I am deeply uncomfortable in gendered spaces. Many places offer gender neutral spaces (eg restrooms that are all genders).

I don't require everyone to make me comfortable, but I do positively notice when someone does. If I go to my office and there are men's rooms, women's rooms, and all gender rooms, I do feel much less excluded.

Not everyone is like me, but thousands or millions are. I do feel excluded by gendered language, and it does impact my ability to get work done, navigate social situations, etc.

I hear you, but please also consider that almost all people (trans or otherwise) experience social discomfort.

For example, there are many more people who experience severe social anxiety than would identify as trans. Those people can have literal panic attacks and experience terrible fear and we aren’t considering redesigning society or language to accommodate them. Nor should we.

I'm curious why you feel this way. If we could find ways to make people with social anxiety more comfortable, why shouldn't we try to accommodate them?

It comes down to cost, and what costs society's are currently and consistently willing to bear. Would ADA laws have so much force if FDR were able bodied?

The cost that should be factored in is the people who seek external validation to feel happy with never be satisfied with just the first thing. They'll be constantly seeking new external places to become content again once the initial emotional wave passes.

Anxiety comes from within. You cannot reorganize all of reality to be perfectly comfortable to you specifically, because reality is shared with others. Your safe space is a cost for everyone else.

Fix your own head. It's more efficient.

If only it were so simple. We make adjustments for people with all manner of neuroatypical behaviors. While it may feel like we should be able to just "fix" a mental health issue, sometimes it's not so simple.

I'd prefer to live in a world where we support people in finding coping skills to work through their own anxieties AND we recognized some humans will always be outliers who would benefit from some affordances. We can do both.

I have what was once pretty serious social anxiety which is why I chose that example.

I view it as MY challenge, not everyone else’s.

Your emotions aren’t just these immutable, uncontrollable things that happen to you.

Discomfort very often is a signal that YOU need to make some internal change and grow as a person. It doesn’t mean that the world needs more bubble wrap so you feel safe.

> I am deeply uncomfortable in gendered spaces.

I'm not trans or any of that sort - I'm generally uncomfortable around people. What I don't understand is, why impose upon others? To me, that's my cross to bear.

I literally said I don't impose it on others. Others make attempts to accommodate me and I feel more included as a result.

If your workplace said, "we've got some private rooms to work if it would make you more comfortable, it'd be something you positively regard and would make you feel more included, right?

Ah, but the whole genesis of this discussion is that many people are trying to impose it on others.

I have absolutely no problem with gender neutral bathrooms. But I have a big problem with the name calling (“transphobe”), bullying, and shaming in some attempt to push an agenda where the upside is only fewer hurt feelings.

If I choose to say "pregnant people" and I explain that I'm choosing that word to intentionally include both pregnant women and pregnant non-women, is that shaming or bullying?

If I then go to my peers and say, "heads up, the phrase 'pregnant women' might not include everyone who is pregnant", and they say, "oh, that makes sense, let me adjust my own language!", I think that's probably not shaming or bullying either.

If, over time, those conversations spread and we see a general public movement to use "pregnant person", this again seems like good intentions without any particular agenda besides, "oh, of course. If we recognize trans men, then we should probably make sure we say pregnant people".

I don't think changing the language is bullying, shaming, or pushing an agenda - it's people making changes that are logically consistent with how they experience the world. Again: if trans men exist, then pregnancy must occur in men and women.

The reason you hear people react strongly is because they believe they have a simple logic, and people come in and say, "I deny that trans men exist, or I deny trans men are men."

That's a pretty strong thing to say and a pretty strong thing to hear.

> If I choose to say "pregnant people" and I explain that I'm choosing that word to intentionally include both pregnant women and pregnant non-women, is that shaming or bullying?

Are you really just talking about yourself? You don't also expect everyone else to use the same language? You don't want every corporate website, school newsletter, teacher's curriculum, every Tweet from a public person, random Reddit comments, etc to also use your preferred language?

Because that's what it's meant IRL.

I've heard 100 people on Reddit/Twitter saying "they just want to be left alone to do what they want" and "why do you care what people do with their own private lives (or in their bedroom)?". Then they spend all of their time gatekeeping and purity-testing the language and actions of every person they come into contact with.

I want to use language that makes trans parents feel included. That's it.

I'd encourage others to use that language and explain my reasoning (which is what I did above.) If they don't, I'm bummed out but I move on. I may think more negatively of that person in the future.

That's all. In real life and in internet life.

You’re absolutely free to do use whatever language you want, but your expectation that I do the same, implicit or otherwise, is where I draw the line.

I get it. You’re super hip.

But words are indeed meaningful and you don’t get to choose how I use them or what they mean to me. I have a wife, not a “partner”. She is a woman, not a “birthing person”.

Make up whatever new words of definitions you wish. Hell, create a new language if you want. But stop trying to make everyone else conform to your vocabulary that primarily exists to virtue signal and for attention seeking.

Well, she's both a pregnant person and a pregnant woman.

I don't believe I've ever said you couldn't choose the words you prefer to use for yourself. The most I'd say is, "here is the reasoning for why this might make some people feel excluded" and let you make your own choices.

You've responded quite aggressively to me, attacking positions I don't hold while also insulting me. (Ironically calling me super hip, virtue signaling, and attention seeking.)

I'm non-binary, it has nothing to do with any of the reasons you mentioned, it's just the language I use with my community, and explaining to others calmly and rationally why it helps some people feel included.

> "here is the reasoning for why this might make some people feel excluded"

I think maybe you and others have the wrong idea. Life isn’t like elementary school sports. You won’t always be included, there are no participation trophies, other people don’t care about you or your feelings.

Fulfillment in life is about what you can bring to the world, not the other way around.

Additionally, the only reason this is a talking point is the absence of any real struggles or oppression, so bored people invented some contrived, imagined grievances.

Watch how quickly this whole conversation stops once the western world faces some existential threat from a country like China.

Trans people face brutal violence, social stigma, workplace discrimination, homelessness, and healthcare systems not knowing how to provide care at a rate that far exceeds other groups.

It's not just "bored people", and I suggest you read up on their struggles.

I think society at large can and should be much more inclusive to people who don't fall cleanly into man and woman, but in the specific case of pregnancy, it seems trying remove all references to gender is challenging.

> If I go to my office and there are men's rooms, women's rooms, and all gender rooms, I do feel much less excluded.

I'm not against gender neutral spaces. There's often no need to segregate by gender, and it makes no sense to do so if there is no need. What I don't understand is why you feel excluded.

I don't feel an affinity to a gender either, but I understand that bathrooms labelled "mens" are generally intended to apply to people with penises, and bathrooms labelled "womens" a generally intended to apply to people with vaginas. That has nothing to do with any feelings I might or might not have about gender, and it's literally just a room. Why does it matter which one I/you use?

It's not something that can be rationally explained. Sorta like trying to explain why you don't like a taste. The mix of cultural history and labeling myself by entering a "men's" space is ... stressful. Same with people using "he".

It's a automatic response I don't have much control over, but I've adapted to fairly well. Brains are wired to find different stimuli impacting or not.

I've wondered if I am high functioning autistic at times, for a number of reasons unrelated to gender. Some of the "fight or flight" responses to, eg, the sounds of someone eating are very similar to the fight or flight response I have in a men's room.

Ultimately, it's fairly textbook dysphoria and I've built up a lot of strategies so it's not super impactful day to day. But when I don't have to expend any of the energy employing those strategies, it's better.

The problem with changing words is that women, females, who are more at risk of attack than males, lose their ability to have their own spaces and identities and to organize for their own safety. As we see they actually face attack for continuing to fight for their sex-based rights. That's identity appropriation.

> I don't think changing the language is bullying, shaming, or pushing an agenda

It doesn't have to be but it is. Look at the three-year long hate mob attacking Maya Forstater and JK Rowling because they objected to losing sex-based language. They both receive many credible death threats. That's bullying to push an agenda.

Even when this is sugar coated it's a poison pill. Accepting that males could be "trans women" immediately requires you to accept that they should use the women's washroom despite being the wrong sex and that sex being the large dangerous one. (Females in male spaces isn't a safety issue so I'm ignoring it for now.)

> people making changes that are logically consistent with how they experience the world. Again: if trans men exist, then pregnancy must occur in men and women.

Occam's razor would suggest that if a person is pregnant they probably aren't a man. Being that man basically means "the people who don't get pregnant". That is the difference between sexes.

> The reason you hear people react strongly is because they believe they have a simple logic, and people come in and say, "I deny that trans men exist, or I deny trans men are men." That's a pretty strong thing to say and a pretty strong thing to hear.

You say that as if your trans man friend will vanish in a puff of logic. Nobody is denying that they exist or threatening to make it happen and it's emotional blackmail to exaggerate like that.

There's a middle ground we could shoot for. These people would probably agree your TM friend was Masc (/Femme), because as a newly created word it doesn't have an existing meaning and isn't used to gate access to single-sex spaces like prisons.

You use words like "comfort", "support", "included" and say that you feel uncomfortable entering "gendered" spaces.

I submit that women are not supported, not included, are uncomfortable, and actually are unsafe when men enter women's spaces.

When it comes to medicine, people not realising something applies to them can have negative health outcomes. Trying to produce the language that ensures everyone can understand if something applies to them is valuable.

To be clear: I don't think that just means using inclusive language, you may need to specify more to help people understand that language if it isn't in common use, or whatever. I don't think there is a simple one-size-fits-all solution, but I think just assuming gendered language is good enough is clearly sub-optimal, and best terms that clarify the specific group in question are the best starting point.

This aligns with my opinions so you're not really disagreeing with me.

Most of the comments here never established what's actually being discussed.

Personally I think a big source of contention is that a lot of people don't accept exceptions to words.