OP
OP
The timing of this excellent post was perfect. Thank you so much for posting it.
BiggStankDogg, please read this perspective.
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Using "boys" to speak to everyone really needs to stop, and this is why.
- Thread starter astro
- Start date
BiggStankDogg, please read this perspective.
This thread is about the criticism of the use of the word 'boys', not 'guys' (though that's still a male dominate word).
What I'm saying is that your anecdotal experience isn't the only metric for feeling other, nor is it more important than any other person's.
Whether you're overweight.
Or nerdy.
Or adopted.
Or handicapped.
Or a different color.
You are not the center of the pain universe. That's my point. And apparently, unless my experience is not parallel to yours, you will find a way to ad hominem me for my opinion.
I've noticed that I'm using "dude" when talking to women to refer to them in normal conversation lately. Particularly with my wife, my sister, and close friends. For example "dude, we gotta decide where we're going to have dinner".
I wonder if that is a sign that the term is moving in a gender-neutral direction, or on the other hand I wonder if I should try to curb that usage.
Did you ask that poster to prove their life experience or check their bio gender, or did you forgo that because you agree with their position and give them the benefit of the doubt?
(Ignoring gender stereotypes included), if someone politely informed said MC that there were males present as well and they felt (whether intentionally or not) excluded, can that MC still claim they're "not trying to offend" when the request is ignored?
Well, to start, your claiming not to care is not indicative of everyone. If someone does (as many women/non-binary people attest to in this thread,) then doesn't it make sense to respect that and go through the extremely minimal effort of changing a word in your vocabulary?
Also, there's the fact that my analogy was not even perfect. It doesn't take into account the entire history of the genders, and how women were systematically denied personhood over and over and over again. There's a lot of baggage there. So it is actually a lot worse when someone excludes women in group pronouns than when a man is excluded; men do not have a history of being marginalized.
So, yes, I admit to some weakness in my analogy, but I was just using it as an easy thought experiment for guys to use who may not have thought of it that way; they may have only thought about their intent and not the impact it had on others.
So maybe a more perfect example is to also imagine your gender had the same history of being minimized as women and non-binary people do. But now it's getting a little too complex. So I'll just stop. :P
Edit:
A perfect example of what I was trying to say at the end of this post. :D
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OP
OP
We're talking about gender identity ITT.
Please stop the whatabousism.
I didn't ask you to prove anything, I asked you to clarify.
I checked your gender BEFORE I refereed to you as male, this has been explained TWICE now and is a positive thing. STOP trying to spin that.
I don't think it's anything against the technical word "yall".
I think some of the negative connotation is when you hear it with a thick southern accent. But it's certainly possible to say the word without an accent.
Even though I'm a lifelong TEXAN, there are actually some types of southern accents that I cannot stand to physically hear. Like that Blake Shelton guy. Or there's an ESPN reporter named Marty Smith.
Those two guys/examples have super thick accents, and I literally cannot listen to them for more than 30 seconds
FWIW, I'm largely cis and in straight relationship now. But I grew up queer as fuck in the deep south during the Reagan years.
What I'm saying is, objectively, the use of a gendered word to address a group comprised of mixed genders/non-genders is not inclusive and erases the identities of people whom such a word doesn't address. Now, you may not have a problem with your identity being erased, but I can't imagine that you can't see why other people would have a problem with that and that we should be considerate enough to allow everyone to feel included if they're a part of the community that we're addressing.
I don't understand why you're being so dismissive. They're pointing you towards someone who just said that they're male and cis, but who's offering you some perspective to help understand the issue. Instead of being so defensive, why not TRY to understand? Nobody is insulting you here.
Perhaps not. But he could be forgiven if he said that as a matter of course BEFORE the request.
The request being pre-emptive being the main lynchpin.
Which is what I've said from the beginning. As a local, interpersonal dialog, I have no problem withe accommodating.
Answers like this are a great way to disincentivise progress if you're trying to get cis-people onboard with pushing for improvement and progress. It's like trying to convince someone to turn vegan by quoting the tired "meat is murder" line that no-one cares for. All you're doing is closing their mind and disincentivising compassion. And this is coming from a vegetarian, something that I am a little more able to say I understand.
I asked for help from non-cis people as a cis-person to help us make a huge change with them in regards to pushing a less gendered way of communicating and that's the only thing you're going to quote from my post? Do you have any idea how damaging that kind of attitude is to changing minds no matter how true it is? I'm not put off and I'm not going to change my mind based on something like this but you can be damn sure that a lot of people would be, and then suddenly you've created a radical who is incapable of change.
Please be a little more careful with your message. I know it's true but damn.
Because I feel discomfort and want everyone to only consider my opinion. Am I on-theme now? Can you see how a statement like that can come off as incendiary?
And in fact I WAS insulted. I was told I was being dishonest in my premise, which I am not.
OP
OP
Wait...
The entire point of asking this to request people become pre-emptive is so people don't have to ASK to NOT have their identity dismissed.
Are we looking at the wrong issue here? I've never encountered the use of boys as gender inclusive; been playing online games my whole life. If someone turns out to be female then you switch to "guys".The issues to me are the fact that under the guise of online anonymity everyone's gender is assumed to be male and also "boy" is an endearing term among males. If someone is "your boy' he's your mate. You call your team "boys" to try to form instant comradery with people you've never met before. Any top male streamer does this even. I'm not saying it's not an issue, but this is the reality.
If we want to stop this, then we need to look at why everybody assumes you're a male online then, and convince people that hey there's just as many non-male users.
If we want to stop this, then we need to look at why everybody assumes you're a male online then, and convince people that hey there's just as many non-male users.
OP
OP
Progress according to who?
One non binary person tells you they don't like a specific word, and another non binary person tells you they don't care.
I'm not gonna tell one of them that they're more or less progressive than the other. I wouldn't refer to OP specifically as "boy" or "guy" or anything else if asked not to. But I'm not gonna "other" someone else or tell them they're a reactionary because they don't care about it either.
YOU personally and I'm fine with that. I don't think I've mis-gendered you this entire time.
If it is mostly about legibility, that makes sense. It can certainly be difficult for me to understand a really thick Irish accent. But I don't harbor any ill feelings toward the Irish (of which I am 1/4, hence my red beard ;)) If you can understand it but just dislike it for a reason you can't actually pinpoint, though, it may be worth thinking about.
OP
OP
One person doesn't care, great.
The other person finds it dismissive.
If you make a tiny concession and change a single word in this context, suddenly no one is being dismissed.
It's not a big ask in any way to change a few words here and there to make your language more inclusive, and it could mean a lot to someone else.
If you address an entire group of mixed gender/non-gender as 'boys', you're misgendering some people in that group. It's that simple.
Is your question referring to acting around real-life strangers? If so, then no I'm not going to change how I speak in real-life around people I don't know, who have not specifically said or indicated that they object to "you guys".
If I ever meet someone in real-life who specifically mentions that objection, then I may consider changing the term, but only when speaking with that person.
For every person who doesn't care, there may well be a number of people who do. This isn't an issue that would occur with the normalisation of gender-neutral pronouns because there would be no risk of misgendering at all. It's a catch-all solution that hurts nor marginalises anyone.
I can't tell if you're being facetious or not. It feels like you are.
As part of a collective group, I don't need my gender highlighted, why should I? Nor do I think I become less of a person, nor do my feelings of my gender disappear.
Who is erased in these rooms? And would that feeling or erasure be intensified by not addressing gender at all? Do we all become amorphous humans suddenly?
OP
OP
Again, please read this post:
hahahhah exactly, about Irish
I cannot fucking understand Irish people whatsoever. That is literally the one native english accent that sounds completely whack. (Talking about native english speakers. I don't mean foreign english accents)
Then we may be close to agreement on the issue! If enough people (such as OP and many, many women/non-binary folks in this thread) relay similar feelings, doesn't it follow that there are many more people that feel that way who don't vocalize it? And, therefore, it would be better and more respectful to err on the side of inclusion than to just assume no one cares (despite evidence to the contrary)?
Again, I think most people understand very few people mean to exclude others. But that is the exact reason why people feel the need to speak up: so that people do think about its effects and reconsider in the future.
AGAIN, if we were having a conversation, I have no problem referring to you by your preferred pronoun. It's that simple.
Can 100% get behind the end of "boys". I thought it was mostly just a meme in these Battle Royale days, but it is still dumb anyways. Guys would be harder to lose but that has been talked to death in this thread.
So, your opinion is that it shouldn't matter if trans/nonbinary people are uncomfortable with being referred to as boys in a group, because you don't understand what the big deal is? And that asking for more gender neutral terminology is selfish and dismissive of this opinion?
I have no idea what you're even arguing about at this point, other than that you don't really care whether the things you say to trans people misgender them. Hopefully this isn't what you've intended to say, but it's certainly coming across this way to me.
And I'm arguing that if we all have the understanding that exclusion is not meant or intended, then maybe try not receiving as the insult that it is definitely not meant to be.
We don't need any gender highlighted in a group of mixed gender/non-gender as a form of address, period. That you would choose a gender in such a situation means that you've now addressed an entire group by a single gender as if everyone is that gender. You've then made it about gender, to the point of exclusion. All of that could have been avoided had you just addressed everyone by something that had nothing to do with their gender and applied to everyone in the group.
I think you've intentionally glossed over the several times where I said inter-personally, I would use whatever you prefer to be called, and have actually avoided using male or female pronouns outside of illustrative purposes.
OP
OP
There's no reason for you to use 'boys' to address a group of mixed gender/non-gender people. Why do it?
It's not a feeling, it's fact. That's exactly what any speaker is doing when they address a group of mixed gender/non-gender people as a single gender.
You haven't answered mine, but alright.
I am arguing that using a catchall for a group is gender-neutral, regardless of origin as it is generally understood to mean group - the use of GUYS specifically, and that I found astro's reaction to BOYS as being toxic but being fine with GUYS as strange, which is the main point I was intending to make.
Or am I not qualified to make that assessment because you assume that I'm not trans/nonbinary?
And that's the problem. Your interactions based on the pressing of this example seem to be solely weighted on impact and not at all weighted on intent. And I don't think that's fair.
And just because I don't think it's fair, doesn't mean I expect you to do anything but hear my position. I don't demand you change the way you use language or assume you have less life experience than me, which has been done TO me in this thread.
I also wondering the same. In my mind I'm being gender neutral and treat them like everybody. But if someone tell me its not the right way to do it I'll stop.
OP
OP
Which question have I not answered?
You find my reaction to the use of boys to refer to a group of diverse genders as toxic?
EDIT: misunderstood, dw. Thread mark covers this. Guys Vs Boys.
I have already explained this.
When I was pressing you for your person experience, it was so I could suggest to you that, because of your specific experience, it might be hard to understand what it's like for someone with an opposing experience.
It was not, at any point, to dismiss you or your opinion, but to confront your assertions about being okay in the scenario we were describing.
The thing is, I think you know this.
You profile says you are Male, the context of the thread is what is is, we have asked if you are Male, what your experiences are and you have chosen to ignore that.
STOP trying to spin this like WE are making assumptions.
'boys' is not gender-neutral. If you think so, you're objectively wrong on this one.
And there's a non-binary option in the settings if you want to continue to allude to the idea that you're non-binary. Until you outright tell us otherwise, it is reasonable to assume that your gender is what you state that it is in your profile.
User Banned (permanent): Transphobic rhetoric, trolling, junior phase account
So you're saying, unless otherwise specified, it's okay to assume gender. Correct? And what if I feel female today and just forgot to check a box you monitor. Is it still okay to assume?
I haven't intentionally glossed over anything. In fact, I'm really trying to assume the best of you.
You're willing to use an individual's preferred pronouns, which is great! So why won't you use a gender neutral term for a group they're in, especially if they've said they're uncomfortable with it?
If they've gone and said that they're uncomfortable with it, why would you continue to use it?
And frankly, as some people have shown, "boys" is clearly not a gender neutral term.
No one has assumed a damn thing. You've been taken at your word, and you're now objecting that people are treating you as the gender that you publicly specified.
OP
OP
I don't asume people's gender. If I need to refer to them specifically relative to their gender, I will check their profile. If it is listed, I will take that as their confirmation.
If they want to correct me afterwards they can, but that's how we use those profile settings. A way to communicate these things without having to ask or assume.
If you feel like you're more female one day, change your setting. Easy.
That's not my point. My point is if you're not okay with BOYS you shouldn't be okay with GUYS. And if someone asked, I wouldn't be opposed. In this thread I haven't assumed anybody's gender. Nor have I mis-gendered anyone in this conversation.