Why ' cis ' ? why even bother with it

It is clearly significant that you swerved answering my first question more specifically. Let me be more precise. In the presense of someone in a wheelchair would you say for example "...us normal people with working legs..."?

Would you ever refer to someone gay as a "faggot"?

Or someone transgender as a "tranny"?

Will you answer these? (I think we all know that you won't as it perfectly exemplifies my point. And responding volumeously rather than with relevance does not make up for the fact that my pertinent question still stands and triggers your cognitive dissonance.).

 

It is both scary and amusing to see you equate a lack of respect with disrespect.

Yes, my default stance is that nobody deserves respect unless they've earned it. On the other hand, everyone deserves politeness, unless they do something that warrants others going impolite. Any random John/Jane/whatever Smith deserves others act polite and observe common courtesy, but respect is something a step or more above that, and it is not automatic.

There's nothing disrespectful about simply treating random people as if we're equals, unless they do something to prove otherwise and *earn* some kind of respect.

 

I fail to see where I've avoided a direct answer, but I'll repeat myself and oblige you anyway.

Yes, I would. I have. And they were perfectly okay with it, because they could tell I don't see them as lacking human value just because they're in a wheelchair. Context matters.

And by the way, do you actually regularly deal with disabled people or similar minority groups? I guess you don't, and you'd be surprised by how they talk about themselves, how they talk about regular people, about other disabled, and what they actually find offensive.

 

Your point about prefixing "girl" is a strawman. It is however quite valid to prefix "gender" with "cis", or indeed "trans".

Would you similarly argue that we do away with words such as "invisible" ("not visible" is synonymous), or "disenfranchised" ("dis" prefix). These prefixes provide brevity.

But they also provide semantic precision, as not being one thing (using some negating prefix word such as "not") does not necessarily make it the thing that the reader *believes* is the opposite. So we use a precise word to mean *directly* what we do mean.

 

Semantic precision? I’ve yet to have a conversation that required or even wanted precision.

If someone asked what kind of dog I have, I would feel comfortable saying I have a lab. I don’t think I’m offensive by not saying yellow lab. I present as a he...I’m a he. Someone presents as a she, she’s a she. I wouldn’t even say trans unless it was pertinent to the conversation. Same way I wouldn’t say cis unless it was pertinent to the conversation. I find no reason to label or put a tag on someone, especially if it isn’t wanted.

 

Did you really have to resort to editing your posts? But to answer that edited post too:

Re someone in a wheelchair, see my first reply.

Faggot? Not from an English-speaking country, so no direct equivalents here, but I'll follow the spirit of the question. I wouldn't call someone a faggot unless he's present and okay with using the word himself. But I *have* called some guys faggots. I've also shot a rifle following orders from a self-described faggot with whom I've had a conversation about his hate for political correctness and speech policing. He's open about his sexuality, IIRC his partner and he have entered a civil union soon after it became legal here, and he has no problems with dirty words.

The same thing goes for trannies. Common courtesy means I don't use such words first, at least unless the context makes it appropriate, but the word itself isn't harmful. Some people sometimes do use it with an intent to harm, but that's not the same. I have no problem using peoples preferred pronouns, I've even regularly used requested female names towards male-presenting persons, but when someone's okay with calling themselves a tranny, why should the word be taboo to me?

 

There is certainly amusement here, but not for the reason you say. Let's actually look up the definition, shall we? Like, in a dictionary, yes?

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/disrespect?s=t

For those too lazy to follow the link...

Dispespect: noun. 1. lack of respect.

So disrespect is indeed a lack of respect, by definition.

This illustrates perfectly your lack of grasp of the English language and in particular the use of, and semantics of, word prefixes.

It also shows how readily your arguments go off half-cocked, with aggression trumping actual knowledge.

 

And that, right there is my point. Common courtesy.

Some people may be offended. Some not. Most of the time you cannot distinquish and so out of common courtesy do not risk offending.

QED.

 

Let me quote the whole definition, from the link you've provided:

noun
1 lack of respect; discourtesy; rudeness.
verb (used with object)
2 to regard or treat without respect; regard or treat with contempt or rudeness.

As you can see, the word regularly means *more* than a simple lack of respect. It can also mean active rudeness and so on. Care to explain why you've ignored the rest of the definition?

Again, you behave as if you're looking for things to be offended by, instead of using language to communicate.

 

NO.

One does not bend and warp the language *everyone* has to use to try to communicate just because *someone* might feel offended. It is *impossible* to bend the language into a form that is both functional and absolutely inoffensive. If you want to improve things, work towards changing the ideas in people's minds, not the tool they use to communicate.

Somebody feeling offended, or *pretending* to be offended, is no sensible reason for limiting free speech or enforcing language policies.

Some people can be offended by *anything*. A person with Asperger's can be offended by someone *coughing*, to the point of grabbing a chair to throw it at the "offender" (the stories I could tell...), so where will you draw the line? Remember, you need a working real-world solution, not wishful thinking.

 

Oh dear, are you genuinely stating that because you personally never need semantic precision that no other context, by no other person ever does?

And to give you an example, debating requires semantic precision (among other things) to be effective in terms of communication. It also acts as a necessary bedrock for logical reasoning.

Ah, so you do see occasions for semantic precicion, and even provide an example. Moreover the example is the very phrase you to which you initially stated such opposition.

And so we see evidence of the effects of yourself-confessed lack of semantic precision, your self-contradiction illustrating how it undermines your logical reasoning.

QED

 

Yoyr missing the point. Cisgender is a thing, regardless of whether you personally acknowledge it as fact or not. Its not "warping" language to simply be both precise and empathetic in one's choice of words.

And in case you've forgotten, we're talking about the term cisgender here, not those other things with which you try to distract the debate. Keep on point, keep it tight & precise.

 

My oh my, my point being is you are making this a complicated issue. It certainly isn’t. I don’t particularly like the term cis. There, you can use precision of words, accentuate anything you would like, but I DON’T LIKE IT. You know how I know I’m right on this? Because I know for a fact that I prefer not to be labeled that way. Dress it up all you like, but me not participating in your prefix obsession doesn’t make me wrong, it makes me someone who doesn’t use the term cis.

 

Interesting how you never manage to refute my points or answer my questions. And care to prove where *I* have introduced topics you find distracting?

Anyway...

The reason for not using cis- in everyday conversations is that using it creates more trouble than it solves. It increases clutter and consumes time and space, while being irrelevant most of the time. It increases feelings of division, as using it where it doesn't convey relevant information does little but draw attention to the fact that a trans-man is *not* the same as a cis-man.

Let me put it this way - do you want trans- people treated the same as cis- people? Stop emphasizing the differences unless they're relevant to the situation. Instead of *talking* about how we should treat everyone equally, *do* it.

 

That just makes you more of an areshole than most I guess. And here you are trying to pretend you avoid offending people whkle all the time you give examples of how you are prepared to. All in black and white above.

 

Bingo. And that's my point right there. You finally concede that sometimes its respectful to avoid the word normal.

Now remind me, what was it about your ego and fragile self-worth that prevented you from simply agreeing from the start?

 

Seems like you don't know how to use a dictionary. You see those number sentences, they are alternative definitions. Only one applies to any one specfic context.

But which one you may choose to apply to any one context of the use of the word "disrespect" is moot. The term disrespect will then still always mean "lack of (whichever meaning)".

The point is, you were trying to wriggle out of your absurd self-contradiction by claiming that disrespect did not mean lack of respect. Recall this statement you made?

Disrespect by definition means lack of respect. You can't argue otherwise.

But rather than concede like a debating adult, you instead actually try to somehow argue the definition of "respect". Yes, the dictionary has two slightly alternative definitions, but here is something very basic that you have never grasped. In any one context, yes, "respect" may have one meaning but the term "disrepect" then means "lack of (whatever meaning of respect was meant)".

How can you really not understand this? Its elementary English.

Its so funny watching you try to rewrite the well-known rules of the English language, simply to avoid conceding a valid point. Funny but so sad. How fragile your ego must be that you cannot be grown-up enough to admit you were wrong.

Keep digging...

 

But we were never debating "full respect" (and by this I can only assume you might mean say, e.g. respect for one's professional competance, which was never the context here), so that is clearly a strawman designed to distract from the actual point . The context through this entire thread is and always has been about respect to the point of common courtesy and not aiming to make others feel uncomfortable or hurt, nothing more.

So are you saying that by default you deliberate to upset people until you know them better? If not, then you concede my point. (Of course, maybe you don't concede, and do indeed like to injure strangers with your words).

 

No, I won't. I kept hoping that maybe, maybe you might let yourself get tempted into actually thinking, instead of regurgitating ideology-driven phrases like a parrot, but I better face the fact you either can't or won't.

It doesn't matter whether you're brainwashed or a troll, I no longer care. Anyone else reading this debate can reach their own conclusions and is free to take their turn.

 

Yes, they can. With you actually trying to tell everyone that the dictionary is wrong but you are right. How very sad.

 

How appropriate that this thread is still here on Halloween. It's like a zombie that won't die.