And so it begins... teacher fired in Virginia due to refusal to use "preferred pronouns" of transgender student

[Crowe Diddly]

This still doesn't sound so bad. So he calls a female-to-male transgender "her", usually to people other than the student.

After being told repeated not to do so, as a matter of simple respect to the student under his purview. Yes, that does indeed still sound like really shitty behavior from a public employee. If nobody ever found out about it, it would be inactionable, obv, but that's not how it happened, is it? No, the comments seemed to get back to the student quite often.

Again, I ask you, what if the student wanted pronouns "they" or "ze"? Would the teacher be expected to use those pronouns?

I'd be fine with it, since those are indeed gender-neutral. They are in all the dictionaries, they are proper English words, and it avoids a whole lot of issues that have nothing to do with the actual teaching of the student, so yes, IMO. It's such a small ask that means so much to the person asking that I wouldn't really give it a second thought, personally. I might even fuck it up occasionally, but as I think we both agree, if the student thinks I'm making a good faith effort, I dont believe there would be a single issue with it.

You assumed that I don't have interactions with trans people, but you're incorrect. Two people I knew from the past are now male-to-female trans, and are Facebook friends. I interact with both, refer to them by their new name and female pronouns, and don't ever bring up them being trans unless it's relevant to the conversation. One of them recently posted an opinion on Facebook that they think the whole "non binary" thing is BS, and it's mostly people co-opting the trans identity in order to look cool/edgy. I said that I agreed.

Non-binary is a whole 'nother topic unrelated to transgender people. But if people treated trans people like you do, we'd never have a problem. When someone refuses to do so because they say your chosen identity is something they consider a lie, and against their religion, AND YOU WORK IN A PUBLIC SCHOOL, well, then we got problems. It's not even a lie to call someone the term they ask for. If I say you should call me Steve, and you do so, is that a lie? I also have very little patience who use the whole "Lying is against my religion" angle. It rarely stands up to scrutiny, as far as I've seen. If you still feel like its a lie, bring it up in confession and say you did it as a compassionate act for your student, and God will forgive you anyway. But to say that someone's identity is a lie, in your view and your religions view, and your job is serving children in a job paid for by tax money, then I believe the kids rights trump the teacher's in this case.

Let's consider Natalie's situation, someone who is literally famous for being transgender. Because of that, that's what people know of her when they meet her and in my opinion, that's probably why they overdo the whole pronoun thing with her. It's all they can see, not Nat the Human but Nat the Trans Hero With A Huge Platform, or whatever moniker you can think of. It's like anyone being famous for anything. The way people react you you skews so much towards what you are famous for that it becomes your entire public identity, and in her case, its being trans. I have no doubt that people react to her quite differently than non-famous trans people, for better in some case, for worse in others. I posit that her fame is a huge reason she is sick of people who can't get over what to call her, and the awkwardness and repetitiveness that comes from it.

[gimmick]

After being told repeated not to do so, as a matter of simple respect to the student under his purview. Yes, that does indeed still sound like really shitty behavior from a public employee. If nobody ever found out about it, it would be inactionable, obv, but that's not how it happened, is it? No, the comments seemed to get back to the student quite often.

Again, I ask you, what if the student wanted pronouns "they" or "ze"? Would the teacher be expected to use those pronouns?

I'd be fine with it, since those are indeed gender-neutral. They are in all the dictionaries, they are proper English words, and it avoids a whole lot of issues that have nothing to do with the actual teaching of the student, so yes, IMO. It's such a small ask that means so much to the person asking that I wouldn't really give it a second thought, personally. I might even fuck it up occasionally, but as I think we both agree, if the student thinks I'm making a good faith effort, I dont believe there would be a single issue with it.

You assumed that I don't have interactions with trans people, but you're incorrect. Two people I knew from the past are now male-to-female trans, and are Facebook friends. I interact with both, refer to them by their new name and female pronouns, and don't ever bring up them being trans unless it's relevant to the conversation. One of them recently posted an opinion on Facebook that they think the whole "non binary" thing is BS, and it's mostly people co-opting the trans identity in order to look cool/edgy. I said that I agreed.

Non-binary is a whole 'nother topic unrelated to transgender people. But if people treated trans people like you do, we'd never have a problem. When someone refuses to do so because they say your chosen identity is something they consider a lie, and against their religion, AND YOU WORK IN A PUBLIC SCHOOL, well, then we got problems. It's not even a lie to call someone the term they ask for. If I say you should call me Steve, and you do so, is that a lie? I also have very little patience who use the whole "Lying is against my religion" angle. It rarely stands up to scrutiny, as far as I've seen. If you still feel like its a lie, bring it up in confession and say you did it as a compassionate act for your student, and God will forgive you anyway. But to say that someone's identity is a lie, in your view and your religions view, and your job is serving children in a job paid for by tax money, then I believe the kids rights trump the teacher's in this case.

Let's consider Natalie's situation, someone who is literally famous for being transgender. Because of that, that's what people know of her when they meet her and in my opinion, that's probably why they overdo the whole pronoun thing with her. It's all they can see, not Nat the Human but Nat the Trans Hero With A Huge Platform, or whatever moniker you can think of. It's like anyone being famous for anything. The way people react you you skews so much towards what you are famous for that it becomes your entire public identity, and in her case, its being trans. I have no doubt that people react to her quite differently than non-famous trans people, for better in some case, for worse in others. I posit that her fame is a huge reason she is sick of people who can't get over what to call her, and the awkwardness and repetitiveness that comes from it.

It's not even clear from the tweet is she against asking in general or making a big deal out of it. I mostly got the impression it's just the big deal part.

[Crowe Diddly]

It's not even clear from the tweet is she against asking in general or making a big deal out of it. I mostly got the impression it's just the big deal part.

It appears to me that people asking her and making a big deal out of it has gone way overboard. My read is that it happens to her because she's literally famous for being trans and liberal/an activist/whatever, so when people meet her, they treat her like a famous trans figure and liberal/an activist/whatever, rather than a non-famous person who happens to be trans. Nobody likes when people focus on only one part of their identity, and she likely gets it way more than most.

Druff was right, I believe, when he said that trans people just want to be treated like normal people, but normal people don't make a huge issue of other normal people's gender identity, and Natalie can't go out in certain places without her fame and thus, her gender identity, following her and overshadowing everything else about her. For various obvious reasons, she doesn't get treated like a normal person anymore, because she a "youtube star." Most trans people, I think, don't have anything like that problem.

[MumblesBadly]

Folks! Folks! Folks! It’s very simple! Use this graphic to determine whether someone is male or female.

[duped_samaritan]

Folks! Folks! Folks! It’s very simple! Use this graphic to determine whether someone is male or female.

Inverted nipples are a real thing.