Reactionary Radical Eliminationists vs. Trans

My employer is promoting LGBTQ+ stuff, encouraging us to be "allies", add pronouns to our email signatures and the like. I have some opinions about them doing that, some shared here at various times. Unsure whether I should get onboard with it.

Honestly, I don't see anything wrong with such initiatives or why one wouldn't want to get on board with it. It shows solidarity and costs one nothing. You're not a bigot, so I'm curious as to your reasoning.

I think that identity politics is a wedge issue used by businesses in order to distract from more fundamental things - like paying people properly. They want to make themselves appear progressive while being anything but and I'm conflicted on being used for that agenda. And frankly uncomfortable with them pushing any political position at all.

Secondly, while I've nothing against any adult living as they wish and no tolerance for any bigotry, I'm also uncomfortable with the more extreme elements of this movement who equate anything less than total agreement with all of their positions as heresy. Does being an "ally" support that by implication?

I will say that on my own personal level, I'm uncomfortable with the "declared pronouns" thing, particularly in face to face settings. They're not in any of my profiles and I announce them only when required to

BUT

I understand there's some purpose in them particularly in writing (like e-mails and such) because people with ambiguous name do exist and if you ask Pat or Jamie or whatever to do it then it sticks out unless you ask everyone to.

Among a boatload of raging intellectual inconsistencies (something the right never cared to refrain from) is this:

It is wild to see them share pics of Khelif and say she looks like a man so she must be one… while also arguing looking like a woman/man doesn’t make you one everywhere else.

Destigmatizing anyone clarifying their pronouns, it even discussing their gender, is generally a good thing. There's an ice cream place I go to where they ask every customer if they have any allergies every time, just so that anyone that does have allergies doesn't look like they're being difficult for bringing them up. Destigmatizing is almost always a good thing.

It's also handy when dealing with folks with non-western names.

There's that saying "eat their pizza and form an union anyway," I believe that sentiment applies here.

This feels like a lame excuse that you probably recognize is a lame excuse. Every ideology, every movement, every position possible has some extremist elements at the very furthest ends of the spectrum. You can object to shark fin soup without supporting the most deranged animal rights activists, you can criticize Israel without wanting to see every Israeli exterminated, you can agree with some feminist ideology without subscribing to the nuttier "all intercourse is rape" stuff, you can get McDonald's once in a while without endorsing that guy that ate nothing but Big Macs for 30 years, why should this be any different?

FWIW I'm very vocally in support of trans rights, but there are extreme positions even I don't support, that even plenty of trans people don't support.

I think businesses in the United States, at least, are quite comfortable with their wage policies and are more than willing to defend them to employees--and fire those who attempt to remedy them through, say, unionizing. The identity politics angle seems to be more of an HR initiative to reduce company liability. I agree with the initiative, but for different reasons. I couldn't possibly care less about company liability.

But the class disparity between the C-suites and the proletariat, and identity politics being used as a wedge issue, is admittedly a compelling argument.

No, I don't think that it does. The extreme elements of the progressive movement in the US have held the cause back for decades. They cannot accept the idea of anything being less than 100% perfectly pure and so will never advance beyond their current level of influence (unless they change). That doesn't mean I don't espouse progressive issues. I'm an ally, and if someone disputes my ideological purity they can stuff it.

What are these, out of interest?

My wife has her pronouns on her work badge, but she's not required to. She chooses to, which is fine. I'm not in love with HR requiring anyone to do anything, really, but encouraging the practice is fine IMHO.

I'll PM you, because it involves private information about Uncle Albert I shouldn't discuss openly.

He's a trans man?
That would explain exactly everything.

This isn't really "identity politics anyway, but the people who most passionately mock them are 100% pure identity politics.

They're trying to us people's identity to structure a social hierarchy. Like, for example, the annual Target bashing exhibition?
They are literally claiming that Conservative Christian families are morally offended by anything related to Pride. Well, the thing is - "christian conservative" IS an identity, every bit as much as LGBT people. They're not REALLY against identity politics, as long as we're clear what sort of identities belong on the top of the power structure.

I refused to participate in all that nonsense when my former employer rolled it out, but I also don't condemn or care if other people want to do it.

I actually agree wholeheartedly with @RickDeckard. It's bullshit identity politics and its basically just the board and c-suite trying to lull the plebeians.

(Note: I was actually part of the executive in my former job but kept my mouth shut less I be forced to wear the Scarlet Letter. So I have some insight into what a bunch of cock a doodle doo it all is.)

It's not required, but it's pretty standard in my field.

Given that we have both a lot of non western names and a substantial number of people who are on the gender spectrum, I don't really feel it's more than a professional courtesy.

Yes. And now they're trying to end the conversation on Khelif by pointing to the simple fact of her being assigned female at birth, while ignoring any complexity in her biology.

Both sides are inverting their takes, per the memes. That's what I meant by "cuts both ways."

Except they're not. Because conservatives still believe in a simple binary, and gender activists still believe in complexity. That's why it's only a joke.

But we know lefties can't handle jokes.

Are they? If someone is assigned female at birth, raised female, and openly identifies as female, it takes a certain kind of retard/asshole to claim they're anything different.


Maybe you're having so much trouble with this concept because you're actually a woman. You've never claimed to be and I have no plausible reason to suspect you might be, but apparently that's not a requirement for conservatives anymore.

This one amuses me. Say the word...

Yes. It's catchy. Let's do it.

So much better.

Do you know how to read? In the same post you're quoting, I literally just wrote that "They're not actually."

I agree 100% with you. And I think that people like JK Rowling have really shown their ass by jumping to the conclusion that Khelif is trans, and making life more difficult for this athlete.

But that's not the point here.

The point is, the meme dunking on conservatives changing their position is met with rip-roaring laughter, while the equally valid meme dunking on lefties for the same reason, is met with thirty paragraphs of indignation and overly serious explanations.

I know you are heavily invested in being an insufferable woketard, but try to keep some perspective and humor.

Calm down lady, you're being hysterical. That time of the month?

So, you’re pissed that pink hairs won’t fuck you, but will fuck some dude like the kind you used to beat up in high school. Why am I not surprised.

It's not even that, cute progressive alt girls dating fit socially conservative dudes (and sometimes outright racists/Nazis) is a fairly common phenomenon. But somehow Albert can't pull that off, so i must be everyone else's fault.

There's no inversion.

One, the medical details of someone that we'd need to get into aren't public, and frankly are none of our business.

Two, a month ago if you asked any of those you claim have inverted "is someone who was identified a female at birth, has identified as female her whole life, and still identifies as female now a woman?" The answer would be yes.

The answer still being yes now is consistency, not inversion.

UA doesn't strike me as the type to actually do the beating-up. He's more the Grover Dill to somebody else's Scut Farkus.

This is part of the reason I do it, and because it normalizes the practice. I have an obviously male name and prefer he/him, but I've had to email people with names that could be either male or female, or else are names I've never seen before and have no guess as to their preference. So even though I'm not transgender and my name is obviously male, by normalizing the practice I hope that it encourages others to do the same, which also hopefully makes it less awkward for people who are transgender or who use non-binary pronouns.

But I also recognize not everyone is comfortable doing so, and it's not a big deal if someone omits their pronouns from their email signature line.