The fact that they can do it so casually means there's a problem journalists need to know about.

it isn't a guy and it uses it/its pronouns.

What? "It" identifies as an inanimate object? This neopronoun thing really is getting absurd.

Absurd? Maybe, but I’d hate a life without any absurdity.

I agree with you on this, but I feel a need to note that "it" refers to non-persons, not just inanimate objects. It's perfectly normal to refer to animals as "it", and it is also quite common to use it for babies (and even more common for fetuses). Not that this makes it any less weird to ask to be referred as "it", mind you.

Thanks for the correction, you're quite correct.

I've also seen it being used to refer to aliens. What's wrong with letting people choose their pronouns?

Letting people choose whether to be referred to as men, women, or neutral (perhaps using neo-pronouns or singular them/they) is perfectly fine. But re-purposing existing words with other meanings is not. And "it" has a very specific meaning, one that just doesn't apply to conscious adult people. If I asked to be called "the object" that would not be a reasonable request, anymore than asking to be referred to as "it".

And particularly for "it" and other objectifying language, it has the huge problem that it makes other people uncomfortable. Especially those who overhear without being aware of your preference (imagine sending an email to a new client with text like "in my absence, contact my colleague X, it will assist you, it is an expert").

This is downvoted, but the homepage really does say "hello i am maia arson crimew (it/she)".

I'd feel uncomfortable referring to anyone as "it" though, as there are some connotations with that :-/

If they ask for it :shrug: also their tld is literally .gay so I think they’re pretty aware of what they’re asking for with their pronoun preference.

If it asks for it.

The page literally says the pronouns are "it/she" so you can call her "she" and no one should be offended, correct?

Doesn't sound right to me. A normal clause of that form would look like "she/her" and indicate that the pronoun is "she" as the subject of a clause and "her" otherwise.

This would indicate that maia wants to be referred to as "it" as the subject of a clause and "she" otherwise.

Both preferred multiple alternatives for nominative case (“it/she”) and preferred single alternatives for nominative and accusative case (“she/her”) are commonly used. When at least one of the pronouns involved are traditional pronouns rather than neopronouns this is pretty clear as to which is being used (though unless they are both standard pronouns, its ambiguous as to the accusative case to use with the neopronoun, but of course it indicates that the standard pronoun and its corresponding accusative form are acceptable, so that’s not really a problem), though if they are both neopronouns it might be ambiguous in theory (in practice, if they are both neopronouns, its always the second nominative/accusative form, not the multiple alterantives form.) Occasionally, you’ll find neopronouns presented in a triplet where the third is possessive case (which really should always be the case with neopronouns, since otherwise you’re left to conjure up your own possessive if one is needed.)

No, you misunderstand. You need to apply some common sense, not rigorous logic.

“they/he” and “it/she” indicate alternatives, whereas “she/her” indicates different cases.

That.....frankly doesn't make sense, or it breaks the English language in ways that I'm not familiar with(admittedly it's not my first language).

Do you mean that instead of saying "it's her apple" you'd say "it's she apple"?

> That.....frankly doesn't make sense, or it breaks the English language in ways that I'm not familiar with

Correct; it is massively ungrammatical.

> Do you mean that instead of saying "it's her apple" you'd say "it's she apple"?

No possessive form is indicated. But instead of saying "I gave it a dress", you would say "I gave she a dress".

Well, thank you for explaining. I have complete respect for anyone's choices in this area but I'll leave the opinion on this particular choice to myself.

Edit: looking at other comments, it seems like it might not be the correct explanation after all?

As someone else noted, GP is just misunderstanding a frankly confusing subject. There are essentially two common ways for people to specify their pronouns.

Some people desire a single set of pronouns, and indicate this using the nominative/accusative pair (she/her, they/them, ze/zer).

Other people accept either of two different sets of pronouns, and indicate this preference using the two nominative forms separated by a slash (she/they, they/he, and apparently, it/she).

We should introduce that community to the Pipe character so they can disambiguate between the two forms.

Isn't "they" wholly inclusive? It is a genderless pronoun.

It's not good that you are uncomfortable when it asks you to talk about it with its preferred pronouns. It's 2023, it's about time you try to do what it ask you to do. When it tells you its preferred pronouns, try as hard as you can to follow it.

How dare you call it not good. It did a really neat hack here.

There's a difference, though, between

> This person is female and I'm not comfortable referring to her as 'it' because females are 'she'

and

> This person is a human being, and 'it' is used to refer to objects. It's demeaning to call a human being 'it' and makes me uncomfortable

The later is, at least imo, much more defensible.

In the absolutely fantastic novel Too Like Lightning there was a character that is famous for the life-like dolls made of it. Eventually it comes to term with the fact that its preferred identifier is "it" because it feels more comfortable being referred to as a doll, or inhuman, i.e. literally objectified, than it does with being considered traditionally human.

I also feel uncomfortable using "it" as a pronoun, luckily this person seems comfortable with "she/her" as well so we can just use those instead.

If someone tells me they are happy and comfortable being referred to as "it", and that situation makes me uncomfortable, isn't that a "ME" problem?

Why is the discomfort of it not being called it (morally >) than the discomfort of someone who finds it demeaning to use it on people.

"It" has a pretty clear meaning in English, and it is not as a pronoun for people.

You seem eager to reduce this to "just" a pronoun issue, but it's not the same as calling someone "he" or "she", whatever they might prefer.

No one gets to single-handedly (re)define the English language for everyone else. "It" in this usage does not fall in to normal English usage, other than to mock people. That they want to use it nonetheless or whatever reason, that's fine with me. I will always listen to that and do my best to oblige with that within reason. However, radically different meanings for words in common grammatical structures, for me, falls outside of "within reason". Other people may choose different, and that is fine too.

I'm pretty sure you've been trolled.

It seemed serious, but at this point, who knows any more?

> Knock Knock

> Who's There?

> It's me, Bill Gates!

> "It" has a pretty clear meaning in English, and it is not as a pronoun for people. Therefore you're not Bill Gates or a person.

Maybe it’s something well know in the us/ gay sphere, but what does it refer to? I get to call the person he/she backwards so she/he feels acknowledged, I get calling one’s/they instead of he because it may be a woman and they will feel discriminated. But it referring to a person?

My pronouns are you/your.

Whatever you have to say, say it to my face, and not in third person behind my back.

We are a first person singular we user, to celebrate our freedom from the aristocratic yoke.

No one is obliged to endure morally sane discomfort for the sake of someone else’s comfort.

This isn’t “I don’t want to call her him because he’s a she.” The person you’re replying to has a very valid discomfort with reducing a person to an object’s pronoun. Completely understandable and defensible and beyond the apparent needs of the author.

As an older trans person who's been subjected to targeted hate speech in public, I used to be pretty uncomfortable with younger trans people using it/its pronouns. It's understandable, let's give people some grace.

I can understand that feeling.

When English got rid of ‘thou’ and “thine” those were replaced by referring to everyone with the more polite “you“, that surly helped adoption.

> the homepage really does say "hello i am maia arson crimew (it/she)".

> I'd feel uncomfortable referring to anyone as "it" though

In Five Children and It (published in 1902), the "It" of the title is a magical creature. However, one of the characters is a human baby who is always referred to with the pronoun "it". I glossed right over that reading the book as a child, but I found it pretty disturbing rereading as an adult.

However, once rereading the book had called the phenomenon to my attention, I noticed that it's not uncommon for me to want to refer to a generic child as "it". I wouldn't refer to a specific child that way.

So referring to a person as "it" is sometimes the normal thing to do. (And, of course, intensely inappropriate at other times.) On the other hand, the intro appears to specify that maia arson crimew wants people to use "she", an exclusively subject pronoun, as the object pronoun for she. That is deeply unnatural and virtually nobody will be able to comply; it's much worse than using "it" for a person.

"Child" is gender neutral and was historically neuter when English had genders.

I guess calling a child "it" is impersonal. Calling it "it" to its face is just strange since "it" is 3rd person.

> "Child" is gender neutral and was historically neuter when English had genders.

By 1902, that time was several hundred years in the past.

> Calling [a child] "it" to its face is just strange since "it" is 3rd person.

Sure, but I haven't mentioned any such usage.

> However, one of the characters is a human baby who is always referred to with the pronoun "it". I glossed right over that reading the book as a child, but I found it pretty disturbing rereading as an adult.

While it's uncommon today (and I think uncommon even by the time that book was written), use of 'it' for babies was definitely A Thing at one point.

‘Yotsu’ in Japan was used to refer to low caste/outcaste people

Claudette Colvin was called it by the police when she was arrested

But I do have a trans friend who prefers it pronouns so that’s a sample size of one in the opposite direction

I think a similar case would be if someone black asked you to call them an n word. They may be comfortable with that, but I am afraid others probably won't.

* * *

Because we already arbitrarily assign different pronouns to different people, usually based solely on their appearance, and there is no harm in letting people pick which type of gendered (or less gendered, in the binary sense) association they'd rather have.

There's an easier fix for that, instead of having to memorize everyone's "unique" preference (xy/xor/xeps), change the language to avoid the issue. "They" for everyone is the only logical evolution.

My native language doesn't have a he/she differentiation..

You don't have to memorize shit. When you refer to someone and they tell you "I prefer pronoun X" just use that pronoun for the rest of the interaction. If you interact with them regularly or they are important to you somehow, you will remember, the same as you remember a pet name or nickname or screenname. If you forget and interact with them again they will remind you. They will likely not be angry if you forget occasionally, and using their chosen pronouns will please them and endear them to you. They only get hurt if you obviously do it on purpose.

It's literally identical to the concept of learning someone's name, yet humans largely don't have a problem with that.

I don't know about you but I mostly refer to people with they/him/her/his/hers when they are not present.

What? When you're interacting with a person, you don't need to know their pronouns. They are the first person in front of you, so the pronouns are "you" and "yours".

The third person pronouns kick in when talking about them, to someone else, almost certainly in their absence.

That may happen in writing.

* * *

I know someone who says... it's pronouns are "it"... and using that really does make me uncomfortable, I agree. I _think_ (it hasn't necessarily told me this directly) that the choice may be intentionally to make people uncomfortable... like, why shouldn't you be uncomfortable thinking about gender? Lots of people are uncomfortable with gender, why shouldn't you be too? I think of it as a sort of art project... I'm not sure if it would be comfortable with that characterization or not. It also understands that some people can't handle this and will accept "they" without being offended, but really prefers "it", so if you're its friend and want to make them comfortable.... (I still don't love writing it even here with anonymous referent!)

I thought it was the right that accused the left of being precious snowflakes who aren't able to handle being uncomfortable ever? Why should you being uncomfortable be a blocker to referring to someone as they prefer, right? Being uncomfortable is part of life.

Guys doesn't refer to men anymore, it's now a neutral word that can refer to both genders.

So how many guys have you slept with?

It's not neutral but guys like to pretend it is.

This is a genuinely clever reply.

I do wonder what a linguist would suggest about these two uses, though. English is a language in which context often changes outcomes.

It’s clever if you’ve never heard of context.

It's not clever if you've never heard a joke.

It's neutral referring to groups, not individuals.

If you approach a group and say "How are you guys?" it doesn't imply an all-male group.

Depends which register of english.

If I'm in a mixed group down the pub I won't at all be surprised if somebody (usually female) walks up to the table and says "hey guys" as a greeting, intending to include male, female and enby members of said group.

If I'm on the internet I'm not going to try and use "guys" as gender neutral because I fully expect I'd be misunderstood by a decent percentage of people reading if I did.

So I wouldn't say people are necessarily pretending, it's entirely possible they're just used to it being neutral and forgetting that for a bunch of people it very much isn't.

That's socially though - when talking about people I've slept with, I acknowledge I'd expect people to read 'guys' as only referencing the male-identified ones. Though I'm more likely to use 'dudes' for that purpose myself, because confusion around 'guys' can go in both directions.

Point taken.

There's a difference though between "guys" as an address (which is used by plenty of female-only groups as well) and "guys" as a noun.

A lot of people say this, and I WANT this to be true because I don't know of a similar term that really works. I don't think most women agree.

When my best friend came out as trans, I struggled to come up with a good way to refer to everyone as a group in a "hey everyone" kind of way. I eventually realized it's a stupid concept all together and walked into the room of my now mixed gendered friends while shouting "SUP CHODES!".

Went over very well. I recommend it.

As I regularly remind people, "assholes" is a perfectly good gender neutral collective pronoun.

y'allz, peeps

Interesting to see in which prison "it" will land

I think you're confused. The main person in the OP is crimew. The Daily Dot article talks about her in the first few paragraphs but towards the end they talk about a different security researcher that came across the same-ish list from a different source

The laws around digital access to networks are archaic and very broad, they were mostly defined in the 80s and 90s. I believe any unauthorized access (i.e. not having consent from the owner/operator) to a private network is technically a crime. Even if the Jenkins server was open, I bet finding and using the S3 credentials would have crossed the line of the law. Those S3 buckets are private and if you didn't have permission to access them, even if you have the credentials because you found them elsewhere, you could be breaking the law.

Regards the archaic laws I'm not convinced, they tend to just parallel real world crimes. For example if you parallel it to the real world then the crime of trespass covers the Jenkins server situation (you can trespass on land that is open and easy to access) and you still commit a crime if you enter a house where you found the key on the floor outside the door, which covers the S3 situation.

i could arguee that entering an open shop with a flashing neon sign saying Come In and then seeing the list on a clearly visible shopping window is the equivalent since it was a dot com(merce) domain. so hardly a crime, but online anything can be argued any way or another

Trespass doesn't get you bent over in the shower of a federal prison. CFAA violations do.

Yes there's clearly a discrepancy regarding punishments but the point I was making was about the initial crimes. I'm also not saying I agree either; certainly a lot of the punishments for crimes in America seem disproportionate to the offences commited.

Just accessing could also be seen as just looking through the window. And the lack of safety as a lack of curtain.

Trespassing implies a presence, this could be seen as installing some software or code to maintain access on a system.

Now let's imagine the OP went to the airline office and found that the door was open, on a desk there was a printed version of the nofly list, he takes a picture of each page and leaves. He would face 20 times less prison time.

Yeah as I've said I'm not commenting on the sentencing/punishments, I'm commenting on the offences.

> downloading the no fly list and offering to share

(This is a genuine question) but where's the actual value in having this list?

I'm afraid I regard it as yet another piece of security theatre.

Full disclosure: my passport always fails to scan at the UK Border automated gates.

I had a discussion this week with yet another border agent after getting another "seek assistance" message and having to queue for a manual check.

I pushed for more information on why, for the last couple of years, it refuses to scan.

He suggested it's because I have very common first and middle names (although my surname is not common at all), so let's say I'm called Alice Bob MacQuaffle, someone called Alice and/or Bob is "on a list" somewhere. I would bet a substantial sum there is no-one on any terrorist watch list called MacQuaffle.

This sounds like someone approved a ridiculously broad match, meaning anyone called Alice and/or Bob is inconvenienced every single time they go near a border.

I would prefer to be safe when travelling just like the next guy, but matching watch lists using common first names ... only .... really?

It’s trivial to change your name in the UK so this is bonkers.

We can be pretty sure it's not to protect anyone. Anybody too dangerous to allow on an airplane should probably be behind bars. What it does accomplish is letting the government punish people without justification let alone a trial and with pretty much no transparency or consequences when innocent people end up being hurt by it. I imagine that's a power which is hard to surrender, and 'we the people' haven't exactly been insisting that they give it up either.

> Anybody too dangerous to allow on an airplane should probably be behind bars.

Someone who the US deems a danger but isn't in the US would fit this criteria.

> Someone who the US deems a danger but isn't in the US would fit this criteria.

If the bad person isn't in the US there's no need for US airlines to maintain a list of them which prevents them from getting on a plane, but then just sends them on their way to arrange other travel plans. What we want for really bad people outside of the US who should be arrested on sight at airports are warrants. Signed by judges. Not secret lists with no oversight or transparency, and not sending dangerous people back out into the American population.

> Someone who the US deems a danger

Someone who is apparently so bad they can't be allowed through airport security into an aircraft, but only if that aircraft is travelling to or within the US?

Yet someone who is apparently so innocent they can't be arrested/detained/charged with anything, anywhere, and so are free to travel the rest of the world.

It sounds ridiculous even just typing that out.

No passport in my family of 4 successfully scans at those gates, fwiw.

I digged a little into this and to my understanding did she never actually but just used publicy open data in a smart way which apparently is not illegal under swiss law.

The guy is a woman. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maia_arson_crimew

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34446878.