Interesting that he says both woke and anti woke are wrong and yet his explanations only counter the anti woke… and fall in line with what woke people say.
Not saying this to criticise; I’m “woke” myself, and find nothing to disagree with in what he’s saying.
I watched the video and he is missing the point by trying to be in the center of the debate. There is either discrimination or acceptance and not much of a middle ground.
Points 1-5 are obvious and nobody should be confused about any of that. Of course he is right here and water is wet.
6 is actually a real problem, but it cannot be solved. Either you discolose it yourself which either leads to outing or staying in the closet or people assume for you which also leaves you in the closet. In my groups we stopped asking about pronouns to not put anyone on the spot, but there is no satisfying solution to this problem.
Of course you can demand others to refer to you in a way, the same way you provide a name. It is very much a social expectation and here the video is missing the point. Either you respect the other person or discriminate them, there exists no middle ground. It is the same as refusing to use their name. There is also no distinction if you disrespect them to their face or behind their back (talking to others about them).
My solution to the pronoun game has always been to not worry about it.
At some point, the person having non-standard pronouns made a decision to have their pronouns not match their physical appearance, so it’s up to them to communicate that difference in some other way. If they fail to do that adequately, there will be misunderstandings. Sometimes, that means they have to straight-up tell people when they meet them, other times it might mean a correction when a mistake is made. I’ve seen people wear buttons at social events, even, and I thought that was a cute solution.
If they want to be a dick about it, I now know that they’re not someone I particularly want to be around anyway.
On a rational level, I agree with this approach, for people who can do it. It doesn’t work for me I practice, though, because breaking a 35 year habit takes effort and focus, and I just don’t care enough about the subject to want to worry about it.
From the non binary friends I know, this is basically it. It’s not wrong if you genuinely get a pronoun wrong. What’s wrong is if you are corrected and then purposely misgender them.
I have seen some people argue that you should never use pronouns unless you know but that’s just not realistic. Use what you gather to be the most accurate, but if corrected accept the correction gracefully, and use the new ones from then on out.
Yes. I judge you to be a transphobic piece of shit. Now fuck off. We all know what games you’re playing, shithead. You are not clever. None of you Nazi dipshits ever are.
Title does not inform the viewer that it is a linguistic explanation of language, which is definitely more interesting compared to the vague title that it was submitted under and would lead to a skip for me without your explanation.
It’s why I consider it a bad title, since it makes it seem like the run of mill outrage bait. When in actuality a linguists insight is so much more unique compared to usual videos exploring this topic. Title draws in casual users seeking outrage, but can lead to people ignoring it out of the assumptions that the title illicits.
Add comment