.

I try to avoid situations similar to the one Peter Dinklage inflicted on Will Ferrell. And it could be worse-- in the US, you never know who has a gun. And all that over some imagined slight to the gods of the "history of the English language"? No thanks.

Yeah, darling, that gender cultists might fucking shoot and kill you for not conforming to their religion is not persuading me to respect your position, luv.

Unfortunately, I don't live in a country with an equivalent first amendment, but I do live in a country where people don't pack heat while grocery shopping.

It's not just the minorities who are a danger to you when you disrespect them, it is everyone. Really, this is an important life lesson. You should strongly consider offering the people you meet a little more respect until they show you that they don't deserve it. Arbitrarily pissing people off is ALWAYS a hazard.

Thank you for your advice that I should capitulate to the tyrannical demands of others so that they do not punish me.

Well, if a bad fate befalls you, don't say you weren't warned.

Thanks for the repeated threat. I got it the first time, luv.

The university didn't agree to any such thing. They were rightfully forced to do the right thing.

Eh.

No employer should be forced to employ an employee who insists on unnecessarily disrespecting some of their customers.

So, you don't agree with the USA's First Amendment? And the 'employer' here is the government.

You understand that the first amendment isn't a blank check right? There are some things you can't say. And there are some things the Government can't say. There is plenty of nuance there for a devil to hide in.

And the government has said that it can't force people it employs to 'respect' the forced prayers of gender cultists.

Eh. I think I need to remind you that this professor's lawyers weren't able to convince every judge they showed the case to that they were right.

Of course they were not. Gender cultists hold enormous institutional power. A UK judge might have ordered the professor be hanged, drawn and quartered.

At this point I can't tell if you think you are serious or just exaggerating for effect. Well, I'll just go ahead and assume the worst and try to assure you that there is NO chance that a UK judge would order a capital punishment, especially using such a cruel and unusual method, to be performed on an employee who fails to fulfill the terms of his employment contract. Yikes.

Yikes, indeed. I suppose you thought Jonathan Swift was seriously advocating the killing and eating of Irish babies.

And, the actual verdict is likely a little more nuanced than you or the "Daily Mail" are making it out to be.

The finding, as it stands, is good news. It won't be the end of the story, of course, since I've already said that gender ideology has enormous institutional power.

Yeah, as they say, truth will overcome, and it has already overcome quite a lot.

Yes, the tyrannical always believe they have the truth.

 

[ZiprHead]

Sex is binary and cannot change in mammals. This is not a faith statement but a biological fact.

"Gender identity" can be anything because it is a thought in a person's head. I have no interest in anybody's "gender identity", any more than I have an interest in hearing them evaluate their own personality.

It is a biological fact that gender identity is determined by the brain. That you use scare quotes, or call it just thought, and refer to it as a religion, is you denying biological reality and facts.

 

[laughing dog]

Sex is binary and cannot change in mammals. This is not a faith statement but a biological fact.

"Gender identity" can be anything because it is a thought in a person's head. I have no interest in anybody's "gender identity", any more than I have an interest in hearing them evaluate their own personality.

It is a biological fact that gender identity is determined by the brain. That you use scare quotes, or call it just thought, and refer to it as a religion, is you denying biological reality and facts.

Denial of biological reality and fact is a common foundation for bigoted religious thought.

 

[TomC]

If you are employed the by the State, the State has no business forcing religious words from you. This includes respecting the religious demands of the gender cultists.

Referring to people in a considerate and civil fashion is not religious. Gender normative language in English is rather arbitrary and based on ancient assumptions that aren't necessarily true.

Why is it better to refer to an unknown individual with the inaccurate gender neutral plural "they" rather than the more accurate gender neutral singular "it"? I dunno. But that's how things are. Still not a religious concept.

More religious seeming is your insistence that correct pronoun usage is determined by ancient traditions. Pronouns used to be determined by sex, a physical characteristic. Now the correct usage is determined by gender preference, more specifically an individual's preference. True, people didn't see things that way just a few decades ago. But that was then and this is now.

It's your views on the subject that seem religious to me. Backing up your views with "That's how it's always been done" sounds very religious to me.
Tom

 

[Bronzeage]

In boot camp, a Marine Corps Drill Instructor calls his new recruits "ladies" because he wants his future devil dogs to be more in touch with their feminine side.

Just kidding. He actually does that to belittle and humiliate them. Seriously, it's an act of intimidation.

It is a bit of a mystery why some people in the civilian world want to belittle and intimidate others by using inappropriate pronouns. I doubt it's intended to toughen them up for combat.

A more likely explanation is they actually feel threatened and respond with hostility. In the DSM, this is described as IPS, Insufferable Prick Syndrome, a condition characterized by being rude and advocating rudeness against those who have absolutely no impact on the IPS sufferer's quality of life.

 

[TSwizzle]

It is a bit of a mystery why some people in the civilian world want to belittle and intimidate others by using inappropriate pronouns.

Or ask inappropriate questions like “Sir, are you pregnant?” when checking in for an MRI scan.

 

[Bomb#20]

Why is it better to refer to an unknown individual with the inaccurate gender neutral plural "they" rather than the more accurate gender neutral singular "it"? I dunno. But that's how things are. Still not a religious concept.

Languages grammatically separating words into noun classes based on animate-vs-inanimate is much more widespread than masculine-vs-feminine, and at least for I.E. languages, older and more consistent. The disinclination to think of people as mere things seems pretty deeply ingrained.

More religious seeming is your insistence that correct pronoun usage is determined by ancient traditions. Pronouns used to be determined by sex, a physical characteristic.

Ah, that would be the fallacy of "Appeal to tradition (argumentum ad antiquitatem)".

Now the correct usage is determined by gender preference, more specifically an individual's preference. True, people didn't see things that way just a few decades ago. But that was then and this is now.

Ah, that would be the fallacy of "Appeal to novelty (argumentum ad novitatem)".

It's your views on the subject that seem religious to me. Backing up your views with "That's how it's always been done" sounds very religious to me.

And backing up your views with "That's how it's done now" is an inch less religious because...?

 

[Bronzeage]

It is a bit of a mystery why some people in the civilian world want to belittle and intimidate others by using inappropriate pronouns.

Or ask inappropriate questions like “Sir, are you pregnant?” when checking in for an MRI scan.

When I have a medical exam, I am asked, "Do you have feelings that you want to hurt yourself or someone else?" I manage to get through it.

It's another mystery why some people find the pregnancy question objectionable, when it's sole purpose is to protect an unborn baby. I've never bought into the fiction that they find life sacred.
They would show more concern for those fetuses which have transitioned to breathing air, if life really held meaning.

Perhaps along with the current crop of anti abortion laws now in process, they can tack on an ammendment requiring citizens to conform to a dress code so there will never be any confusion about who might be carrying a fetus subject to radiation damage.

 

[TSwizzle]

When I have a medical exam, I am asked, "Do you have feelings that you want to hurt yourself or someone else?" I manage to get through it.

Bully for you but I refuse to go along with these fantasies.

It's another mystery why some people find the pregnancy question objectionable, when it's sole purpose is to protect an unborn baby. I've never bought into the fiction that they find life sacred.

You can pretend it’s about protecting a non existent fetus until the cows come home. Which I’m sure you will.