yes its super awful that it's not socially acceptable to go around calling people the N word too, right? you might even get fired for it! you are SO OPPRESSED.

Mix

the number of people demanding 'xir' or other newly-created pronouns is vanishingly small. i think you'll find that nearly every time you come across that word, it's people complaining about or making fun of other people for having weird pronouns, not people requesting use of them. in other words, it's a manufactured crisis.

I know several trans and nonbinary folks in real life, and all of them just use he, she, or they, they are all consistent about which pronoun they use, and none of them have ever even mentioned xir or xim.

some of them do use Mx, but i think that's fine - up until recently, english didn't have a gender neutral honorific.

that, i think, was probably an overreaction. they could have at least taken a wait and see approach. if it became clear that Monica's use of passive voice was being applied selectively, and sounded unnatural, to the point that it was obvious she was avoiding these people's pronouns and they were getting upset about it, then they might have needed a follow up talk to let her know that it's her job to keep things respectful, and that her actions were not doing that

I am not a lawyer, but i'm pretty sure that the laws you linked do not say anything of the sort.

there's nothing in there that controls your words on the street as a private citizen. that would be a clear violation of first amendment laws.

those are discrimination laws regarding employment, housing etc. they do not affect your actions as a private citizen, they affect workplace environments, rental contracts etc. if you misgender someone on the street, you will not be fined or put in jail.

but If you repeatedly and intentionally misgender someone at work, you are creating a hostile work environment, and you will probably be fired from your job for being an asshole.

if you refuse to rent a property to a transgender person because they are trans, you might get fined, same as you would be fined for refusing to rent to a black person or a muslim.

if you're the sort of person that thinks you should be free to call someone the N-word at work, or refuse to sell food to someone is wearing a hijab, then i can see why you also have problems with transgender folks getting the same sort of legal protections.

yes yes i'm sure it's just awful there. but 57 million unique visitors per month seem to find value in it, so maybe they are doing something right. i certainly can't do better. maybe you can? feel free to start your competing product that doesn't allow Nazi moderators that lock questions they don't understand. You could even put rules against that in your CoC. make sure to use strong wording banning the activity you don't like.

we're not talking about laws here. we're talking about an online forum, its code of conduct, and its moderators.

show me a law that says you have to call someone the pronoun of their choice or you'll be fined or arrested? what, none exist and you're just scaremongering? got it.

stack overflow is whatever they want it to be. if they want it to be a community where people treat each other with decency and respect, they can create rules in an attempt to enforce that. maybe it will work out for them, maybe it won't, but that's for them to try and find out.

if you want a forum with no rules, there are plenty of other places for that too.

it sounds to me like YOU are the one trying to insist that stack overflow be what YOU want it to be.

i'm pretty chill, thanks for your concern. how are you?

if you think it's hard to remember whether to use he, she, or they to refer to someone, wait until you hear about the millions of individual names that people have and expect you to use! they have the audacity to get upset if you just call everyone 'bob' and 'mary' for simplicity

yes, you can use whatever words you want. and an online forum can set whatever code of conduct they want. and if you break their code of conduct by being a dick to someone, they can take away your mod privilges, or ban you entirely. see how easy that is?

you say 'what words people are allowed to use' but what you mean is 'what words people are allowed to call other people'

and when you say it that way, it seems a lot more reasonable to have a rule like 'dont call people words that they have asked you not to call them'

if you don't know which one to use, just use 'they' or stick to passive voice. nobody will complain about that.

the big problem occurs AFTER someone makes their pronouns clear, and THEN you refuse to use them and intentionally misgender someone. THAT is being a dick.

as always, it boils down to "don't be a dick"

if someone asks you to refer to them as he/him, or she/her, or they/them.... just fucking do it, it's not that hard. don't be a dick.

if someone's name is jonathan, but they ask you to call them jon, or joe, or nate, or whatever, you'd do that, right? because you're not a dick?

great, then you understand the concept.