What if empathy makes me feel like a girly man.
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You should support BLM because it is the correct moral position, not because of who advocates for or against BLM.
You don’t need to do this social calculus to decide what you, from your position of privilege, ought to be required to do. We just have to be empathic, listen to our trans/nonbinary colleagues and friends and neighbors, and behave accordingly.
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I’m not even saying this to be flippant, but seriously the best thing to come of the pronoun-clarifying trend is potentially avoiding awkward It’s Pat from SNL type moments.
Respectfully, I disagree. See my response to oreo, above. Morality is not a democracy; it is the careful analysis of harms and benefits aimed at making the world a better place. Any defensible moral position is supported by an argument. We need more than an appeal to authority.
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This is Lord of the Flies and we’re the children. The adults, with their warships, shall bring us an election in a minute.
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I appreciate the sentiment but again you don’t really need to do the calculus and you’re not really in the best position to make that assessment. Are you asserting that trans and nonbinary folks don’t understand the downsides and tradeoffs that primarily apply to them? I’m advocating for following the advice of an oppressed minority group about how to better include them in society. I can’t conceive of how anyone can resist that.
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It’s basically just letting trans or LGBT people know that you’re an ally that’s how I see it.
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I’ve actually been thinking for a while about asking if we can add a place to put our pronouns in our profiles here. Display of the pronouns in posts in threads is also something to consider.
How do people feel about those ideas?
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YIKES to all of this
Thank you for not beating me up anymore I guess? Also BRUCE JENNER types?
And NO 50% of trans people aren’t deplorable
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I’m not denying this. Maybe this is where the confusion is coming from. You’re right that it would be weird to ask for an argument proving that someone who tells me they are being harmed is really being harmed. Being misgendered is a harm.
My point it really just a super narrow one that applies specifically to pronouns in email signatures that came up because I made a dumb poll when I was high.
(1) That folks are harmed when they are misgendered is true.
(2) That women and POC and non-binary folks are harmed (via implicit bias) in some cases when this harm could be avoided is also true.
How do we proceed? Some people say, “Put your pronouns in your email signature to avoid (1).” Ok, sure, but what about (2)? We don’t write our pronouns on our SATs or loan applications. Why am I writing my pronouns when I email randos? It seems plausible that it increases (2) with zero affect on (1).
I dunno. 
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That’d be SUPER funny !
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With effort.
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This. Don’t think I’ve ever seen a single person do this.
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Thanks for the info. Many of the systems I’ve worked on (as an administrator) have pretty flexible user profile systems, in that they’re built to allow for easy additions of fields to profiles. Then, once the field is added, it’s pretty straightforward to add the field to the template(s) where you want the field to be displayed.
Sounds like that’s not the case with Discourse, which I guess isn’t surprising, since it feels to me like Discourse is still relatively “young” and not really feature-complete…
Anyway, the technical aspects are one (important) part of the question, but the other aspect that I’m curious about is whether people would participate or not.
(Of course, if it’s not possible technically the question is moot, so…)
P.S. I went ahead and put my pronouns in the name field as suggested. The way it ends up showing up when you view the profile works out okay actually.
I think we agree more than we disagree. Where I’m coming from is that I want to lean very, very heavily on the experience and recommendations of the actual affected group to reach conclusions on “what about 2”. My reaction here is I am going to hand over the mic and listen on this one.
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Interestingly, this isn’t really true. For most of my life any kind of like loan application or equivalent would ask me to check a box beside Mr or Mrs. It just wasn’t considered controversial.
I mostly think this is dumb but what do I care if people want to put their pronouns somewhere? I would be a bit annoyed if it became expected that I had to do this though.
I dont find it annoying. People tell me it helps to create an inclusive culture. I believe them.
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I don’t put pronouns in my email signature to announce that I’m a man; I do it to promote awareness that I might not be - regardless of my name and shape. Transgender and nonbinary people are safer when we normalize gender-related fluidity and agency.
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