The Don't Say Gay bill

You’re using an awful lot of words to avoid the question.

How does it hurt the child to refer to them as him, her, they, them, ola, ela?

The issue isn't so much the pronoun--I like the use of "they" when you're talking about a person of unknown or irrelevant sex--but the identity the enforcement of it is instilling in children.

I should also point out that no one owns the English language and so changes to it can only happen through social acceptance and usage.

Asked and answered. It isn't the pronouns (though they may be technically wrong), it's the identity those pronouns are used to enforce.

If your argument is it doesn't matter, then why not use the traditional ones?

If accept that they're not just words, they're about setting the child's identity, you make my case.

So why are you going so far out of your way to deny that acceptance and usage?

And… and you just accepted it at face value even though you KNOW it to be impossible?

Because at its heart, there are some rationally untenable beliefs, and much of it seems contrived solely to cause disruption in our society.

You misunderstand. The child was not saying "please use they/them with me." The mother was saying "use they/them with my child." Note the difference.

We seem to be talking past each other.
I'm talking BOTH genuinely trans/non-binary kids AND theoretically mis-labed cis kids, cuz I don't think the latter is a problem.
You're jumping back and forth between the two.

The mis-labled cis kid just has to change their pronouns, and no biggie.
They weren't a boy being forced to be a girl (or vice versa), because non-binary is in the middle anyway.
They'd be like Lal in TNG able to choose.

You, who think a mis-labled kid is gonna be scarred, seem to be asking if it's worth risking mis-labeling cis kids to make genuinely non-binary kids happy.
Yeah.
I don't believe in the "you're a minority, so you just have to eat a shit sandwich, kid" philosophy.

And right on cue WF’s conservative ‘intellectual’ Chester just laps it up…

If your argument is just "MATH" then you're ignoring the fact that fewer than 20% of the planet speaks English. So 80% of people might look at you at you weirdly regardless of the English pronoun you use for them.

I question that there are many genuinely trans/non-binary kids, and none who are capable of adequately pondering their own identity. The fact that their numbers are increasing of late is a product of ideological influence by their parents, who are doing their children more harm than good. That Disney exec? Yeah, check on her kids in 15 years and you're going to see some very troubled young adults.

Same with the mis-labeled trans kid. No harm done, right?

Children go through phases where they may try different identities, even the opposite sex. But 99% of the time, they settle out to a gender identity that conforms to their biological sex. If the parent forces a non-traditional identity on a child, the child's normal growth may be disrupted.

The point was made--by @Jenee above--that parents do the same thing when they enforce a traditional gender identity. I argue that, since very few people are trans, you're far more likely to be right enforcing a traditional gender identity than you are to be if you support a non-traditional one. The justification for assigning a non-traditional one is very weak, because children are not developmentally sophisticated enough to consider their life options and articulate their choices.

Unless you consider one type of child more important than the others, shouldn't you choose the strategy that results in the most kids living with their proper identity?

I don't believe that, either. But if enforcing a gender identity on a child is harmful, then parents should choose the statistically least harmful path.

Dude, if you don't wan't @Jenee to suck her cock you should not be arguing with her like Sam and Diane. She is attracted to UA. She is going to rape you to death. Do you know what it is like top be glomped by a heafty fangirl? I know. I couldn't take it now in my forties. I rather large Lum was known to glomp me every time she saw me for a couple of years Down at Katsucon and Otakon. I love my fat bottomed fangirls, but the back can't take it anymore. My tweenties was more than fifteen years ago,

I just saying get you back brace before you flirt with that thar country lass.

I have no reason to believe he’s lying.

Again, I have no reason to believe @Paladin is lying.

OBJECTION!

Assumes facts not in evidence.

Ah. So the parents decided to just wait and let the kid decide which pronoun they preferred?

The horror!

Trans adults come from somewhere.
I always knew I was straight.
Gay people report always knowing they were gay.
I can only assume it's so for trans and non-binary people.
And if someone tried to convince me I was a they, I think I would have seen through it pretty quick.
The proof of it, is gay people are almost universally attempted to be molded into straights, and it doesn't take.

Considering we are all they/them at some point (if someone doesn’t know their gender when referring to them) I would say the odds are 100%.

The kid is still perfectly free to choose their own pronouns later. Or at least should be. I don’t believe that parents should get to force pronouns on kids, do you?

But every liberal is lying.
Because Tim Pool says.

Farsi also doesn’t have pronouns and yet its 110 million speakers still somehow figure it all out.

Another interesting factoid, women don’t take the husband’s last name when they get married.

And that's fine, where the sex of the antecedent is indeterminate or irrelevant. If you are speaking of me and I am known to you, I am not a they.

They can, inasmuch as others will consent to using unconventional pronouns.

Forcing the wrong pronouns on kids is harmful, so I agree with you.

But if your child is male and given the relative numbers of people who are gender-conforming and those who are not, should you go with "he" or "ze?"

I suggest you do so if you get the opportunity, you might be surprised by how their childhood experiences don't align with your speculation.

I don't deny anyone's experience, but my point doesn't turn on that.

My point is that it if it harmful to mis-pronoun a trans child (presuming one can definitively be said to even exist) it is harmful to mis-pronoun a child who is not. And, no, I'm not just talking about a word. I'm talking about the collateral infusion of meaning that comes with that pronoun.

The recent explosion of trans and non-binary children suggests that this is not the product of some sudden inner awakening of children--four-year-olds have little knowledge or understanding of the complexities of our sexual nature--but rather the imposition of identity upon them by their parents. The parents engage in self-congratulation and virtue signaling by publicly extolling their support of their courageous child, who is proclaiming their self-identity!

This speculation is in contrast to the life experience of most trans individuals who have shared their stories with me.

Are you talking with many of the current wave of 4- or 5-year-olds about how they came to know they are trans?

My claim isn't that trans people don't exist.

If kids thinking they are trans don't grow up to be trans adults then it doesn't seem any more of a problem than my friends child who insists she is a cat.

Also @Federal Farmer which part of that do you disagree with? I wasn't aware our social groups overlapped, would love to know what different stories you've heard from them!

The difference, of course, is that a child's parents usually won't reinforce the belief that the child is a cat, let alone suggest it in the first place.

If you haven’t told me you aren’t a they why I assume it? Of course if someone tells me their pronouns of course I honor them but otherwise I default to they/them.

They/them aren’t unconventional pronouns. I believe they’ve (hehe) been used for exactly this situation for over half a millennium.

Serious question, how many ‘ze’s do you know? Or zirs?

I ask because my spouse is non-binary femme. Another partner is a trans man. I have another semi-occasional fun time friend that is a trans woman. My expanded polycule (thinking Friendsgiving) has over a dozen non-binary and trans members. I am the host of the biweekly Queer nights of the largest sex club west of Chicago and north of San Francisco. I was at a Queer club last Friday night. I cofounded and was on the board the PNW’s first all-gender GALA Chorus.

https://pugetsoundworks.org/

I say this not to ‘I have black friends’ but just to say that I know more than a couple trans folks.

I have never even MET a ze or a zir. But you keep bringing them up. Are they a Cali thing or just a Strawperson thing?

I am also in a Queer Polyam parents group (and before COVID was a regular host of Queer Polyam Families Brunch) and I don’t know a single LGBTQ+ person or ally that has EVER tried to force pronouns or gender identity on a kid.