Powers answer is pretty much what my answer was going to be had I not
fallen asleep before I had the time to compose a full response. I view
invalidating someone else's gender identity as a pretty egregious violation
of the safe space that this list should, ideally, be. I say "gender
identity" instead of "identity as a woman" because I intend the statement
to apply to all genders; I'm not okay with someone invalidating someone's
identity as a woman, someone's identity as a man, or any other gender
identity someone on this list may have. The context I would imagine this
being most likely to come up in on this list is where someone's gender
identity doesn't match their birth sex, but that's certainly not the only
context I can see it being a problem in. If a situation comes up where
someone is clearly attempting to invalidate someone's gender identity not
out of ignorance or as a slip-up (heck, I've used the wrong pronoun for one
of my housemates at least once this week,) but out of more sinister
motives, then things are, in fact, likely to go BOOM. But, as has been
outlined in pretty much every discussion of the moderation of this list
previously, no one needs to worry about being moderated for making a
mistake, or for being unfamiliar with a concept.
The only thing that moderation actions taken on this list try to promote
(and there have been very few of them) is an environment where members feel
safe, comfortable contributing, and don't feel like they are being
viciously personally attacked or having fundamental aspects of their being
brought in to question. Since you brought up the question as to whether
women are involved in these decisions, I guess I might as well state that
although I have often been the person actually putting people on +mod, I've
never done so without consulting with at least four or five people
beforehand, most of those people are women, and I typically am inclined
towards less drastic action than any of the people I speak with beforehand
are - and if they disagreed with me that something was appropriate to
moderate for, I wouldn't moderate on it.
But... The point of my previous post here wasn't to suggest any sort of
impending moderation action against anyone for anything whatsoever, but
rather to point out that John was levying a rather serious accusation at a
moment when it wasn't supported. I had a pretty good idea of what
'aviatrix' meant (which, iirc, was one of the initial words under
discussion here,) but in all honesty I had to look it up before I was sure
I was right. I feel like there's a world of difference between wondering
whether or not we should be using archaic terms like aviatrix in the
encyclopedia and invalidating someone's personal gender identity, and I
really strongly feel that it is actively significantly counterproductive to
conflate the two.
---
Kevin Gorman
On Sun, Sep 22, 2013 at 5:44 AM, Powers wrote:
> I'll leave the rest of your post to the others on this list, but I can
> answer this question:
>
> > What is it I am allowed to say about my gender identity or
> > anyone elses and what is it I am not allowed to say?
>
> You can say anything you want about your own gender identity. What you
> cannot (politely) do is contradict what someone else says about his or her
> own gender identity.
>
> So if someone (anyone, not just a list participant) says "I'm a woman and I
> always have been", you should never say "No, you aren't." Nor "That person
> is only pretending to be a woman." Nor "He may feel like a woman but until
> he's taken a legal or surgical procedure, he's a man."
>
> It's that simple.
>
>
> Powers &8^]
>
>
>
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