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'Ze' or 'They'? A Guide to Using Gender-Neutral Pronouns

There's no reason to make this distinction

Sure there is.
Words that are integrated naturally aren't generally as stupid and don't carry an agenda.

I think this is more indicative of a bias towards people who use these pronouns than a statement of fact but pretty par for the course in internet arguments

Yes, I'm biased against an ultra minority of people wanting to change words, for an even smaller ultra minority, when it serves no real utility function.
 
Sure there is.
Words that are integrated naturally aren't generally as stupid

Please forgive me for not taking you as an authority on what is stupid and what isn't stupid


Yes, I'm biased against an ultra minority of people wanting to change words, for an even smaller ultra minority, when it serves no real utility function.

There's tons of things you could complain about not serving any function why single this out?

Never mind. I know why.
 
Please forgive me for not taking you as an authority on what is stupid and what isn't stupid

Well it serves no real, utility function, other than making an ultra minority happy.
Changing a subset of common pronouns to serve said ultra minority, should indeed qualify as stupid.


There's tons of things you could complain about not serving any function why single this out?

Never mind. I know why.

Because this is the topic of the thread or did you venture in here by accident?
 
Well it serves no real, utility function, other than making an ultra minority happy.
Changing a subset of common pronouns to serve said ultra minority, should indeed qualify as stupid.

something here sure qualifies as stupid. its the knee-jerk reaction to something that doesnt even really affect you in a material way on the part of you and X

Because this is the topic of the thread or did you venture in here by accident

no one made you come in here and bray about "ultra-minorities"
 
something here sure qualifies as stupid. its the knee-jerk reaction to something that doesnt even really affect you in a material way on the part of you and X

Knee jerk, no.
Definition of stupid, "lacking intelligence or common sense."

Changing regularly used pronouns to a appease a fractional minority, certainly falls into at least one of those categories.

no one made you come in here and bray about "ultra-minorities"

Of course no one made me, that's self evident.
What else is the point of even coming to this place (Debate Politics) then?
Can I now follow you around to every thread and repeat the same "criticism" to you?
Why are you even here? Why even discuss things? Why even exist?
No one makes you.

Instead of making self evident and rather foolish statements, you can debate or move on.
 
There is a pronoun that can replace all of this nonsense if someone wants to be differentiated so bad. 'It'

Yeah, that's true. I can see the obvious problems with it though.
 
Manufactured? A long time ago. In Julius Caesar's time there were two provinces of Rome called Transalpine Gaul and Cisalpine Gaul, meaning the far and the near side of the Alps.

And, when speaking of people, there's trans and there's everybody else. If there has to be a designation for those who dwell on such things, non trans is fine.
 
And, when speaking of people, there's trans and there's everybody else. If there has to be a designation for those who dwell on such things, non trans is fine.

Yeah, that's what I use.
 
So, you're not really trying to present anything. You're just complaining.

It's a large part. Thanks to DP I really feel like I have a somewhat better handle on this whole thing than I would without DP, simply because I know of only one person in RL whose trans and it's the kid of the lady who cuts my hair so it's not like it's someone I have a lot of contact with. Reading what I linked, though, made me feel like just being decent is not enough and I think this potentially harms the "cause" (not sure that's the right word). I should say, though, that often times it's the advocates who are worse than the folks they're advocating for. The trans people I've talked to here actually seem pretty reasonable.
 
I get that this cis thing really sticks in your craw, but if you just don't give a damn it stops.

Not bad advice, Clax. It's not the word in itself so much as the unexpected resistance and downright hostility I encountered when I said not to apply to me personally - at least, not when speaking to me. I found that to be rather amazing for folks who speak a lot about respecting preferences and all. The clear emotional attachment to the term, and the strong reaction to me rejecting it, tells me there's something more that's behind it than just this benign, no big deal descriptor.
 
I don't spit enough when I talk to speak French. Kinda sucks tho as I spent a month in the hospital with a condition with a French name that I could not, and still cannot pronounce right.

You must come close to dehydrating when you try to speak German! ;)
 
Not bad advice, Clax. It's not the word in itself so much as the unexpected resistance and downright hostility I encountered when I said not to apply to me personally - at least, not when speaking to me.
Some people are dicks it's the world we live in. **** them and forget about it.

I found that to be rather amazing for folks who speak a lot about respecting preferences and all.
Hypocrisy exists in all humans.
The clear emotional attachment to the term, and the strong reaction to me rejecting it, tells me there's something more that's behind it than just this benign, no big deal descriptor.
It indicates that these people do not like the way you identify yourself. I wouldn't lose any sleep over it. They are so twisted up with not identifying how others think they are identified as, they have little identity outside of it.

People that Labour over such unimportant nonsense tend to be rather one dimensional.

Pointing out hypocrisy in humans is like pointing out beef in a slaughter house. It doesn't surprise me.
 
Ah forgive me. I did slip and use a "social science" term instead of simply saying "sex."

I accept the correction despite all the ad hominem sewage it was couched in. :coffeepap:

I only bother to remind you of the facts because so much of traditionalist dogma and harm is, and has been, wrapped in foolish patriarchy and creationist "biology". There was no ad hominem but there was more than a little disgust with such a careless misstatement of the truth. Imagine how many people have been born outside the binary sexual god box, imagine how they've suffered the tenacious ignorance of the religious establishment that took it upon themselves to tell everyone who they were and punish the ones who didn't fit. Even today we still can't seem to escape such a simplistic world view, even as real science has shown us the truth, there are many still engaged in the business of oppressing people who are gay or transgendered and they do so in contradiction to reality.

We simply must stop believing things just because it feels good to do so.
 
It's a large part. Thanks to DP I really feel like I have a somewhat better handle on this whole thing than I would without DP, simply because I know of only one person in RL whose trans and it's the kid of the lady who cuts my hair so it's not like it's someone I have a lot of contact with. Reading what I linked, though, made me feel like just being decent is not enough and I think this potentially harms the "cause" (not sure that's the right word). I should say, though, that often times it's the advocates who are worse than the folks they're advocating for. The trans people I've talked to here actually seem pretty reasonable.

Pretty much 100% of the advocates are worse than the people of whom they advocate. At least in the trans community, this is true. I know a lot of transsexuals and find them all to be reasonable, pretty much like everyone else. I've met one advocate, and didn't like him at all.
 
Not bad advice, Clax. It's not the word in itself so much as the unexpected resistance and downright hostility I encountered when I said not to apply to me personally - at least, not when speaking to me. I found that to be rather amazing for folks who speak a lot about respecting preferences and all. The clear emotional attachment to the term, and the strong reaction to me rejecting it, tells me there's something more that's behind it than just this benign, no big deal descriptor.

...Except absolutely no one did that to you. I even personally went to the effort to delineate you specifically, despite this being ridiculous, because, as you were told many times, "cisgender" isn't even an identity to begin with. I did it anyway, even though your request was based on you simply refusing to understand what the word means. And no one else applied it to you either. And you kept complaining despite our efforts, even after you agreed that "cisgender" was "ok" as a demographic/academic term, which is the only use it has anyway.

Secondly, all words are invented, and this is not the first time English has had a gender-neutral pronoun. We had one for hundreds of years, which eventually gained a different definition about 100 years ago, and now we are simply replacing it with something new, because the need for it has not gone away. That word was "one" (as in, "one goes to the store," which used to be applicable in addressing individuals, but is now used only to apply to non-specific persons). Language changes.

No one is trying to "take over your speech." People are simply asking you to respect them as we have respected you. They are simply re-creating a previously lost part of speech, for those who do not fit the binary. Such individuals have existed for all of time, and will continue existing whether you like it or not. And you going out of your way to disrespect them is a trashy cross to die on, quite frankly.
 
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