Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

Re:Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay by Kerrick on Thursday March 04, 2021 @10:49PM (#26352399)

Here's an example of a fairly natural bit of text referring to somebody who uses he/him:

> Kerrick's wife called; he isn't going to make it today because he's sick. We're with him in spirit.

Here's an example of unnaturally replacing all pronouns with somebody's name, which reads quite awkwardly:

> Kerrick's wife called; Kerrick isn't going to make it today because Kerrick is sick. We're with Kerrick in spirit.

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Re:Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay by nullserver on Thursday March 04, 2021 @11:34PM (#26352738)

It is awkward, no question.

But I’m not the one trying to redefine reality.

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Re:Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay by Spivak on Friday March 05, 2021 @12:56AM (#26353315)

I think you’re thinking about this too mechanically. Context and intent matter here. It’s not at all about the literal act.

Using someone’s name instead of their pronouns isn’t offensive and vice versa. The thing that’s invalidating [1] is when someone goes out of their way to not use your preferred name or pronouns when that someone would have called you by your name or used your pronouns if you were cis. That kind of thing is noticed by people who are trans and feels supper shitty.

So yeah anyone who tries to make a rule saying “you must always use pronouns after using their name in a sentence” or something like that is being ridiculous and also missing the point.

[1] I don’t think offended really makes sense in this situation because that’s not really the emotion at play.

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