Sure, but we're talking plurals of strangers atm. "Please don't call me a guy going forward" is a different conversation than "what you just said is stupid, mean, and wrong".
We don't know what happened. What makes you think that what op wrote isn't the facts. I can totally see something like that happening it's not at all unbelievable.
Why does the other persons energy matter? If someone requests not to be called something and you continue to call them that then you are kinda being a jerk. It's not the same as correcting someone's grammar.
Cause it's rude. Like correcting grammar in a conversation. Both would be equally rude.
Nobody wants to be told that what they've learned and have been taught to them their whole life is now an offense. Just like nobody wants to be misgendered on purpose.
Or you could’ve simply gone “cool no worries didn’t mean anything by it” and move on not using the word instead of demanding they let you continue to do it.
I’m just going to ignore how much of a stretch that is to compare and indulge it anyway.
You know what you do when someone says something stupid like that? You don’t engage it at a table full of people unless you all know each other pretty well and you think the relationship can handle it unless you’re just kind of a rude person who doesn’t mind publicly shaming people when there is nothing at stake, which is a little weird.
Most people like that get ignored when in-person and it’s the best way to go about it. Engaging them is what they want. They want to defend their position, they want to feel persecuted, and they want to share whatever XxpatriotxX shared on YouTube the night before.
But the post talks about a party, where the person feeling that they are correct feel justified in talking down to someone else in front of everybody.
Good that we agree that publically lecturing is rude.
Eventually all of us will be labeled as intolerant, or as having being intolerant according to the changing sensibilities. I can just say that i try to not be rude to individuals or their intellect, but i also don't really care if people are generally offended by 'things'. Unless they went out of their way to diminish another person, and what that entails differs depending on the origin of 'the offender'.
If someone asks you to stop something simple and of no consequence to you just do it out of respect. Why does everyone feel entitled to a concrete argument and being convinced before just respecting folks? It’s ridiculous.
My parents hate curse words. I curse a fuck ton. When I’m at their house, I don’t curse (well…as much). I don’t demand a sufficiently acceptable reason for not doing it any more than I don’t need someone explain to me why they want me to take my shoes off in their home. Just don’t be an ass and do it. Don’t demand an explanation like you’re some hot shit being wildly burdened.
Someone called someone “the R word” at my house in front of my kids. I just said “don’t use that word please” and that was the end of it. Didn’t talk about my kids or ableism or anything, I just said “stop please,” they just said “cool sorry” and moved on. This is just how it should be most of the time.
The fact that you're getting downvoted for essentially saying "just be a respectful, reasonable, and decent human being" is pretty bizarre. Like, can we just have some empathy and patience for each other?
If someone asks you to stop something simple and of no consequence to you just do it out of respect. Why does everyone feel entitled to a concrete argument and being convinced before just respecting folks? It’s ridiculous.
What about half of the people in the comments seem to fail to understand is that the way the lady correcting OP's language is the biggest factor.
Her saying "hey, could you please not refer to me as a guy?" is completely different from her getting angry and going off on a rant. The former situation is worth continuing the discussion, and the latter situation leads to people rightfully avoiding that lady.
It’s just as much not a problem for them to be offended by it as it is for you to choose your words better. Knowing that you made a choice to offend so yeah, you’re the jerk. You’re honestly making a lot more of it if you went all this distance to think you’re the one hard done by just cuz you refuse to memorize some words. That’s snowflake thinking.
Only bad actors looking for the drama go for the path of most resistance.
No, that's different. Names occupy a different role than generic words, and you're primed to be able to handle that. To claim that's the same thing as replacing common words is dishonest or uninformed.
Understanding is a meeting in the middle. It's reasonable to correct the record on how you as an individual would like to be gendered. It's not reasonable to expect all of society to drop the use of a word that is colloquially accepted as gender neutral. At a certain point, your outrage is the antisocial behavior.
Not everyone uses “guys” like that, you’re assigning way too broad of usage to it. It’s also just not important enough to die on a hill for. Just be decent human it’s not hard. Accommodate one person who asked you because it means something to them. Why is this so hard for folks to get? Do you never tailor your language to your audience?
I think you've completely misunderstood what everyone is saying because that's exactly what everyone you've responded to, including myself, is saying that they would do.
Tailor their words for that conversation but move on to a different group of people from there. Not permanently tailoring the way they speak because it is highly unlikely that they'll engage again.
I think the amount of people who either (1) do not know the term to be gender neutral or (2) purposefully use it as a gendered term to anger people is less than 1%, honestly.
I live in a pretty conservative area, and I'm not exactly a leftist either, and I've never seen guys used in any way other than just as a generic for "you all"
it's also just not important enough to die on a hill for
Cool, so we agree it's silly to get so strung up over it, huh? Of course people tailor their language, it happens constantly. If someone is going to go out of their way to construe a perfectly normal part of speech as me being malignant and demand that I change my behavior for their benefit I'm going to tell them to fuck off, personally. If someone is respectful and asks tactfully...sure, I'll adjust for them. Though internally I'll be judging them for being a snowflake.
You're honestly right and I regret the joke and lowering the level of discourse with it. Sorry everyone.
But isten, you've been heavily down voted in this thread, and it's not because we are all sycophantic anti-woke nut jobs. This community is for the most part intelligent, leftist or left-leaning, empathetic people who support the rights of all kinds to exist and be recognized and treated fairly. But many would agree there is a reasonable degree to which you can meet people halfway when it comes to communication and understanding.
Whether you like it or not, "guys" in the agendered sense, is a part of the language. It may not always have been, but it is now. When people use it in this way, they aren't thinking about your gender or the concept of gender at all. They are trying to address a collection of people, simple as that. English doesn't have a plural second-person pronoun, we have to use additional words.
When you get offended, you are deliberately misunderstanding them, and thus engaging in a bad-faith argument against their intended meaning. And it's that audacity, the sidelining of pithy conversation for an imagined affront, that rubs some otherwise supportive and open minded people like myself the wrong way.
If your general assumption is “people who get offended are just deliberately misunderstanding me” then I don’t know how this conversation can be productive. That’s not sociopathic but it sure is a selfish outlook as well as one that explains your tasteless snowflake joke.
I think it's more that if you get annoyed at something like that, I would think you're way too much of a hassle to be friends with long term. It's just a matter of compatibility and the choice to filter out incompatible people in your social circle. It's nothing personal.
You likely have no idea why that person said to stop and sometimes the right thing to do is just say “ok,” especially when the stakes are so low.
Let’s say you’re shooting off fireworks and it is scaring a neighbor. Do you tell them to get over it until they directly tell you they have PTSD from a conflict zone? Or do you just be a fucking reasonable person and stop?
Of course I would stop at their request, however if I were that person with PTSD, I wouldn't expect the world to cater to my disabilities and strategise on how I could function in society by managing it. That's what I currently do with my own PTSD and it makes me a stronger person for it.
Also, that's hardly comparable to using the phrase "you guys" in a conversation. That phrase has always been gender neutral and far nicer sounding than "you people" or "you all".
Edit: and also, yes I would have no idea on why the other party would take offence to the phrase "you guys" but I would also be under no obligation to establish a friendship with them beyond that conversation. I don't expect someone I've just met to trauma dump on me and I don't want them to.
Of course, I would correct myself in that conversation and not use the phrase "you guys" after they've told me not to use it, because it's polite to do so, but that won't stop me feeling that I can't be myself around them.
I am a victim of sexual assault and, yes, I would absolutely say that. My problems are my own and I'm not about to force others to cater to my personal demons.
Sounds like you might be from the US or somewhere where medical help isn't freely available. I deal with my trauma with medication and counselors/psychiatrists so that I can function and contribute to society because that's the standard that I hold for others, especially myself.
Man if all it takes is a pretty basic language disagreement with somebody for you to not want to associate with them, you’re going to struggle to maintain a social life outside of MAGA fuckbois. And even then you’ll have to get used to them shrieking when you use the word “racist.”
Well, there's a massive difference between "don't call me a guy" and someone saying "hey guys" to a group to have one member fire back a response about gendered terms
One of these is clear stating of respectful boundaries, the other one is just offloading (and very likely speaking for/over others) to score imaginary purity points