I won't lie, I hesitated writing this, but lately it's becoming harder and harder to be completely quiet about the whole thing. I would say, without a hint of doubt in my voice, that I'm an ally of freedom, and thus anything that promotes it is good in my book, but we seem to be confusing the term quite a lot lately.
Who can in good faith disagree with this?
I mean this sincerely. Should not all of us enjoy the same rights under a fair constitution? Are we all not citizens of the nation?
It seems to me that if anyone is asking for a group of people to cease to exist they are in the wrong. That's not pro freedom, that's quite the opposite, and I want to to start making this very clear before I continue with my stupid rant.
This fact doesn't mean....
A group of people, a community, can dictate how the world talks. The very idea that we can regulate in any way pronouns is so ridiculous, I thought it to be a joke many years ago when it began being discussed.
How could you, and I ask sincerely, make the government use violence to protect such a thing? Let's be real about this, how would such "system" be implemented?
There was at some point in time this idea that misgendering someone could be grounds for hate crimes. I could not believe I was reading such "brilliant" idea.
And again, I'm not saying it's OK to call someone who identifies as a man, a woman, or the other way around, I'm talking about the scope of the issue.
A detour to make a point...
It seems at times that those who are quite firm on their stance, struggle to see the picture clearly. So here's a little detour to illustrate, if you will, the scope of things, the volume of problem we are dealing with, and the reactions that we decide to take.
An actual video I saw days ago:
A man walks up to a woman on the street holding a cellphone to interview said woman. This is happening at a feminist rally, so he's sure to get some good content for his channel.
The man asks a woman what should happen to men who rape women, to predators. Without skipping a beat she says: Death, they should be put to death for something like that, no doubt.
The man clarifies: No jailtime, just death? - She... doubles down.
He proceeds to make a second question: What about women who lie about being raped?
She thinks for a second... a fine... yeah, they should pay a fine.
Is the problem apparent?
In the worse scenario, a man would have been killed by the government, and woman, who is guilty of said murder, has to pay a traffic ticket (hyperbole, I know).
With this fresh in your mind, come back with me to our subject at hand...
Weaponizing government for morality
Is a path we need to take very, very carefully. This is not to say government should not intervene, ever, but to simply state, and I hope clearly, that we have to think of how the system can be used (because it will) by evil people.
Hence why the idea of controlling speech is plain stupid. Precisely why the first amendment is a thing. I'm not to saying I'm a second amendment absolutist, but the exceptions are few and far in between in my book.
We should be able to talk
To argue about some of the things we don't find fair or even convincing, without it being considered a hate crime.
Recently the trans-woman in sports debate is back to scorching temperatures, and even though, again, I'm on the side of people presenting themselves as they wish, being who they want to be, I don't think women's voices are being heard here enough.
In Canada recently a power-lifter proved through a ridiculous stunt how the system, as it stands today, is not fair to women, and he got a lot of hate for what I believe was an important message to society.
But it gets worse...
If it stopped only at the misgendering thing, I think I would not have been motivated to even write about this, but there's more going on. Now we've began talking about gestating person, menstruating person, and all sorts of odd terms that some people may not feel comfortable using.
This is precisely the point. I for one, will never use gestating person to refer to women in my life, just to be inclusive. And if someone is not OK with me not using inclusive language, the problem is not me. My choice is not violent, it's not out of hate, it's just my choice.
These hills the left has been planting flags on lately are very difficult to understand to me. I say this, knowing full well that I may one day discover to have been very wrong about it all.
I may be getting old, but it's hard to understand the world these days...
MenO
My main concern with the whole "hate speech" censorship campaign is, who gets to decide what hate speech is? Is it a bunch of emotionally fragile gender studies majors? Recently Stanford University released a list of "Harmful Language to Avoid", which lists word's like American, and picnic. A rational person would find something like this to be extremely ridiculous. It all comes down to this quote Benjamin Franklin once said about how people who abandon liberty for safety, are not deserving of both.
it's impossible to implement, plain and simple.
The Standford list is ridiculous and essentially turns people into language police, ready to be offended at every turn.
One of my favorites on the list is "addicted", and it is suggested that people instead use the term "devoted". Seriously?
It sounds even stupider in practice - "My friend is devoted to cocaine." A devoted person is someone who's: caring, concerned, dedicated, loving, etc.
"My friend is in love with cocaine... and because of this love cannot bear to be apart from his/her/they's favourite pass-time."
It actually loses the meaning of the original statement that this person has a problem.
Does that mean we have to pay for their boob jobs?
Some people demand to be called this or that. Other people don't care what you call them, as long as you don't call them late for dinner. It is the latter that most often deserve the respect they get, because their arguments don't rely on the fallacy of authority, but just might actually be reasonable. I note that when people demand titular respect, they have already lost it. When they resort to 'Because I'm king!', or President, or dad, or whatever, the argument they are making is force.
Divine rights are human rights, amirite? No, I'm not. Anyone that mandates we pander to their whims are claiming ownership of us. Claiming our refusal to be owned harms those claiming ownership of us is clearly false, which they will point out as soon as we claim ownership of them. Sticks and stones aren't the same thing as words. When people demand kitty litter boxes in restrooms, or tampon dispensers in men's rooms, the right to present themselves is not the issue, but has become a demand slaves obey their masters.
The very resort to such demands proves the claim false. It's like censorship. If you have to pass a law to prevent people asking questions, what you're defending isn't the truth.
Thanks!
Interesting, I've never heard the term "gestating person" before. That kind of sounds like a term that the TERFs would come up with.
As for the whole sports debate with trans women competing in womans sports, the medical science behind the issue is that if a trans woman has transitioned and been on testosterone blockers and estrogen therapy for a couple of years, that person has already lost about 15 to 20 percent of the muscle mass that they had before transition. If they've had surgery to remove the source of testosterone production, the muscle mass loss is a bit more. That removes any advantage that the trans person might have previously had due to physical strength. This is something that rarely is part of the conversation when the right wing fanatics are pushing their agenda. The Olympics governing board has already addressed this controversy, that's why testosterone tests are done before competition. Testosterone "doping" gives any woman an advantage over the other competitors.
Yes, this is correct Amber... but apparently in Canada, no testing needs doing. So, this guy literally said, I'm a woman and beat all the records. The idea is to make it fair for everyone, so it's obvious the law has to change there.
The gestating person may be a TERF term, I don't really know, I saw a controversy regarding TYT that inspired this rant of mine. People attacked Ana Kasparian over her wanting to be called simply woman. I'm not making it up, you can find it all over twitter. I find the whole debate/argument counterproductive to say the least.
why are you getting downvoted?
That's what I would also like to know. And I have already written several posts about this issue. But looks like am I going to have to write another post somewhat more demanding & illustrative to see if we can find a conclusive explanation to this mystery.