• TotallynotJessica@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Except the person argued about what IS fine, not what WAS considered fine in the past. The person is literally arguing that we ought to be able to misgender people. They claim it is morally righteous to misgender trans people. Their reasoning is that people are only labeling misgendering as hate speech because they disagree with it, not because it is actually hate speech.

    I provided good reasons as to why misgendering and promoting the conservative gender ideology that causes it is harmful, debunking their argument that the perspective is being labeled only due to disagreement. Let’s look back at their original argument.

    That’s all fine and dandy until people change the definition of those words to suit their needs. Then all speech they disagree with is hate speech. Which has already happened.

    The argument that hate speech laws could be used frivolously to silence those who disagree is a valid hypothetical concern. Where this person fucks up is by claiming things are already being labeled as hate speech even when they aren’t. This is suspect because there aren’t many places that seriously outlaw hate speech, and most of those places have yet to overstep the law in any real way.

    In places like the US where people are at best, socially shunned for hate speech, it’s uncommon for people to falsely claim bigotry on a large scale. Usually when a false claim is made, the falsehood is in the description of events, not the moral principle being applied to.

    When another poster pushes back, the person claims the conservative gender ideology isn’t hateful and is deemed as such because people disagree with it, and argument I showed to be lacking. It is hateful because it inherently promotes hate and discrimination. You’re trying to run interference for the poster by misunderstanding the moral principle that they appealed to.

    They did not appeal to the idea that words get changed to make you look wrong for using the old definition. This would be like if “to flame” was understood to mean criticize, but everyone forgot that usage and then you said “we should flame that guy.” You meant something reasonable but people didn’t understand you. That’s what you claim is the problem when you say:

    People change the definition of words and if you still use that words you are treated as a bigot and worse.

    The poster claimed that the old definition is actually good and should still be used. I pointed out how that the old definition is problematic, even by the logic of the past. It excludes and includes people it shouldn’t which results in real harm. I laid out the real harm done by those definitions, allowing the poster to make an informed decision on whether to still hold that definition. If they still choose to insist on that old definition that harms a group of people for characteristics they didn’t choose, then they are a bigot. Harming a group for innate characteristics is bigotry.

    TLDR: You ironically moved the goalposts and misunderstood what the poster was arguing. I did not prove them right in any way.

    • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      This is ridiculous, really. It does feel as if you were bots going aggressively off on a tangent with no connection to the content or context.

      Or you are simply unwilling/unable to make a distinction between different levels of communication.

      Do you agree that sometimes things were fine to say in the past and now they are considered hate speech? That was the topic of the discussion.

      To prevent you and others from getting caught up in and endless loop of being triggered, I will provide another example instead: In the past it was okay to address a woman as “Fräulein X” when she was unmarried. And as “Frau X” when she was married (in German). No one cared about that, now, many people will considered it rude an bigoted and call you a sexist when doing it anyway.

      Now that I think about it I feel it’s actually quite easy to find a few examples, and the question to the original poster to provide an example was seemingly just bait so you all can get enraged for a bit. And everyone who didn’t participate in the overall outrage, you generously consider and treat as a bigot you have to correct as well.