Forced complicity at work

[MagicMix]

I'm having to type a lot of things today that I very strongly disagree with (basically orthodox trans ideology). It's categorically not my purview at all to have any opinion on the content of the texts I work with and there is no way I can refuse the task without resigning my job, so really I just have to get on with it. For clarification, I'm translating the text and obviously a good translator does their best to reproduce the intent of the original regardless of their own personal feelings. So my professionalism dictates that I do not mess around with it.

But I feel complicit in establishing this culture at my workplace and it's a really slimy feeling. Has anyone else here ever found themselves in this position?

I assume a good translator also has an obligation to fact check the actual law if a meaning seems ambiguous or unclear.

So if 'gender' doesn't have a corrolary in a different language then you'd have to go with an external source like the WHO to make that translation meaningful.

I'd do the best I can to translate, and any direct misfact I'd assume was an error of translation that needs correcting.

You say it's not your purview to have an opinion on the text you are translating. So that's what you have to stick to. Stay professional and keep your personal views out of it.

If it's just translating then let it go. If you were obliged to put it in a marketing document or something for sharing, it would mean you are being required to propagate a faith which is demeaning to yoyband sexist, and this could constitute discrimination.

The law doesn't really come into it. It's not a legal text at all.

I mean things like I will have to conflate trans identities and intersex conditions, because that's the way it's written and I don't have the power to change that. I just feel shitty about it. It's a shitty text.

Of course I'll be upholding the correct definitions of sex and gender where the scope is there to do so.

And yes to what Barracker says. If the document says gender, and the text makes it clear that the meaning is sex, then translate it to 'sex'.

Stay professional and keep your personal views out of it.

Yes, of course that is what I am doing. I just wanted to chat a bit about how I feel about it.

It must be a reasonably common issue for translators to deal with and I'm sure most people just get on with it, or perhaps refuse the work if they are in a position to do so.

mean things like I will have to conflate trans identities and intersex conditions, because that's the way it's written and I don't have the power to change that.

The cognitive dissonance would make me feel uneasy too., is there any way that you can clarify with the author(s) that they meant to conflate the two? Or perhaps asking for a source for their material so that you add a footnote referencing it? I'm just wondering if you can guide people to the conclusion that it's poorly though through article?

*poorly thought through.

I'd do the best I can to translate, and any direct misfact I'd assume was an error of translation that needs correction

I suppose I’d raise an absolutely black and white error with the person who commissioned the translation. I wouldn’t correct anything off my own back though.