Maybe so, but cheater is the only negative word that was used.
'He' is not a word with a negative connotation. Nor is 'man', though it is almost getting to that point.

So you think driving a car in a marathon isn't cheating? Or you can't say anything negative about trans people under any circumstances?

It isn't clear to me. If someone said I was a woman, I wouldn't be offended. Maybe our mod can clarify though.

What on Earth are you spewing about? That’s not remotely what happened.

Yes, but that is the question I asked and you answered. Maybe you didn't actually read what you were replying to.

You told us that it was obvious that lozen was intending to be disrespectful:
It doesn't matter that you would not be personally offended by someone misgendering you, just as any specific white person might not be offended to be called the N word. But that doesn't mean it isn't offensive, or in this case the standard to be met according to the poorly written forum rules is "derogatory". Deliberately misgendering someone is, as you suggest, disrespectful, certainly is derogatory and I at least consider it deeply transphobic. It is well established in society that deliberate misgenderings are inappropriate and this remains true even if you personally wouldn't be offended.
This seems pretty silly. In the context it is used - aiming to show disrespect by refusing to acknowledge someone via their pronouns - there is a clear negative connotation. "He" may often be a neutral word, but that doesn't mean it is neutral in all contexts and in this context it is clearly inflammatory.

What?!? Driving a car is clearly against the rules of marathons, but Lia Thomas broke no rules which is why the accusation that she is a cheater is pretty ridiculous. Nevertheless, while I think lozen should be embarrassed to have said this, I find it much less egregious because one can tell what lozen actually meant, not literally breaking the rules but something more akin to taking advantage of the existing rules in a way he finds inappropriate. Sure, whatever. Call her a cheater, if you must. But call HER a cheater. Don't misgender her because you are so mad at her.

To answer your second question, no the rules ban saying "derogatory" comments targeting LGBT people or individuals. Of course plenty of negative things could and have been said about trans people that are perfectly within that rule. However, deliberate misgendering clearly violates the rule in my view.

It is disrespectful. It is also disrespectful to call Donald Trump an idiot. And 'idiot' is even an inherently negative word, but that kind of statement is allowed, and I believe it should be allowed. I would put misgendering much closer to calling a public figure an idiot than to callling a public figure a 'n-----'.

But again, maybe our mod can clarify.

For trans people, deliberately misgendering them IS the equivalent of calling them the n word. You have it exactly backwards if you think it is closer to just a common "trump is an idiot". It is almost impossible to find any main stream source who is going to be deliberately misgendering other people, this is absolutely considered unacceptable in our society in 2023. Complete taboo, as is appropriate given how fundamentally it rejects the core identity of being trans.

And again, you don't have to personally feel this way if it was said to you to recognize the societal convention that is in place here.

I wonder if you've noticed the shift you've been making over the last year or two. You seem to be growing more and more susceptible to whatever talking points the worst of the right trots out, to the point where you're pretty much parroting them now. For example, your commentary about transgender issues used to seem fairly well-intentioned for the most part even if a little misguided at times, but now seems to be centered on all the terrible violent acts by the big bad LGBTQ activists and how people are "castrating children", while ignoring the harm done by the hugely overreaching laws being passed to supposedly stop said mutilations and other dreadful things. Or the lengths you'll go to equate Trump and Biden.

Just something to consider; perhaps the content you're consuming these days could use a little more...balance?

I'd think a college athlete would fall well short of being the "public figure" that a former president is. Why Lozen feels a college athlete is deserving of such contempt is rather beyond me.

If someone called Donald Trump a woman, or said he had womanly hands, would you consider either or both of those taboo as well?

I haven't seen or heard anything from anyone but you that it is considered similar to using the N-word, and I wonder if many black people agree with you. Many people obviously do reject the core identity of being trans. Sometimes it is based on their religion, which I don't personally think should be a good excuse for anything, but this country allows many things based on religious beliefs that it doesn't allow for other reasons.

But again, obviously we have a difference of opinion here with neither side obviously overwhelming the other in terms of numbers, so I think it's up to the moderator to decide what is acceptable in this forum.

Obviously still a public figure. None of us know this person or are directly involved in the issue, we're all just hearing about it in the news.

It's beyond me how you don't see the reason why Lozen feels this athlete is deserving of contempt; he has given his reason over and over.

That's a silly argument. As Trump is a cis man, using she/her pronouns (note a small but important distinction between that and calling him a woman) is just a comically ridiculous thing to say more than being deliberately offensive

While you vs me may give the appearance of a 50:50, the societal rule is completely clear. I'll give a simple test. Find a single mainstream article of any form that refers to Lia Thomas as "he". Many will criticize her. None will misgender her. The societal edict against misgendering trans people deliberately is completely clear.

real talk lol you can feel that some 'sensational' behavior may be contrary to a particular school of thought, and then filter it through the shadow of one individual sinner's interpretation on about any subject, and your options are A) that's bad and wrong and unacceptable, or b) wishing people well with a humility as best you can in your most inspired moments, groping for a greater capacity to love, , god willing.

let it lay. the big boss most high said Make no judgment, condemn not, forgive.

I didn't mean just you vs me, I meant what I gather as the opinion of members of this forum.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corne...by-lia-thomas/

Do you think you could find many "mainstream articles" calling Trump an idiot?

I suppose I set myself up for failure there, of course you will be able to find a conservative editorial who is as equally transphobic in misgendering Lia as lozen was. The article makes me pretty sad, to be honest. Nevertheless, the point stands.

As I start to reengage I would appreciate it if someone could put the link to the cheating discussion. And Im not clear if the misgendered issue was part of thecheating discussion or if that was a separate thing. Id like to resd through the entire discussion so Ican get a feel for thecontext of all this, as Im reading some very opposite takes on what thefacts were and what was said.

Thanks.

Reading this, and then going back and reading your previous post, I guess I'm no longer clear on what you meant by "public figure", or maybe just what your point was in making that distinction. I thought you meant that criticism of public figures is something to be expected and perhaps considered less unacceptable than it would be to do the same with just a regular person one didn't know. If that was your point, then I would stand by my argument that Lia Thomas is not in the same category in that regard. Not even close. The fact that she's been thrust into the spotlight doesn't make her a public figure in that way.

The reason is clear. What isn't clear is why lozen thinks his opinion of what happened means Lia is worthy of his contempt, and why he needs to express it in the way that he did. None of us know Lia's motivations. The idea that Lia would choose to bring on this much abuse and humiliation simply to win a college championship seems pretty far out there. Sure, it's not impossible, but to not only consider it likely, but to declare absolutely that this is what happened is...quite something. But moving beyond that, lozen is making a very specific choice when it comes to addressing it. He could simply say she is a liar and a cheat, but instead chooses to misgender. This thread has documented, again and again, ways in which transgender people are constantly being belittled, minimized, and even said not to exist (as in their transgender identity), and lozen chooses a path that piles on.

Something more to think about. If lozen is wrong, then he has made a rather terrible assumption about a transgender person that is completely incorrect, and done so in a way that adds to the anti-transgender rhetoric. But what if he's right? In that case, his insult isn't even an insult to the cheater, it builds on the anti-transgender narrative because a cisgender person decided to lie and cheat, and lozen will have added on to the wrong already done to the transgender community. Sounds like a pretty poor decision by lozen either way.

Starts here, I believe:

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...&postcount=441

Actually, that's where the misgendering started, but the cheating part probably started in the post he's replying to. That was a spinoff from a "hundreds of teenage men could beat the best women" discussion.

Seriously?

Thanks.

OK. I went back and read through the 140 or so posts on this topic so I think I got a pretty good feel for the issues at hand and the varying opinions of several posters. First, I'd like to address the topic from my personal perspective as a poster. Then I'll share my thoughts as to how we should address this topic from a forum and modding perspective. My comments arent in any particular order of importance.

First, I think it's pretty clear from the discussion, with the examples given and policies cited, that Lia Thomas was or is in no way a cheater in the standard use of that word. Everything she did was within the rules and regulations of the governing bodies of the events she participated in.

When I was growing up in the 1950s and 60s, the Olympic Games were a huge global athletic and political event. It was basically the free world vs the commies. And the medal counts were used as proxies for which system was superior. Amateurism was a "strict" requirement so professional athletes were forbidden from playing. Of course, we accused the commies of using ringers, like claiming their entire hockey team were all "soldiers" on the military payroll rather than our poor, starving true amateurs. Things got blurred when the US created facilities like the military's "training center" where those soldiers with world class abilities were "stationed" to still do Army jobs and train in their "free time".

Then came the absurdity of allowing professional players to compete in their own sport, with the US basketball "dream team" being the pinnacle of the hypocrisy of the policy. For many in my generation, that was the end of the Olympics as we knew them. But Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson werent "cheaters" since it was all OK with the Olympic Committees. Unfair as hell, but not cheating.

That said, there is certainly room for those who believe that the policies are wrong, or wrong-headed, and the inclusion of transwomen in womens sporting events is unfair. This is a complex issue with a lot of factors and nuance that often get left out in the desire to reduce every situation to a binary, you are either with us or against us, it's black or white, ignoring the vast amount of gradations of gray that exist between those clear extremes. It's quite a mixture of physical and mental characteristics and conditions, layered over with religious and other cultural beliefs that ultimately shape one's view on this topic.

So was Thomas cheating? No. No rule breaking was involved. Can a reasonable person feel there could be an inherent unfairness with the policy? Sure. But it's important to draw that distinction, imo.

Before I get to my next point, a quick word on grammar, spelling, typos, etc. as I've mentioned before, worrying about grammar on an internet forum is like pole vaulting over a mouse turd. My ipad (dropped countless times) often types letters different from the keys I press and puts words I didn't type. Sometimes I just don't have the time nor inclination to go back and proofread a post that few will see and will have a half-life measured in minutes if not seconds. So while I applaud Uke's efforts to educate everyone on current standard practices, I am not going to get involved in anyway modding over whether someone typed Transman or transman or trans man or trans-man. They all end up sounding the same when I read them anyway.

Now on to pronouns. Deliberately misgendering someone who is transgender is a bigoted act and is not allowed. In this forum, those who insist on doing so will receive appropriate disciplinary actions. It doesn't matter if the target of the comment is a forum member, a relatively unknown person or a celebrity. To deliberately misgender is a form of attacking the identity of the minority group as a whole.

I recall women weight lifters in my University (long before weight training was common with women athletes) being derisively called "him or he". Today you can still see the obnoxious and tired poker meme of showing a picture of Vanessa Selbst and calling her Doug Polk. Misgendering anyone, whether cis or trans, is a hurtful insult. There is no placefor that here. It's not nice.

I have too much catching up to do with hundreds of posts to read to go back now and delete or infract for what has occurred while I was away. But pls lets all just move forward and get back on track with solid, and at times heated debates while keeping the insults and trolling out of the forum.

Thanks.

I'll save you the trouble yes I did call Lia Thomas a cheat but did acknowledge that technically she was not a cheat but in life folks do things that are morally wrong but yet still do them

As to the misgendering yes I did that in a bunch of posts as sign of disrespect for someone (Lia Thomas) that disrespects women and a women's rights to a save space.
I never knew we had a policy that is against it . We also have a rule of personal attacks or insults which isn't enforced either.

As Bobo has stated my views have grown on the Trans community. The reason being we are seeing more men calling themselves women competing against biological women and destroying them and invading their safe spaces. I also can't fathom mutilating or castrating children under any circumstances as other more progressive countries than the USA or Canada have suspended these procedures until more research is done . I can't understand how we accept the violence from a small part of the Trans community either.

I will strive not to intentionally mis gender another individual even if I find them disgusting human beings on this page . Nor will I apologize for it in regards to Lia Thomas

I will also add I am glad you commented on Ukes trans religion of its transman and not trans man crap

The issue with the whole "misgendering" thing is that gender isn't real. Thus it's impossible to "misgender" someone. You can however get their sex wrong as our pronouns in English are sex based.

Demanding that people call someone whatever they want is problematic because it's forcing people to buy into a false ideology where gender has validity.

Can ban me now if you want.

I never know what to make of posts that amount to "I didn't know that my obviously problematic comments were also against forum rules. Going forward, I will try and follow the forum rules."

Edgelord’s gonna edgelord