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Ava's avatar

Sure they can. And I will call them all women.

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anonvet's avatar

I was being glib but, in all seriousness, my question is what someone's terribleness has to do with how they Identify.

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Midwest Molly's avatar

Using wrong sex pronouns for someone causes me cognitive dissonance and also some linguistic gymnastics. I know itтАЩs a man. But he thinks hes a woman, so I have to call him by female pronouns. ItтАЩs a pain in the ass! And more importantly, it makes it impossible to argue for womenтАЩs rights. How can we fight for sex based sports if we are calling men тАЬsheтАЭ? It makes the entire argument non sensical if we canтАЩt refer to, say, Lia Thomas, as a man. Example: тАЬ Lia Thomas fights for her right to be on the womanтАЩs teamтАЭ versus: тАЬLia Thomas fights for his right to be on the womenтАЩs teamтАЭ.

Bottom line: il not going to do the cognitive dissonance thing for an asshole. And IтАЩm not going to concede to a new custom that makes it more difficult for women to exert their rights.

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Heron's avatar

Dude, the fact that you can't just keep up with the fact that they're talking about Andrea James with she/her pronouns and that she's a transwoman who used to be a man makes me think you're being intentionally biased about this and also don't understand what Jesse/Katie are actually talking about.

You saying you're not going to do the "cognitive dissonance thing" is literally you just not wanting to make the tiny tiny effort to make the connection about who they're talking about? Which you obviously have already done because you know who they're talking about. Try not to let tiny personal issues distract you from the overall point.

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Midwest Molly's avatar

Dude, I can absolutely "keep up" with it. Never said I couldn't. You are fighting with yourself here. This piece explains the cognitive dissonance piece well.

https://fairplayforwomen.com/pronouns/

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TFYFWYA's avatar

fucking thank you. these guys and their "silly little women just can't understand!" is straight outta reddit circa 2014.

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Zagarna's avatar

I agree that you could choose to be not-hateful. You instead choose to be hateful because that's who you are-- a hateful person; an archetypal bigot motivated by group dislike.

It's interesting that you seem to prefer this characterization to Heron's (what I take to be conciliatory) one.

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That TERF Owl's avatar

You could choose not to be a dick, but here you are. ЁЯд╖тАНтЩАя╕П

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That TERF Owl's avatar

Once a man, always a man.

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Zagarna's avatar

Ross Tucker has made many cogent critiques of the fairness of including trans women in women's sports without ever, to my knowledge, even unintentionally misgendering someone.

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That TERF Owl's avatar

Shall we all send him a cookie?

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anonvet's avatar

-I don't find it difficult and it doesn't give me a pain in the ass. It just doesn't make a difference to me one way or the other. ITSM that it only matters if one feels an ideological point is inherently being made. I feel like it's the same as how my mom had to use the word homosexual and couldn't use the word gay. She felt like using the latter implied condoning, which she couldn't do.

-I concede that the issue of sports has been difficult, it's not impossible. Multiple international organizations have recently concluded that the line should be drawn at whether a person has gone through male puberty. That seems fair to me. Took a minute, but I feel like we're on the way to that issue being resolved.

-And it doesn't make any sense to me to call bad people papists and good people Catholics.

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Ava's avatar

Not much really. It just seems that someone who behaves so despicably is especially unworthy of deference to his assumed identity.

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Skull's avatar

We aren't polite to people because they've somehow earned it politically.

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Ava's avatar

I don't see what despicable behavior has to do with politics. And I don't think it's either polite or impolite to refer to someone as what he actually is. I'm not going to politely tell the naked emperor that he has lovely clothes, unless he's a 5-year-old who knows that we are playing make believe.

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Skull's avatar

Yes but that has nothing to do with behavior. I don't think men can be women either, but my choice to call them she or not has literally nothing to do with whether or not I like them as people. That would be inconsistent.

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Stephanie's avatar

Mostly agree, but there are limits. I cannot bring myself to agree with referring to sex offenders and people who seem to be abusing self ID by their "preferred pronouns." I think of TW as socially women, and you can exceed social norms sufficiently that I will stop playing along although normally I am happy enough to do so out of politeness and because I am fine with most TW being social women for aspects of life where actual biology is not important.

I would use "she" for James, but also I think it is important to the story to make clear she is a TW.

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Ava's avatar

Yes, it would. That's why even though I love and respect my daughter, I will never refer to her by her chosen pronouns.

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anonvet's avatar

But why does it seem that way? I'm not trying to be pedantic, I just honestly don't see how the two are connected.

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Ava's avatar

Whether right or wrong, I think it's fairly common for people to decide that a person who acts abhorrently is unworthy of respect. I didn't mean to suggest that the acceptance of self-ID should be based on whether someone is a good person.

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anonvet's avatar

As a general rule, I've always found it easier to get an opponent to listen to me if I don't intentionally disrespect them. Which is to say, I've never found it helpful.

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Zagarna's avatar

That's because they are completely unconnected.

If the goal was simply to insult bad people, then they would nonsensically misgender cis women. It's not; the goal is to enact bigotry on what is deemed to be an acceptable target, as a gateway to normalizing it for all trans people. It's in the same vein as Der Sturmer running stories about "Jewish crime" every time a Jew got arrested.

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Ava's avatar

Also, that happens to be whom this episode was about.

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Skull's avatar

Not because of their behavior.

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