Nobody should be having that discussion at work, but sadly that discussion does occur. It mostly occurs behind the back of "Alice" so if you ever hear that type of talk it is your job to report it to HR who can investigate. No one should have to fear for their safety when they come to work.

I was responding to the exact argument made in the post above me. Since people are downvoting me, presumably because I used sarcastic humor and HN is populated by people who are just too darn logical for sarcasm,* let me make the point more explicit: no, Bob and Alice aren't literally going to have that conversation at work. I get that.

However, even if the work has a strict "no politics" policy, if Bob does have significant prejudice against transgender people, then having Bob in the workplace with Alice at all potentially puts her at risk. There doesn't need to be a conversation about trans rights for him to know that she is trans, and for that to translate into harassment and even violence.

I don't have a solution for that problem. But that doesn't mean it's not a problem. And it's not a problem that's solved by prohibiting employees from talking about controversial topics in the workplace -- which is the argument that was made by the poster I was actually responding to.

*Dammit, I did it again! Sorry.

> Since people are downvoting me ... let me make the point more explicit: no, Bob and Alice aren't literally going to have that conversation at work. I get that.

You were trying to use an outlier, an extremist situation (badly representing the opposing part) to frame a discussion about general principles for politics.

Of course you will get downvoted. It’s not a constructive contribution.