So the pronouns thing is literally about being nice to people and respecting their ability to define their own identity. It's less "we need more than two sets of gendered pronouns" and more "people use pronouns other than he or she and we want to make space for that".

And any sort of diversion from that approved narrative, like suggesting that some of this is going a little too far, will make you a pariah in the industry. This is what I'm getting in, in questioning how much "the establishment" allows vigorous debate.

> Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.

Like it or not, it matters why you believe things are "going a little to far", and why you're willing to be vocal about it

How is it going too far to call someone "they" or even a neopronoun like "xie"? What cost is it to you that you need to vigorously debate it?

I'm not interested in debating it here, because it could damage my career, which is my point.

In fact, even debating whether I should be able to debate it could damage my career. I believe this widespread use of silencing tactics, by implicit threat, has gone too far.

There are a great many things you can't debate about people. For example, you would be severely censured if you debated whether your colleague's chronic illness really was as bad as they claim it is.

If the position is "I should be able to question and debate anything about my colleagues" then the position is obviously absurd and I would ask a person holding such a view to reevaluate what they think society is. I don't think you would hold such a position.

So, why are you troubled that you can't debate this particular thing, when I'm sure there are things you shouldn't debate about your colleagues?

> So, why are you troubled that you can't debate this particular thing, when I'm sure there are things you shouldn't debate about your colleagues?

I'm troubled by the top-down nature of what is decided to be beyond debate vs not: it feels like it is leading to a scary kind of authoritarianism I don't want.

For fun, I'll throw you a specific plausible hypothetical. If an app has a gender identity field, and a user enters "Apache Helicopter", should this be treated as valid data or not?

Of course it's valid. Look for patterns. If 100 Apache Helicopters sign up for your app, congratulations, you just uncovered a new and very specific marketing segment to target.

> For fun, I'll throw you a specific plausible hypothetical. If an app has a gender identity field, and a user enters "Apache Helicopter", should this be treated as valid data or not?

Depends on what the data is being used for? This is irrelevant, unless you're an app that collects statistics on its colleagues.

"why do you need to debate it" isn't the point - the point is that you can't debate one side of it without people lining up to burn the witch.

Okay. We only need one set of gendered pronouns. Using words from one set for some people, while using words from a different set for other people, is subject to arbitrary interpretation and therefore vulnerable to othering.

> We only need one set of gendered pronouns

Which set do you think would suffice?

In my native language, that is, Kazakh, third-person pronouns are gender-less.

"It said it would come tomorrow" means "He/She/It said he/she/it would come tomorrow" and it somehow works :) You're to infer the gender from context.

English example is the singular they. "It" has some additional implication on age.

Except the "singular they" doesn't exist and in basically a forced change of spoken language by a minority who thinks forcing people is a great way to accomplish things

There's no other way to enact change than force or consensus, or mix of these. Consensus is not going to happen. Languages change very slowly.

Royal We was forced, but in widespread use. This pronoun is an offshoot thereof. And other languages have even better pronouns than English. Check Chinese and Japanese.

Spivak

Are you saying tech isn’t establishment? IDK about percentages, but it’s definitely not the 90s anymore.

I'm saying the establishment, including tech, doesn't permit open critical discussion on the topic of gender.