CharonY

I see we have reverted to argument A). Again, there is no legislation for that and folks are not prosecuted for misgendering. It is not about enforcing proper pronouns.

And many do feel the same way. You forget that communication is also a social tool. You interact with that person. So if I decide to repeatedly call you a feminized version of your name, for example, it could be considered endearing if you are good friends, or perhaps intimidating if, say I was your boss. You may be OK with it either way or not. You are free to express your satisfaction/dissatisfaction to me. I had only few interactions with transgender folks and have misgendered a couple of times for different reasons and the interactions were always amicable. I did agree to call them their chosen name, but they were generally fine when I got confused and made my he/she dance. Slightly embarrassing for everyone involved but no big deal. As others noted, it only becomes a deal when it becomes a pattern of abuse. If I make it clear that I single them out. Same goes for religious folks. If I keep making disparaging comments about religion, religious students are likely to complain. If I on top single out the catholic student and make pedophile priest jokes at them, I may be in real trouble. Again, not an issue of law and something that has been around since human interaction and language existed. Why some folks think pronoun are such a big thing compared to all our other limits of social interactions, is still not clear to me. You make it so that every non-binary person wants to have things just right for them. Yet in reality there are real persons and as far as I have seen the only demand is to have the same baseline respect as other folks. I have therefore no idea why folks would be upset about books in your example (unless somehow the author creates a caricature of e.g. transgender people, but I suspect that is not what you had in mind). Of course there are always a small number of folks in every group that are unreasonable. However, I suspect that if we count the number of folks being offended to be "forced to use a pronoun" vs folks that are actually offended by certain pronouns the former would outnumber the latter. It is really that social media and certain news outlet make it so big of an issue that it appears to be a huge boogeyman of sorts.

I think that actually that is not quite clear. In the US it seems that the courts are split whether the use of that word is so bad and historically loaded as a slur that it only is evidence for discrimination. Others consider it more of an utterance and does not pass the level of discrimination. And yet that person was not fired, it was remark in the personal file, and he sued the university for it. Moreover, most firings are not based on laws per se. They can be for breach company policy. Because folks cannot behave themselves many companies have such policies in place to at least seem to sanction discriminatory or harassing behaviour (which makes it easier for them to fire folks for cause). If a Walmart greeter says "Welcome to Walmart, arsehole", they can be fired, even if they did not broke laws nor even used a pronoun. I.e. it is a policy and not a legal thing. So since you consider it such a big deal, kindly let me know the rough number of folks charged under C-16 then? If failing that, how many folks were let go because of pronouns alone (i.e. without any further acts of discrimination). Again the one case you brought up was a policy breach that did not even result in firing (also was in the US, but that is probably not a big thing as they are similar provisions, I believe). Edit: Not to mention that it was a single case whereas these antidiscrimination laws have been around for close to a decade. Depends on how often you do it and how you do it. If it is wrapped in a clever joke I might laugh, if it is mean-spirited I would think you might be an arse. At no point would legal actions be involved.

No I am just trying to figure out what parameters you consider to be objective enough to make the classification you do. You have specifically mentioned child-bearing, so fair enough I wanted to figure out whether that is a sufficient parameter. It relates to the points Arete (repeatedly) made. It requires us to ignore biological sciences (on a science forum no less) and if that is the case one would need to know whether other classifications are at least useful, if they do not follow the science. It is also an invitation to think whether the classifications we make in daily life are indeed as universal as we think they are. Basically we could ask ourselves, if there is a person looking like what we would consider a man or woman based on clothing, behaviour etc. How should we treat them. Should we first determine what we think their sex it and then insist on addressing that way (and why?). And if so (and that is already a big if), what are the parameters that tell you that person has a perceived mismatch between sex and gender? You brought up child bearing and rather obviously that is a) not an universal parameter an b) it cannot be used in casual determination as far as I know. But yes, youtube videos are obviously going to make everything better. At some point folks just want to feel outraged, don't they? Fundamentally the argument goes in circles. A) we treat everyone with respect but we just don't want a law that forces us to. If pointed out that the law is not forcing you treat folks with respect per se, just not discriminate against them it then goes to B) they are delusional and I do not want to engage in delusions. That goes away from the forced by law argument but then becomes they are not real (somehow) and I just want to do things the "correct" way (which in the past included rather horrendous elements, but I digress). Asking who is going to be the arbiter of what is "correct' and why folks cannot just be civil with each together it somehow goes back to A.

So after a hysterectomy or menopause that would be fine then?

That is the whole point that pretty much all of the opponents of C-16 fail to understand. It is not about being offensive. Note that all the laws that C-16 amends are already on the books since the 70s. How many of those folks have been arrested? How many folks where arrested for calling Lutherans Catholics, for example? By your own logic, if that was the case wouldn't heaps of folks making fun of religions already have been arrested, too? As Arete, me and others have pointed out, the law is about discrimination so unless misgendering is part of a suite of discriminatory behaviour directed at a specific person based on their identity (or sex, or religion, or age), then and only then the law applies. I.e. the victim has to demonstrate negative outcomes for them, which is why discrimination cases are very difficult to win: https://digitalcommons.law.lsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=5889&context=lalrev;Why There is a lot handwringing about using the right pronouns and whatnot. That is not part of the law, regardless how folks like Peterson try to make it to be (again, folks like actual lawyers have already explained it, repeatedly). The fact that folks try so hard to build this alternative reality where it is all about petty pronouns and forcing you to speak in a certain way is disconcerting. Edit: It seems that some folks want to build a victim complex by highlighting how things potentially closer to their heart are underreported. However, even if there are real grievance to be had here (I am not sayin there aren't) shouldn't it be rooted in actual facts? Even the comments above that the church burnings are not reported, I have read reports about them in national and international outlets as well as folks, including indigenous folks condemning them. I understand that the media landscape has made it easier to wrap oneself in a certain reality and it nowadays takes real effort to shake it off. On the other hand, I hoped that older folks more used to traditional media would recognize that trend and not fall into these social media traps (which Peterson really mastered).

These are great points. A couple of things to add are that the bill amends three sections, the one that seems to spark most discussions is the amendment to the Canadian Human Rights Act which basically just adds gender-diverse folks to protected groups, which already includes things like race, sex, religion and so on. It does not limit your ability to express yourself, unless it becomes harassment or is part of an act of discrimination (which again, needs to be evidenced by the accuser). The argument against in then really is that folks are against laws that restrict someone's ability to harass others. The big issue why there are protected groups to begin with is not because we wanted laws that force us to be nice, but rather because these groups were disporportionately targeted and have suffered real consequence beyond just being offended. The other areas apparently seem to be less controversial are additions to the criminal code, which basically makes it an offense to advocate genocide or public incitement of hatred and allows for classification of gender-based hate crimes. The reasoning for these additions are in part based of Arete's information on violence against the trans community. The interesting bit is that many provinces already have made amendments by including gender identity or expression into their books for years and this is basically just codifying it on the federal level. That basically shows to me that this is just seizing it to fuel an artificial outrage machine rather than true worries about the impact of the law. "They" as a third-person singular pronoun has been in use since the 14th century. To be fair, it has dropped somewhat in popularity around the 18th century but has seen increases over the years again. This only shows how malleable language really is. Funny bit is that even if language is malleable, it really only changes through broad use (after all, it is communication tool). While I know that there folks trying to redesigning the system, I really doubt that it will have any traction (and I wasn't really aware of any of them). It is a bit like Esperanto, which while in theory had benefits, practically di not really take off. So far I have not heard of anyone ever having made the request for their use. Moreover, if it causes so much pain, surprisingly non-binary folks still actually have names. Real overreach, if you want to call it, are rarely related to laws, most of them is just a group of folks within institutions, corporations and so on and try to brand themselves a certain way or want to make a mark and appear productive. At one point or another there will be a reality check and if it turns out to be nonsense, often it gets dropped. But I am sure that silly policies are not restricted to this topic alone (but generally causes less outrage. Why is that?).

! Moderator Note I think members are a bit frustrated by relatively vague assertions connected with belittling their points. I would be very helpful if you an refer to specifics and provide some data that we understand what the foundation for the discussion should be. Thanks.

So the question is what is the baseline of normal? So what precisely do you measure and what value does it need to be considered neurodivergent?

I think the fundamental argument is that Peterson has shown that he wades into a lot of topics related to social and political sciences as well as law and philosophy where typically experts demonstrate that he has no clue what he is talking about. Even if OP was oversimplifying his argument, there is little to assume that his reasoning would make more sense in that area. I think context is important. As you mentioned, there are different social norms in different groups and hence, folks feel offended by different issues. That being said, not all is similar. The big issue is whether there were social norms allowing systematic unfair treatment of folks. And here is a bit of the crux of the matter, there are ideals both in law and society (say equal treatment regardless of a person's identity) and there there is the reality of folk having been marginalized both by unjust laws (e.g. related to severity of punishment, but also starting with overpolicing) as well as de fact unequal treatment (resulting in reduced job chances due to certain perceptions). In the latter case it is more of just being offended but it becomes more about entrenching certain stereotypes that have tangible effects on outcomes (i.e. inequity). The issue of course is that the lines are blurry when either of these things happen. However, often it is not an equal side kind of thing.

No, that is not how things generally work. First, you cannot change all chromosomes in a developed individual. Each of your cells carries the complete genome so you would basically need to change the DNA of all your cells in your body (with few exceptions). The second issue is that reproductive organs are developed early on in life. What can be done is to mimic steroid of either sex by hormone therapy.

Memories are not recorded as such, they created and recalling them is another creative step. If you did not memorize an event it is often because there was no real engagement (emotional or otherwise) and as such are not committed to long-term memory. Moreover memories tend to need to be reinforced to remain committed in memory. I.e. not having recollection could simply be due to it not having been committed to memory or not reinforced sufficiently and therefore gets forgotten. There is a lot of details and nuance that I leave out, in part because there whole series of books regarding mechanisms of memory and on top I am certainly not well-informed enough to give a succinct answer to a question. However, fundamentally we should not think of memories as a series of recordings that we get to replay, the process is far more dynamic (and error prone!).

Assuming the group are adults, you might be losing that bet assuming there are no additional qualities on display. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/0022-3514.68.3.427

Not to mention that in social animals hierarchies are often far more complex than anticipated. For chimpanzee there were a few fairly recent papers highlighting non-linear properties of their hierarchies, for example. I would need to find the papers again, but I think that funnily there were some similarities to what you describe. There was a theoretical dominant individual which beat most others up but was not beaten in return. But socially that individual was rather isolated. Which might indicate that chimpanzees have a more differential social view than quite a few humans...

It does not have to be adversarial, which adds to the exhaustion. Often the issues can be subtle. Some common examples in my area are collaborative settings, it is always assumed that the typically senior (white) male is actually the mastermind. If they say no it was actually a [similar or junior female, or minority], it can be often seen as generosity. Subsequent correspondence still goes to the perceived lead. It is a small thing but if you bring it up yourself folks get defensive, they did not meant it that way. Which could be driven by the fear that they could actually offend the perceived actual leader. I.e. they just act in a system of familiarity where the project leads used to be mostly male and white, and they may not be flexible enough to adjust to changing situations. This is of course not a PC situation as such, but an example how perceptions clash with changing situations. The person not adapting to these situations is almost automatically defensive as from their perspective they were just conforming to norms. And because of that, a person speaking up may just be overly sensitive. Yet from the other side it means you need to careful modulate your responses so that folks slowly get used to the idea that you are actually running the show without making folks feel bad about their behaviour. The first time I across his name all this years ago I had a similar image. Just a more a giant teacup situation. That is again based on context, isn't it? In various groups that is entirely acceptable. If I called a student love or a student called me sweetie, it could cause issues. That is the issue for things considered socially acceptable, all rules are basically made up and society kind of (but not really) agrees on some of them for a given period, before perception shifts. PC going wild is then basically a descriptor for a situation where different groups assume different things I think the real issue is that many things are hard to resolve now as they travel quickly outside our area of influence.

In certain (rare) circumstances they can. It is an in-vs outgroup situation. Among folks who know you and can contextualize your action certain otherwise egregious behaviour can be accepted and even endearing. E.g. you might use insults among your friends, but that can turn ugly if you use the same with random folks you don't know. The use of words like "nigger" have been specifically used by white folks in order to denigrate and subjugate black folks. Theoretically a group of black folks might be comfortable with having a specific white friend use the term around them, but it is so loaded that even the white person might feel uncomfortable using it (as it invokes a power differential). I am also not sure whether random black folks calling each other that term is acceptable under all circumstances. There is certainly more nuance to it (i.e. slightly more acceptable but still can be used in an insulting way). I think the worst thing about it is that it is tiring. There is always some mental overhead used for navigating these situations where you somehow need to demonstrate you belong (e.g. you need to show competence without appearing uppity) but ignore rather obvious slights (especially if they are done unconsciously). Highlighting issues usually makes things worse, so one needs to keep it bottled up. Of course it is only related to visible characteristics (there are also more subtle social cues in certain areas) but it is often one of the hardest to hide. The thing is that it has become less socially acceptable, which gives rise to the PC nonsense. But again, it is the same thing as it has always been, just the topic and mechanism has changed.

Depends on the country and setting, actually. In the US and Canada it has become very unusual to address folks with their last name in class. Or even in semi-formal correspondence. That being said, students (mostly affluent ones) threatening lawsuits has (based on anecdotes) increased by a fair bit for all sorts of reasons (often by claiming that it would inhibit their otherwise stellar careers). While most of these threats are empty, administration tends not to want any hassle. I think it is also fair to say that this issue was meant to be pushed before court, effectively the stakes were low, from what I understand. The student threatened, the provost reprimanded, but from what I see, it was basically a threat of corrective actions and there was no termination in play (yet). It is important to note that the whole thing is (as I understand it) connected to first amendment rights that are specific to issues of academic freedom. After all, a corporate employee might get fired far more easily for any range of stupid (and less stupid) reasons.

I understand when discrimination can get one fired. However, I wanted to know from MigL a situation when someone could be unjustly fired due to the bill. And how it differs from other anti-discrimination laws at workplaces. Because the way he sets it up it almost reads as if he is in favour of discriminating against folks, which I know is not what he means. I therefore think that he is misunderstanding some aspects of it. So I wanted to see what kind of realistic situation he can see where not acknowledging someone's presented gender would be justified and should not result in legal troubles. And again, the only possible scenario I have seen if that behaviour is part of discriminatory actions which could be ground for termination well before C-16. Also, when it comes to places like universities, the general rule I have seen across the board is to make accommodation by students, provided they are made in good faith. So no "your majesty" or similar nonsense some folks like to propagate.

Draw me a scenario where you think it can result in someone getting fired.

Actually you are right. The social morality outrage in the past has actually resulted in discriminatory (morality) laws, which includes sodomy laws (targeting homosexual men). So I was wrong, the past was far more restrictive than things are today. So the question here is do you purposefully misunderstand the law (as Peterson does it) or do you really just lack good info on it? There are good articles that one could read but fundamentally the one aspect that limits free speech in Canada in the Criminal Code is hate speech defined as advocating genocide and the public incitement of hatred. Misgendering does not advocate genocide of e.g. transgender persons nor does it incite hatred as such. Now if we go away from the criminal code and look at discrimination, which has a very narrow domain, it would depend on the situation. If you refused to call the hypothetical "Anna" by her or address her by her gender it could be considered workplace harassment. The question is then is are you against legislation against workplace discrimination or harassment? Or do you think that transgender person should be subject of harassments? Or do you think there should be no anti-discrimination and harassment laws to begin with as they would interfere with free speech?

Except of course there are no bans, even if you imagine there are. You are still able to yell at folks for talking in their own language, folks are able to talk back (though less so in the past) and some folks yell at the yellers. None of which would result in legal challenges in whatever shape or form. You keep forgetting that these are social, not legal pressures (and note I was referring to your bit about how everything got more PC, which again, squarely falls outside the legal domain). Anti-discrimination laws are only applied in a very narrow field (I think almost exclusively labour laws). The whole thing Peterson espouses (and which you seem to insinuate) is pure fantasy , as legal scholars and actual lawyers have repeatedly explained. I almost feel it is part of the victimhood complex that the dominant part of the population (i.e. the groups that traditionally determined social norms) feels now that certain social constraints are also applied to them and not exclusively to marginalized and/or otherwise powerless folks.

Fundamentally that has not really changed. Just go back a few decades and see how many folks are offended when, say you hold hands or publicly kiss a partner from a different race (or *gasp* same gender). In the 80s in Germany talking to my parents in our native language was offensive for many natives causing with frequent backlash. Realistically, two things have change. One is what is considered offensive. Especially as you get older it seems to get more and more, but really it is more of a change of what. The second part, which I suspect really creates the sense of impacting society is where the domain where the causing offense is facing social pressure. In the past, social pressure was either only locally (i.e. folks around you that feel offended and let you know, which can easily be minimized by surrounding you with folks you know) as well as in areas of public domain such as press and media. We all know that there are groups limiting (or censoring, if you will) what is considered acceptable on TV (e.g. violence nudity and so on) and other media. The big change nowadays I think is the rise of social media. Now everything that would normally only be regulated in mass media has been filtered into our daily lives (if it includes a social media presence). Folks still do their being offended bit just as decades ago, but now they can reach far and wide. I.e. I think society has not changed that much, but our tools. And I think we are utterly unprepared to what it really means. You are getting it backwards. Discrimination laws require that the victim demonstrates systematic discrimination against their person, which is often very difficult to prove. The employer can simply claim underperformance. You do not defend against it, if you do not deliver materials (such as a well-documented set of discriminatory behaviour). So basically you are saying that you want to be an employer but be able to say things like e.g. black people are lazy without any repercussion. Under that law, that may actually not be enough, provided you still pay them the same and give them the same job opportunities. However if you repeatedly state the former and pay them worse, there might be a case stating that you are in fact discriminating against black workers. Do you think that such a law is just or not? Second scenario: a person with the legal name of Anna who was born male but presents female works under your direction. What do you call her? Do you try to figure out her original (male) name so that she would not force her identity on you? How would calling her her legal name forcing anything on you, for example.

Though if one would take it to the level of Peterson it would mean that civil discourse with women would be impossible or at least much harder than with men, and that is clearly not empirically supported. It also strikes me as extremely funny, considering that academics (including Peterson) typically are only able to be a threat to donuts much less projecting violence. I am going to amuse myself with imagining the head of Fine Arts and the Dean of Engineering taking down the provost due to some disagreements. I tend to dislike the term political correctness as it typically is used in an antagonizing manner. Fundamentally it refers to certain levels of self-censoring based on (perceived) social norms. i.e. using lingua that is considered polite or civil (many words, phrases and topics have changed over time to become either more or less acceptable to be used in public). The problem of course is that regardless motivation, it is not always easy to hit the right tone. Often this gets amplified in organizations as they try to establish a public image and often aim for the least possible offensive stance , but depending on the folks deciding on it, it may be way off the mark. But the issue is that some folks use PC to disparage almost any restrictions required for civil discourse.

There is a recent paper dealing with thinning in Australia: https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.12766

I would think that somehow folks decided to elect a twitter bot.