JK Rowling Backlash

[TGLS]

So the answer to my thought experiment is that just by banning two words you now have to use a whole paragraph in its place. In effect, what was simple is now overcomplicated.

Although I am indeed impressed. I could not work out how to describe it myself.

I can't work out how to describe it without using a paragraph to begin with (without effectively just giving the US flag a different name). I get down to:

"The flag has two parts, a squarish section with fifty stars (white on blue), and the rest of the flag has thirteen red and white stripes."

Replace stripes with rectangles and stars with pentagrams and you get the minimal words to describe the US Flag without Stars and Stripes.

[Riedquat]

In regards to the first paragraph: maybe you should explicitly aim that at Xaphan.

It was more a general thought on the subject, I wasn't paying attention to who said what

In regards to the second: when part of the message is about the forced redefinition of established terms you no longer get to hide behind accusations of semantic "pedantry".

Well there's a long history of people twisting meanings, or emphasis, or connotations. Deliberately trying to force redifinitions to catch people out isn't a new game and it would be nice if people treated it for what it is... We can all ignore those attempts at forcing if we choose. Whilst choice of words can illustrate a particular intent part of the art of conversation is, as I said, to understand what the person is actually saying, rather than latching on to flags that someone else has claimed are definitive.

[AlucardNoir]

Well there's a long history of people twisting meanings, or emphasis, or connotations. Deliberately trying to force redifinitions to catch people out isn't a new game and it would be nice if people treated it for what it is... We can all ignore those attempts at forcing if we choose. Whilst choice of words can illustrate a particular intent part of the art of conversation is, as I said, to understand what the person is actually saying, rather than latching on to flags that someone else has claimed are definitive.

This entire conversation started with a woman called Maya Forstater who got fired from her job for not agreeing with the trans and LGBT attempt at redefining gender. J.K.'s tweet was a response in suport of her that also agreed with her. We are way past the point where you can just ignore this shit. We're in full blown 1984 territory now, you either agree or 'we' take your livelihood away.

[Riedquat]

Maybe I should've made it clearer - we can ignore it when deciding how we respond and react, i.e. looking at what people are actually saying rather than responding to some ridiculous list of approved words with approved meanings. That other people act stupidly is still usually beyond our control. The best thing to do there IMO is a bit of quiet low-level pushback, not enough to bring them down on you. What isn't a good thing to do is to meekly go along with every dictat, saying "it's not worth the hassle for somehing that minor." Firstly that just means that you're saying it's acceptable, and secondly big changes are frequently made up of lots of minor ones that people dismiss as being too small to worry about - and end up accepting them. The world's full of things that would've been laughed off just a few decades ago but now you've got most people loving them. That can be used for both good and bad.

[Xaphan]

I thought it was fairly obvious that I mean that words don't have meaning in the abstract, that no meaning can be attatched universally to the word 'band', but that each specific instance of a word can become meaningful to a particular person by how it is used.
If that was unclear, I apologise.

And yeah, sure, if you're using a word in a way not everyone does, you might have to explain it. But sometimes that's the easiest way to do things, and it's not wrong to do so.

Take this conversation:
Person 1: Trans women are women. They should be treated the same as other women, and here's why.
Person 2: That's not what 'woman' means, woman refers to biology.
Person 1: I'm using a non-biological definition of 'woman' that refers to mental state, it's just convenient to use that word, and now you understand what I mean by it.
Person 2: But that's not what the word means.
Person 1: But it's way easier to talk about this if we use 'female' for the biology part, and define 'woman' differently.
Person 2: But that's not what the word means.
Person 1: But these definitions make things way easier to talk about. Not using them is like trying to describe the US flag without using the word 'star'.
Person 2: [et cetera]

Now take this one:
Person 1: Trans women are women. They should be treated the same as other women, and here's why.
Person 2: But 'woman' refers to biology?
Person 1: I'm using a non-biological definition of 'woman' that refers to mental state, it's just convenient to use that word, and now you understand what I mean by it.
Person 2: OK. I now understand how you are using the word, even if it isn't how I would normally use it. So I now understand what you meant. Here is why I disagree, using my preferred definition of 'woman'.
Person 1: Can we talk about how terrible this dialogue is for a minute?

See how much more productive that second one is? This thread has, other than Noir, mostly been people discussing actual issues, rather than the 'correct' way to use the word 'gender'. Note that I do not care if anyone uses gender words the way they want. I have no desire that people 'update their dictionaries'. I care if people insist everyone else uses gender words the way they do, and pretends not to understand simple points that use it another way.

You're making a fairly crucial assumption about what I think of a subject on which I have not actually commented.

Also, proof by contradiction: I have in fact read Wittgenstein, and don't think words have meanings.

[AlucardNoir]

You don't want people to 'update their dictionaries', you just want them to agree to use the definitions of gender and gender related words you invented, got it.

To quote J.K. Rowling's tweet that started this whole charade:

Dress however you please.
Call yourself whatever you like.
Sleep with any consenting adult who’ll have you.
Live your best life in peace and security.
But force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real?

[Admiral X]

Yes, they've moved from pretending that gender is a social construct to pretending biological sex is a social construct. Subtle, but the difference is there. And of course it never occurs to them that they are using this to effectively displace women in favor of men.

[CmdrKing]

No no no, you skipped the reading again!

“Biological sex is binary” is a scientific falsehood which has been perpetuated by society to fit simplistic worldviews.

However you demonstrated an understanding that gender and sex are different terms while discussion trans people, showing greater mastery of the topic than Joanne or Alucard. D+

(Joanne of course was also wildly mischaracterizing the original legal case, something established 20 pages back, but ignoring that is to be expected here.)

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Wait, was she actually misreading it? I remember speculating such, myself, but I don't remember an affirmation therefor.

[CmdrKing]

I doubt it was a misreading.

But “obsessively flood trans coworkers with hundreds of messages over a few months insisting they are men and that trans people don’t actually exist” goes well beyond the bounds of “saying sex is real”, which is why the judge recognized her for what she was: someone trying to claim bigotry and harassment as protected speech.