Can we stop being obedient soon, or will this coercion continue for evermore?

Can't quite believe Barracker's post was deleted! It's great that MNHQ is on the ball with inappropriate posts, but think you might be wrong about his one? As someone else said, the comparison wasn't with transwomen, it was with compelled speech to alter people's perceptions. It's a fully transferable point. With respect, I would also like to see it reinstated.

I also do sympathise for the (albeit fairly small) gender dysphoric / trans person who is not pushing it in others faces. Just wants to get on with regular life with their friends and family and would in fact rather go into the disabled toilet, so as not to bother anyone (I know someone like this).

You say that almost like the person in question should be praised for using the disabled toilet and "not bothering anyone." Except they are, by using the disabled toilet they're bothering disabled people who are unable to use any other toilet. So I have zero sympathy with anyone who is selfish enough to do that.

Completely agree Bickerin...

The enforcement of compelled speech is itself a form of grooming.

I don’t know why anyone imagines this will stop at pronouns. Once a populace has been conditioned not to believe their own lying eyes and not to speak the reality they see with their own eyes, well there are all sorts of things you can compel people to believe and to say.

It’s all an exercise in social control, and while I understand MN is under extreme pressure from potential litigants, I’m with Lang: I don’t see how an analysis of manufactured consent via language violates spirit or rules.

The way that language has functioned to erase, diminish, or coerce women into subjugation has long been a part of feminist analysis. Just as the way that language has been used to buttress totalitarian regimes has long been a part of political analysis. For instance, Hannah Arendt and George Orwell.

The argument can be that transgenderism is the new gay in that the past generation couldn't bring themselves around to be liberal enough to accept gay people have a right.

Except that transgenderism, in prioritising gender over sex, is the equivalent of the people who couldn’t accept that gay people have a right to be exclusively attracted to their own sex.

As illustrated by Pride & Stonewall’s homophobic reactions to lesbians defending our sexual orientation.

So if I'm chatting and I say 'well under the stonewall definition I'm Trans and Gregor Murray is in the category of people I'm attracted to, but I feel it's more appropriate to use a different definition' it can help

Someone like Gregor Murray can help in this.
Obviously Gregor Murray is a non binary person whose pronouns are they and them.
But who is called Gregor Murray and who looks like Gregor murray

I hate organising meet ups and things as I quite like being on my own but at least in person nobody can delete your words.

This is motivating me to organise something in person.
A book group or something.
Something not too hard work

I agree completely with Barracker. I have thought this for a long time: if we consent to have our language policed we are already conceding a huge amount of ground and weakening our own ability to argue coherently. If you say, for example, "Rachel McKinnon, a trans woman, is competing against biological women in cycling", it invites sympathy towards Rachel. If you say, "Rhys McKinnon, a man, is competing against women in cycling" it evokes a completely different response. The lie of having to refer to out-and-out misogynists like Lily Madigan and Jess Yaniv as "she" absolutely sticks in my throat.

More silencing of women I see.

If you can't see the sex, you can't see the sexism. If you can't say the sex, you can't say the sexism.
That should be repeated again and again and again, whenever we get one of these 'violent woman turns out to be transwoman' stories.

I think something like alcohol is good as some people consent to it. I can relate to how muddled things have become in the media because those who are habitual gin drinkers are trying to puzzle their way out of this without putting down the gin bottle.

*is gin not super handy

'Oh but I drink gin every day and I'm totally fine.'

Gah. Can't help but type more. I'm really fucking pissed off about this.

Barracker's post proposed that the compelled speech of correctly sexing aka "misgendering" is a propaganda model designed to manufacture consent. She used Rohypnol as a metaphor to illustrate this.

THIS DOES NOT BREAK ANY FORUM RULES NOR DOES IT PROVIDE ANY GENERALISATION ABOUT TRANS PEOPLE.

FFS.

I thought Barracker's post was thoughtful and intelligent. It should be reinstated.

It gin not super handy anyway as it has its own emoticon.

And some people consume gin willingly, others might have their drinks topped up more strongly than they would like but feel nervous to say so.

You might feel obligated to consume gin if everyone else in your workplace is doing so.

You might not know what your tolerance to gin is if you haven't had much before

We deleted Barracker's reported post because we felt the comparison between the use of female pronouns for transwomen and rohypnol - a date rape drug - just wasn't in the spirit. We've been in touch with Barracker off the boards.

The comparison was between the imposition of compelled speech and Rohypnol. Let's be very clear about this Sophie. The point being made was one of manufacturing consent through language, a la Chomsky. It was nothing to do with the character of any one transperson or of transpeople as a group.

Have you banned Barracker for a critique of the dynamics of compelling speech?

We must try to keep this thread going.

So an analogy to a date rape drug has caused offence.

Let's go with gin then, or just consumption of alcohol.

Loss of inhibition, memory and personal boundaries minimised.

Tired.*

This thread will go soon. I am getting really tures of this "not in the spirit " bullshit from MNHQ.

pombear beat me to it!

@mnhq

Could the post perhaps be reinstated without the offending line? (With Barracker's agreement of course)

There was a valid point made in the post in that the emotional response we have to a situation depends on the language used and the she vs he just wanting to use the changing rooms with all the girls was a good one to demonstrate this.