The Complaint Thread

[docsilence]

Fully like a third of my friends and colleagues are trans or NB and even I'm like I would pay cash money if we could just grandfather in "dude" and "guys" as non-gendered terms. I know literally guy is masculine but it's always just been "hey you group of people standing in front of me, listen up" around here. I've mostly got rid of it and lean more on folks or whatever but "guys" is so deeply ingrained it feels genetic.

There was a big to-do about including trigger warnings in the front of your book in the publishing world earlier this year, and the thing I kept coming back to is if you are writing true, if you are digging into the pain of being human... baby there's no way you could accurately and securely predict everything that could trigger everyone. There's like a top 20 list you could and probably should warn people about, but it's not a science.

"Corn" for porn, and "quinky" for kinky. "Grape" irritates me too.

Those drive me iNSANE. But again, I don't blame the people using them, because they've been conditioned by social media that actually talking like an adult is punishable with banning their accounts. And people are people... bad habits will carry over into actual converstation.

 

[JakeEkiss]

To be fair, I am personally mindfully working to remove gendered terms from my vocabulary, which “guys” technically is. Although, being native to the Bay Area of California, I tend to refer to everyone (and everything) as “dude”. I’m working on it.

Fully like a third of my friends and colleagues are trans or NB and even I'm like I would pay cash money if we could just grandfather in "dude" and "guys" as non-gendered terms. I know literally guy is masculine but it's always just been "hey you group of people standing in front of me, listen up" around here. I've mostly got rid of it and lean more on folks or whatever but "guys" is so deeply ingrained it feels genetic.

I've managed to mostly transition myself to "folks" but I am also someone who instinctively uses 'dude/guys' as gender neutral. Lately I've been trying switch to "M'Colleagues" at work. I really want to ingrain this one because it ticks all the boxes for me. Gender neutral, respectful, a little silly, and a reference to a now basically unknown British sketch show (A Bit of Frye and Laurie for those who don't know). Might as well have a little fun right?

 

[vicious]

RE: Dyscalculia, I'd never go so far as to suggest this as some sort of "cure-all" but building up creatine in my system, taking it every morning, has helped a lot with my ability to recall memories and do things like math in my head. It might be worth looking into; YMMV of course. You really have to drink a lot of water while on creatine (on top of the ludicrous amount you're supposed to have anyway), which is the most noteworthy side-effect so far. (if anyone is really curious, this is what I buy)

 

[TheGillMan]

I've managed to mostly transition myself to "folks" but I am also someone who instinctively uses 'dude/guys' as gender neutral. Lately I've been trying switch to "M'Colleagues" at work. I really want to ingrain this one because it ticks all the boxes for me. Gender neutral, respectful, a little silly, and a reference to a now basically unknown British sketch show (A Bit of Frye and Laurie for those who don't know). Might as well have a little fun right?

One good thing about living most of my life in Texas: I've been using "y'all" for my entire life. It's a perfect gender neutral catch-all.

RE: Dyscalculia, I'd never go so far as to suggest this as some sort of "cure-all" but building up creatine in my system, taking it every morning, has helped a lot with my ability to recall memories and do things like math in my head. It might be worth looking into; YMMV of course. You really have to drink a lot of water while on creatine (on top of the ludicrous amount you're supposed to have anyway), which is the most noteworthy side-effect so far. (if anyone is really curious, this is what I buy)

I may very well try this. I'm game for whatever might help

 

[JakeEkiss]

One good thing about living most of my life in Texas: I've been using "y'all" for my entire life. It's a perfect gender neutral catch-all.

Yeah, also lifelong Texan so occassionally I do y'all, though my media diet was such it's not as natural to me,

 

[joshsquash729]

One good thing about living most of my life in Texas: I've been using "y'all" for my entire life. It's a perfect gender neutral catch-all.

Yeah, also lifelong Texan so occassionally I do y'all, though my media diet was such it's not as natural to me,

That's actually been me recently. It's funny, as a fellow southern/midwestern boy, I used to try and avoid my natural inclination to go southern with my accent when we moved away from Texas. My mom's had an accent all her life and, while it definitely went away for a bit upon moving elsewhere, came back with a vengeance upon moving back to her home in KC. I was always taught in school growing up that "ya'll" was so informal and improper, but here lately I can feel my old accent bubbling up again. Guess you really can take the boy out of the country, but not the country out of the boy.

Well, to follow up on my previous post about the Mace vs. Palpy pack- I got a notice today from FedEx that the item was sent back to Pulse. Which means it was just sitting in a warehouse this whole time. But apparently they couldn't tell me that? According to the multiple FedEx people I spoke with, legally, they could only disclose its location to a Pulse employee? So so weird. I reached back out to Pulse to see if it could be re-sent out once it gets back, but I'm not hopeful.

Just as I thought- Pulse said "Regrettably, we cannot reship the returned item as the quality might not be good when it was returned." Ah, well. Just life telling me I don't need it right now. I'll get the inevitable single-carded release of Palpy. So glad I stopped bothering with Pulse; only thing outstanding with them is the 97 Apocalypse order for next year, and I don't plan on adding anything else if I can help it.

 

[Damien]

I get frustrated with people who get judgmental of the folks who are censoring without understanding the why, but grates on me every single time I hear unalived or "graped" or whatever

Yeah, I do get why people do it. So most of my judgement is reserved for the systems we've put in place that force people to do it.
BUT, I also do kind of judge people for doing it because doing it feeds into the system of doing it and LETS them crack down so hard on controlling and changing our language.

If you self-censor for monetary gain, it's still aiding and kowtowing to censorship.

People frequently get this “trigger” stuff absolutely backwards. Like yes absolutely we need to be mindful and not intentionally terrorize people, sure. But it is the responsibility of folks to manage their OWN triggers, not expect the world to manage triggers for them.

THANK YOU.
So sick of everyone feeling like they have to tip-toe around everyone else. As if that A) is a functional attitude in a society and B) actually helps anything.

To be fair, I am personally mindfully working to remove gendered terms from my vocabulary, which “guys” technically is. Although, being native to the Bay Area of California, I tend to refer to everyone (and everything) as “dude”. I’m working on it.

I try to be respectful of others, but I also am 100% making no effort to remove gendered language from my vocabulary and I do not see a situation where I will ever care to do so. If someone says 'hey, I don't like when you say that' - cool, let's chat about it and see what works. But I'm not actively policing myself on learning not to say 'guys' or 'ladies' or something. Fuck that. Those are perfectly reasonable things to say to certain groups of people.

Interestingly, I recently had a really great conversation with a site supervisor who is a trans woman. Super cool lady and very open about the struggles and such. We chatted a lot because I gently broached how they're getting on as a construction site supervisor in -FUCKING ALBERTA - Canada's Texas - as a trans person. One thing that came up was I tend to call everyone on job sites 'boys.' Always have. When you're on a jobsite, there's kind of no gender anymore. Everyone becomes 'one of the boys.' She actually really liked that and asked me specifically not to feel like I have to exempt her from it. She -wants- to be 'one of the boys' because that's the culture in construction.
I also know two female site supervisors that are the same; I say 'see ya' boys' when I leave site talking to the female supes.

That being said, as I get older I also refer to a lot of people as 'kiddo' - which is perfectly gender neutral. I have cut out stuff from my youth; like I used to refer to female-presenting cashiers as 'doll' pretty often ("Thanks, doll"). It obviously wasn't meant in a demeaning way, and I've never heard of anyone complaining about it. But I also haven't used it in maybe 10 years and I doubt it would go over well today.

I've been using "y'all" for my entire life.

As one of the many people made mentally and sometimes physically sick by what the (primarily southern) conservative right wing has done to America, I find any use of their weird and infernal language to be quite triggering, actually.

 

[JakeEkiss]

She actually really liked that and asked me specifically not to feel like I have to exempt her from it. She -wants- to be 'one of the boys' because that's the culture in construction.

As always, the best actual practice is to act chill and if people tell you they want to be called something just do that. I've tried to be a bit less gender specific just because a wide cross-section of the students who work for me are trans, gender-non-conforming, or are just figuring shit out. Since we're in Texas I kind of want to wear on my sleeve that the boss *isn't* a jackass and some of that requires, to my thinking, more telegraphing than I might do in my social circles (which aren't that much different, but there we all know each other and nobody's going to hassle me for "dudes", circle of trust and all that)

Seems more important now because we're in that whole mess of being actively barred from having inclusion as part of our university system or values. And we've been basically told to behave like political eunuchs whenever the public might be interacting with us (I am not especially good at this, and I work hard not to get any better at it)

That being said, as I get older I also refer to a lot of people as 'kiddo' - which is perfectly gender neutral.

Heh, so at the university we've been told by the higher ups to avoid stuff like "kiddo" or "kids" when talking about or to the student workers. And uhm, yeah, I mean, if they want to discipline me sometime they're welcome to. The kids don't actually give a shit.

As one of the many people made mentally and sometimes physically sick by what the (primarily southern) conservative right wing has done to America, I find any use of their weird and infernal language to be quite triggering, actually.

"Y'all'nglui mglw'nafh Greg Abbot R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn"

 

[Damien]

Seems more important now because we're in that whole mess of being actively barred from having inclusion as part of our university system or values. And we've been basically told to behave like political eunuchs whenever the public might be interacting with us (I am not especially good at this, and I work hard not to get any better at it)

I can't imagine trying to navigate all of this within any kind of school system right now. Trying to be inclusive and make people feel welcomed, while trying to speak in a natural way, while being told to be less inclusive and welcoming and that you have to call people by the gender on their birth certificate or check their genitals or whateverthefuck Texas is doing right now.

Heh, so at the university we've been told by the higher ups to avoid stuff like "kiddo" or "kids" when talking about or to the student workers. And uhm, yeah, I mean, if they want to discipline me sometime they're welcome to. The kids don't actually give a shit.

I'm fortunate in not having any 'higher ups' to answer to. To be fair, thinking about it, besides employees, the people I call 'kiddo' tend to be people I've known for a while. Even if it's just like... the Starbucks barista that I see three or four times a week. You get used to people and, I think, get a feel for them and feel more comfortable with them. I don't think I'd call someone I'd never met before 'kiddo.'

 

[JakeEkiss]

I can't imagine trying to navigate all of this within any kind of school system right now. Trying to be inclusive and make people feel welcomed, while trying to speak in a natural way, while being told to be less inclusive and welcoming and that you have to call people by the gender on their birth certificate or check their genitals or whateverthefuck Texas is doing right now.

I'm relatively fortunate in that I work at one of the more progressive universities you're likely to find in the state, and in the library no less. So like, everyone I work with is on the same page, we're all just having to keep up appearances so the attorney general doesn't come and investigate us any more (a thing that has actually happened this year, fuck Paxton).

There's moments where I'll find out that one of my student employees who is trans is bringing the trans student org into the makerspace to make pride flags and such. And so I tell my boss as a "is anyone watching closely enough I need to worry about this" precaution and she says basically "not today" and I reply "cool, then I didn't tell you and if we're asked we'll both be very shocked" and she agrees.

I'm fortunate in not having any 'higher ups' to answer to. To be fair, thinking about it, besides employees, the people I call 'kiddo' tend to be people I've known for a while. Even if it's just like... the Starbucks barista that I see three or four times a week. You get used to people and, I think, get a feel for them and feel more comfortable with them. I don't think I'd call someone I'd never met before 'kiddo.'

This is true, kiddo in particular would never be to somebody I didn't know. "Kids" I use fairly indiscriminately to refer to the students as a collective population.

 

[joshsquash729]

It's amazing how easy it all becomes when you just treat the person like a human being and just ask them what they'd prefer, rather than tiptoeing around them or doubling down on your ignorance if/when caught in a mistake. I have to wonder how many conflicts could've been avoided over the centuries if one person had just been the bigger person and either admitted fault or agreed to meet in the middle somewhere.