README.rst: be really gender neutral #72
Conversation
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[removed because some people on the internet are incapable of taking an opinion without retorting with a holy wall of text] |
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@Strat- Well then be sex-neutral, intersex ppl are a thing! |
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yeaaaaah.... but..... no? I mean, it's not because your reptilian brain cannot handle more than 2 conceptions of a person that we all have to be submitted to your limited understanding of people. |
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Who determines the sex? The problem is that you can't do even that precisely. There is so much variation and different standards in defining the sex. In different contexts different things are relevant: for example when reading laboratory results of a transgender individual, using the reference values based on their gender assigned/coerced at birth (laboratories have different reference values for men and women) might or might not be relevant, depending if they are on hormone replacement therapy or not or by some completely other factor. Legal sex then - there's a lot of variation too. In some states you cannot legally alter your birth certificate, Ohio for example. Other states require that one undergoes genital surgery before the alteration is possible. And then there's Argentina and Denmark where juridical sex is only a matter of personal announcement to the authority keeping records of people, no psychological assessments or surgeries are required. And the sex chromosomes? Do you know yours for sure? Most of the people never get them tested. There exists different chromosome variants that may go undetected for a long time and maybe are never discovered during the lifetime of an individual having such a condition. They, though, are usually treated as a member of either sex too, not a member of "X0", "XXY" or "XX male sex", for example. Then again, mind and body (and environment) are not separable. Things we experience psychologically may have physical effects on us, and vice versa. We also know nowadays that epigenetics do exist. Biology is accurate science, sex - is not. Stop forcing people in categories they do not fit into. |
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Oh boy. I knew I should've have posted that, I had a feeling this would happen. |
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Short essay a day keeps trolls away, or not. |
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@aapa if anything, you're the troll here. I'm attempting prevention of a giant meta issue dealing with society's problems. I merely gave my feelings on the PR, and nothing but the PR; in short, saying that the PR is quite pointless because eventually people will start bitching about how Trust me, I've read plenty of "short essays" on tumblr-tier bullshit, and I won't bother reading any more, because it's a massive waste of my time. Feel free to "comment" on this, but remember that I'm saying that we all should shut the fuck up if it's not going to pertain to this PR. Oh, and for those that didn't read the bottom part of this very comment, let me quickly bold it for you:
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Alternatively you can use |
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Erm? Singular they has been a part of English grammar for hundreds of years. (Also I don't really understand what exactly you're trying to prevent? Could you elaborate, maybe?) |
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Yes, thank you for bolding. Saying that a word should not be replaced because it will eventually get replaced again is not a good argument. Firstly, singular they has been a part of English grammar for hundreds of years so it is not probably going to happen very soon. Secondly, yes, that's the nature of language: it changes and evolves. Singular they is gender neutral construction, that means it does not refer to gender at all. Using some people's own pronouns which they use to describe themselves and themselves only (I suppose 'xhey' would be one like these) is not gender neutral. Then you are referring to their gender. Using 'they' you are not referring to anybody's gender. (edit: clarification & boldings) |
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@Strat-: Sorry for trying to answer to your opinion thoroughly. I'm used that people who claim such things you did do present a lot of invalid counterarguments, which I addressed in my first reply to avoid long discussions (by post count) about this slightly off-topic issue. I think that actually worked since all the other messages are strictly related to this pull request. |
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Guys, enough with the tumblr war already. Closing the topic. Changes are minor, it's not going to break anything, will take 5 minutes Le 23/10/2014 00:41, aapa a écrit :
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README.rst: be really gender neutral
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No additional comments. If you want to debate gender neutrality, find a forum or buy each others a beer. |
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