Gilliland’s idea is that it is the proportion of trans people that dissuades some right-wing people from joining. That seems plausible to me, it matches the “Big Sort” thesis and my personal experience. I agree that his phrasing is unwelcoming.
I tried to find an official pronoun policy for LessWrong, LessOnline, EA Global, etc, and couldn’t. If you’re thinking of something specific could you say what? As well as the linked X thread I have read the X thread linked from Challenges to Yudkowsky’s pronoun reform proposal. But these are the opinions of one person, they don’t amount to politically-coded compelled speech. I’m not part of the rationalist community and this is a genuine question. Maybe such policies exist but are not advertised.
Edit: I apologize. Read in context Gilliland’s comment about “keeping rat spaces clean” is referring to keeping them clean of racists, sexists, and fascists, not clean of right-wing people. I am striking the paragraph.
Eliezer said you are welcome in the community if you “politely accede to pronoun requests”. Which sounds to me like, “politically-coded speech is required to be welcome in the community”. (Specifically, people are socially required to use “woman” and “she” to refer to MtF transgenders). And Eliezer is not just some guy, he is the closest thing the rationalist community has to a leader.
There is a broad range of possible customs the community could have adopted. A few, from more right-coded to more left-coded.
People should use words to refer to the category-boundaries that best carverealityatthejoints. MtF transgenders unambiguously fall into the “male” cluster, and therefore the prescriptive protocol is to refer to them as “he”. Anyone who breaks this protocol (except under duress) is not welcome as a member of the community.
Same as above, but it is only the consensus position, and those who follow other protocols are still welcome to be part of the community.
Anyone is free to decide for themselves whether to use people’s preferred pronouns. You can ask people to use your preferred pronouns, as long as you are polite about it. And people are free to refuse, as long as they are also polite.
As a matter of politeness, you are not allowed to refer to people by pronouns they asked you not to use. However, you are not required to use people’s preferred pronouns. (So you cannot refer to a MtF transgender as “he”, but you don’t have to use “she”. You could instead refer to them by the first letter of their name, or some other alternative.)
You should refer to transgenders by their preferred pronouns (no alternatives). This is the consensus position, but people who politely decline to do so are still welcome to join.
Same as above, except anyone who declines is not welcome as a member of the community.
Same as above, and economically literate people who are in favor of market solutions are also unwelcome.
I don’t know which of these solutions is best, but 1, 6, and 7 seem bad. Eliezer seems to support 6.
Edit: Reworded to taboo the phrase “Anyone who disagrees” as requested by RobertM.
Thanks for clarifying. By “policy” and “standards” and “compelled speech” I thought you meant something more than community norms and customs. This is traditionally an important distinction to libertarians and free speech advocates. I think the distinction carves reality at the joints, and I hope you agree. I agree that community norms and customs can be unwelcoming.
I tried to find an official pronoun policy for LessWrong, LessOnline, EA Global, etc, and couldn’t.
The EA Forum has an explicit policy that you need to use the pronouns the people you’re talking about prefer. EAG(x) doesn’t explicitly include this in the code of conduct but it’s short and I expect is interpreted by people who would consider non-accidental misgendering to be a special case of “offensive, disruptive, or discriminatory actions or communication.”. I vaguely remember seeing someone get a warning on LW for misgendering, but I’m not finding anything now.
I don’t remember ever adjudicating this, but my current intuition, having not thought about it hard, is that I don’t see a super clear line here (like, in a moderation dispute I can imagine judging either way depending on the details).
cited thread.
Gilliland’s idea is that it is the proportion of trans people that dissuades some right-wing people from joining. That seems plausible to me, it matches the “Big Sort” thesis and my personal experience. I agree that his phrasing is unwelcoming.I tried to find an official pronoun policy for LessWrong, LessOnline, EA Global, etc, and couldn’t. If you’re thinking of something specific could you say what? As well as the linked X thread I have read the X thread linked from Challenges to Yudkowsky’s pronoun reform proposal. But these are the opinions of one person, they don’t amount to politically-coded compelled speech. I’m not part of the rationalist community and this is a genuine question. Maybe such policies exist but are not advertised.
Edit: I apologize. Read in context Gilliland’s comment about “keeping rat spaces clean” is referring to keeping them clean of racists, sexists, and fascists, not clean of right-wing people. I am striking the paragraph.
Eliezer said you are welcome in the community if you “politely accede to pronoun requests”. Which sounds to me like, “politically-coded speech is required to be welcome in the community”. (Specifically, people are socially required to use “woman” and “she” to refer to MtF transgenders). And Eliezer is not just some guy, he is the closest thing the rationalist community has to a leader.
There is a broad range of possible customs the community could have adopted. A few, from more right-coded to more left-coded.
People should use words to refer to the category-boundaries that best carve reality at the joints. MtF transgenders unambiguously fall into the “male” cluster, and therefore the prescriptive protocol is to refer to them as “he”. Anyone who breaks this protocol (except under duress) is not welcome as a member of the community.
Same as above, but it is only the consensus position, and those who follow other protocols are still welcome to be part of the community.
Anyone is free to decide for themselves whether to use people’s preferred pronouns. You can ask people to use your preferred pronouns, as long as you are polite about it. And people are free to refuse, as long as they are also polite.
As a matter of politeness, you are not allowed to refer to people by pronouns they asked you not to use. However, you are not required to use people’s preferred pronouns. (So you cannot refer to a MtF transgender as “he”, but you don’t have to use “she”. You could instead refer to them by the first letter of their name, or some other alternative.)
You should refer to transgenders by their preferred pronouns (no alternatives). This is the consensus position, but people who politely decline to do so are still welcome to join.
Same as above, except anyone who declines is not welcome as a member of the community.
Same as above, and economically literate people who are in favor of market solutions are also unwelcome.
I don’t know which of these solutions is best, but 1, 6, and 7 seem bad. Eliezer seems to support 6.
Edit: Reworded to taboo the phrase “Anyone who disagrees” as requested by RobertM.
Thanks for clarifying. By “policy” and “standards” and “compelled speech” I thought you meant something more than community norms and customs. This is traditionally an important distinction to libertarians and free speech advocates. I think the distinction carves reality at the joints, and I hope you agree. I agree that community norms and customs can be unwelcoming.
The EA Forum has an explicit policy that you need to use the pronouns the people you’re talking about prefer. EAG(x) doesn’t explicitly include this in the code of conduct but it’s short and I expect is interpreted by people who would consider non-accidental misgendering to be a special case of “offensive, disruptive, or discriminatory actions or communication.”. I vaguely remember seeing someone get a warning on LW for misgendering, but I’m not finding anything now.
I don’t remember ever adjudicating this, but my current intuition, having not thought about it hard, is that I don’t see a super clear line here (like, in a moderation dispute I can imagine judging either way depending on the details).