I am glad someone is calling the Florida school system on their bullshit. Being non-binary hard and being treated like the coping mechanisms you use for avoiding hating the experience of dealing with people and existing in your body are somehow a delusion, some sort of sexual kink or deliberately confusing is like trying to go about your day with weights strapped to you. It makes dealing with every social interaction so tiring. It really feels like everybody else in the room is obsessed with your sex organs and characteristics like complete perverts that they don’t see the question is about how happy you are and how you feel about all the people in your life and whether you feel anxious and isolated being around them or just comfortable and able to express your full range of personhood.
This teacher is standing up because they know there’s others much worse off who aren’t secure enough to do it. Pretty admirable I think.
This isn’t calling out Florida schools, this only calls out Florida employers. A teacher can be directed not to talk about gay in matters of education, and can be fired for not following such direction, but they cannot be discriminated against for their own sexual identity as a matter of their employment.
US law is shite.
A lot of people do not draw the distinction between talking about things in an educational context versus it being a way they express themselves for their own needs. Laws like this make people afraid to do so until it is contested because the act of contesting it is itself punitive. The cooling effect is implicit in the design of the law because it recognizes law removes people’s ability to support themselves in a society before it has a chance to be tested meaning only the secure of a minority under extreme fire can contest it and that means becoming very visible in circumstances where one’s safety often relies on being invisible.
This teacher is likely under extreme fire right now by a mob of people telling them they are a pedophile, delusional, harmful and trying to exploit every shred of exposed weaknesses to gendered nonsense one naturally lets be known when one comes out as non-binary.
Where legal protections are shaky schools will fire teachers under concerns for that teacher’s physical and mental safety if enough parents are valued at being a threat by feeling empowered by their interpretation of the law or the idea that a school is operating outside the law. Ultimately running a school is government money that needs to be paid so an employee going up against a school board for wrongful dismissal will not impact the individual school as much when the main currency for the school board employees is time and complexity of a bunch of individual parents suing because their little darling asked them what someone calling themselves Mx. means when they came home.
Thank you for sharing how thus affects you. It’s important for people to see that this is affecting actual people and not some strawman concept they don’t understand.
It’s something even a lot of my friends don’t even really get. I ended up going to a Birthday party where across the street from the restaurant there was a 250 plus rally of anti-trans protesters with zero counter protesters. We didn’t realize the thing would be there. I ended up not being able to eat because the stress from proximity made me throw up everything.
I know we get called sensitive snowflakes but having that level of outright hate shoved in your face can easily make anyone feel very small and very vulnerable and at some level it’s visceral.
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It’s harder to feel like a capable badass when you’ve borrowed a friend’s hat to cover your rainbow colored hair and are ralphing korean food into a strip mall garbage can.
At some level we as a demographic are sensitive, I can’t really control the way I feel about my body and my place in society. Being out does mean exposing that vulnerability where other people can see. Sensitivity isn’t cowardice but it does mean having to realize where your limits are and how you work. A lot of us learn to put on a tough as nails affect over time so we can get through a regular ass day. Realistically I know I am not a coward any more than I am Superman. I am just doing my best
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Title VII of the Civil Rights Act explicitly prohibits discrimination because of sex in matters of employment. Florida is free to prevent teachers from teaching things, but they cannot fire people for their own sexual identity, per federal law.
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Meanwhile, Title II of CRA covers interstate commerce and prohibits discrimination because of race, color, religion, or national origin - but not sex. Under Federal Law, if your business has a lot of out of state customers (primarily hospitality) or includes supply chains that cross state lines, you can’t discriminate on race, etc but you can discriminate on sex.
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The 14th Amendment states that the law must apply to everyone equally. However, this only applies to governments (and their contractors) - a black person cannot be refused to be heard in court and a gay person cannot be refused a marriage.
The way US law is supposed to work is that states can set their own laws where Federal Law doesn’t cover it. However, they must do this within the bounds of Federal Law. This is why we have 1st Amendment challenges against state laws that fill in the gaps of federal law - a business can discriminate based on sex, or any other reason (so long as they don’t fall under Title II), even if state law says otherwise.
US law is so shit. It’s unnecessarily hard to read, distributed across multiple yet interwoven jurisdictions, and full of holes. But hey, at least it isn’t financial regulations - reading those will cause a sane person to lose the will to live.
TL;DR This should be a slam dunk for the teacher, per Federal Law: Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which overrules anything the states write. However, who knows how the current Supreme Court might try to spin it - if they even opt to hear it (they absolutely should).
The teacher will make millions from the settlement, paid squarely out of the pocket of working Floridians. And despite that, half the state will continue voting for politicians and supporting police whose actions have no real consequences for them - the tax payers will foot the bill for their actions. Until we start hitting these people in their own pocket books and pensions, their behavior won’t change.
This may not be the slam dunk you think it is. To the best of my understanding, the current coverage under title vii for gender and sexuality has only been extended so far as “would this behaviour be unacceptable for the opposite sex?”
Florida could argue (within the scope of existing supreme Court decisions) that the use of certain “new” titles are never acceptable, regardless of the person’s sex.
As written, the rule is illegal, but it could possibly be upheld in the context of this specific case.
They would have to argue that sex and gender are not the same thing in court, under oath. It’s been a longstanding argument for the GOP that they are the same. And if they argue biological sex and gender are not 1:1, then they’re acknowledging that a different gender identity than one’s birth sex is possible, and setting that precedent immediately takes the wind out of a lot of their arguments on transgender folk.
They’ll be happy to say one thing in public and argue another in court. For example, when Fox News argued that a reasonable person is not expected to believe anything Tucker Carlson is saying.
This may not be the slam dunk you think it is.
Yeah, that’s why I said “should”.
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How about we come up with a better term rather than use a stupid one that someone has to tell you how to pronounce.
To be fair Mrs. (And to a lesser extent Mr.) Don’t have an obvious pronunciation from the spelling either. You’ve just been hearing them said out loud for most of your life.
Fair, but they are also shorthand for words: Mister, Miss, Missus. All of which are pronounced as you’d expect.
Is Mx short for something? I’ve not heard so but that doesn’t mean it isn’t.
Apparently it’s short for “Mix”. I only learned that in this post, which suggests it’s far from established - I assumed it was along the lines of “latino/latina -> latinx”.
Obligatory “Latine” is the preferred gender neutral term for spanish speakers because it actually follows the gendering rules of the language, rather than english speakers making shit up.
Yesss that sounds far better.
Even if it sounds close to a word for “toilet” - but then, half the argument revolves around toilets.
Let people piss and shit in peace.
It takes 10 seconds to learn its pronounced mix. Its not difficult in the slightest
Anyone with an S lettered last name is gunna sound like Mc S
I just tried it with my last name lol.
Mc Steele, makes me feel like a McDonald’s meal item.
I’m not saying it’s difficult to teach or learn, but if you first encounter it in a book are you going to know it’s pronounced “mix?” And if you hear is are you going to know it’s spelled “Mx?” You can argue difficulty all you want but if you have something that is spelled how it sounds and pronounced how it looks it’s still easier and there will be less confusion.
I mean if you see “Mx” and you don’t assume it’s pronounced “mix”, you might have some elementary language difficulties. I understand not being sure, but it is pronounced how it’s spelled.
I don’t see anything stupid about this, but if you have better ideas, let’s hear them.
The better idea is not to make up terminology that only suits you and an exceptionally small minority and then expect everyone else to adopt it.
By all means, define yourself as you like - but don’t expect others to immediately recognise that definition without reasonable explanation.
This case has nuance. On the one hand, a teacher in Florida is not allowed to talk about gay people or anything about alternate genders, per state law. On the other, Federal Law states that no one can be fired over matters regarding sex. Federal law overrules any laws states make, hence the ruling in 303 Creative vs Elenis, however the question is what “sex” covers in the Federal domain.
What honorific should nonbinary people use?
Whatever they like, and other people should be reasonably accommodating to that. Meanwhile, people using rarer honorifics should be accepting that others might find it unusual and sometimes hard to remember.
I think most of them do accept that. Just like most trans people accept that their friends might mess up on gender on occasion after they transition.
fake school upset by fake honorific
What makes a word a fake word?
How do you even say that? “Mexico Smith, can I get a hall pass?”
I agree that Mx is made up bullshit, much like “Latinx” is nonsense in Spanish, but the law does not make any such distinction. You cannot be discriminated against in your job based on your sexual identity, even if you identified as an Apache helicopter (“oh yes daddy, let me fuck you in your missile tubes” - “hah, as if you’d even touch the sides”).
I agree that Mc is made up bullshit
Boy do I have bad news for you about every other word that exists in every single language. There is no word tree we harvest fresh ripe new words from, everything is made up. We are just meat squirting air through our various holes because we like the sounds they make and wish to communicate thought.
Something being made up doesn’t make it bullshit, but something made up by a tiny minority within a minority expecting everyone else to adopt it certainly does.
Is it really so hard to respect a person enough to address them with the courtesy title they ask you to use? Are you in any way inconvenienced by saying “Hello Mx. TWeaK, how are you today”?
No, but unless someone tells me that they want to be referred to as “Mx” I shouldn’t be expected to assume that. Furthermore, when they tell me and my natural response is “Huh?” I shouldn’t be vilified for not knowing what they mean - neither should they be vilified for coming up with a personal definition that suits them better.
It’s a two way street. You’re free to be yourself and to stand out from the crowd, but doing so naturally invites inquesition. Such inquesition is not inherently malicious, even if malicious people are more likely to ask questions.
The reasonable ground is somewhere in between. Noisy people on either side demand that they be seen as right, but the fact is they’re both an insignificant minority with an unobjective opinion. One minority is smaller and more vulnerable, and that should be taken into consideration, but that doesn’t mean everything they say is right.
Question: “I shouldn’t be expected to assume that. Furthermore, when they tell me and my natural response is “Huh?” I shouldn’t be vilified for not knowing what they mean”
Who has ever done this to you. Ever. Who have you met that asked you to address them in a specific way then got pissy at you over it? I’m not saying it didn’t happen, but neither me nor anyone I know nor anyone who knows a person I know has ever had this happen to them.
Also: “and that should be taken into consideration, but that doesn’t mean everything they say is right.”
How can someone be wrong about the courtesy title that they choose to use? Like the entire concept and name ‘courtesy title’ make it pretty clear what they are about.
Who has ever done this to you. Ever. Who have you met that asked you to address them in a specific way then got pissy at you over it? I’m not saying it didn’t happen, but neither me nor anyone I know nor anyone who knows a person I know has ever had this happen to them.
No one. At the same time, people here seem to be getting a little pissy over the thought of asking the question or not immediately accepting any answer - hence my statement in clarification. My statement is confined to the hypotheticals in our conversation, dismissing them out of hand would be hypocritical.
Also: “and that should be taken into consideration, but that doesn’t mean everything they say is right.”
How can someone be wrong about the courtesy title that they choose to use? Like the entire concept and name ‘courtesy title’ make it pretty clear what they are about.
First, my statement that it “doesn’t mean everything they say is right” is meant to cover extreme limits, it doesn’t explicitly refer to things we’ve said but things that could potentially be extrapolated from that. I’m trying to form a concise statement that covers as much as possible.
Second, using a “courtesty title” and even people accepting that does not mean the courtesy title is not “made up bullshit”. People accept bullshit all the time - just look at Trump supporters. It’s only when the made up idea is accepted by a critical mass that it ceases to be bullshit; and even then, it could still be reasonably labelled as bullshit, particularly if it doesn’t have a logical origin.
Maybe “Mx.” as an abbreviation for “Mix” has some logical origin, but at the same time it doesn’t really fit in line with “Mister, Miss, Missus”, and it certainly isn’t established like those terms are nor is it immediately apparent what the abbreviation is short for.
Some measure of rejection should be expected when you’re asking people to adapt their native language to suit yourself. Your personal expression should not dictate how others express themselves in communication; communicating is a mutual process between people, without an agreement on terminology things are neither right nor wrong, it’s all just made up bullshit until we agree - and even then…
Here in Spain you see X or @ a lot.
Like senorxs or señor@s. Where the X or @ means ‘o’ or ‘e’ (male) or ‘a’ (female). I like the way they do this.
This has some issues as it doesn’t include non-binary options. I think it’s also more of a protest against the patriarchal nature of the Spanish language which always defaults to the male version in the case where the gender is unknown or a mix.
How is pronounced I don’t really know. People don’t really speak it in practice. It’s more used written.
Spanish is my first language. Spanish defaults to masculine of words, but so do all Latin based languages. Here in the states we see Latinx. In Mexico and South America, “latine” is becoming prevalent.
Linguistically speaking, it’s absurd. Polls in the USA, where Latinx was invented by uncomfortable, uninformed white people to try and be inclusive, show that 93% of the latino / hispanic population either disapprove of or don’t care about it.
Edit: putting this up higher for visibility.
https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2020/08/11/901398248/hispanic-latino-or-latinx-survey-says
https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/05/us/latinx-gallup-poll-preference-trnd/index.html
Use latine, it already exists in the language
I will refrain. Thanks.
Latine is so obviously the better choice, but no, 'Muricans have to anglicize it to make it theirs. 🙄
As someone with no skin in the game, I don’t understand why people don’t just say “Latin” when they’re speaking English. We already don’t use genders, and routinely ignore plenty of other foreign language rules like plurals (“a cannoli”, for example). I don’t think anyone is going to be confused and think you’re talking about the Italic people annexed by Rome in 338 BC.
Because we’re not Latin - that’s just the language spoken by the Roman empire. In fact, latino is a bit wrong. Something my mom rankled at when I was growing up. Oddly enough, my grandma who got her PhD in Spanish from the University of Habana, didn’t give two shits.
Hispanic refers to “Hispaniola,” the kingdom primarily situated on the Iberian peninsula which had Portugal, Spain, and parts of France in it (to simplify the explanation).
Latino is accepted and fine. Hispanic seems to be fine as well. Latin works, but again, it’s sort of wrongish.
Edit: putting this up higher for visibility.
https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2020/08/11/901398248/hispanic-latino-or-latinx-survey-says
https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/05/us/latinx-gallup-poll-preference-trnd/index.html
My perspective has always been “if it’s good enough for John Leguizamo to use on HBO, it’s good enough for me.” And he very frequently referred to his ethnicity as Latin in his comedy.
And then a few weeks ago he was on CNN saying Latinx.
Point being, the thing that matters is that the intent is to be respectful. Using the wrong word to offend makes you an asshole, and it doesn’t matter if you’re misgendering someone or denigrating an entire ethnicity. Using the wrong word because it’s ambiguous, or it’s traditional, or you’re not sure is a different matter. Most words were wrong at some point, because language changes. The point is that you treat other humans as people, and not as political targets.
Sure. 93+% of the others who have weighed in against it don’t matter. Only Leguizamo.
Let me state it clearly: most of us do not like it.
https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2020/08/11/901398248/hispanic-latino-or-latinx-survey-says
https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/05/us/latinx-gallup-poll-preference-trnd/index.html
Way to miss the point. None of this is news to me, and prescriptivism is a losing argument. I personally despise the term Latinx–just like I despiss Mx. I wouldn’t default to either. But I’ll call anyone whatever they prefer. If you want to doggedly refuse to accommodate someone just because their preference puts them in a minority, who are you actually helping?
Use latine instead
But I’m in Spain. People here are not Latinos or Latinas :)
Hot take: gendered language doesn’t serve any meaningful purpose and we should just get rid of it. There is no need for inanimate non-gendered objects to have a linguistic gender.
Hot take: person who only speaks English thinks everyone should just speak English.
It’s still entirely non-standard, and not explicitly protected under law.
By all means, push the bounds; and I would hope you establish legal precedent. However, there is little that offers prior circumstance; you are still arguing how things should be, rather than how things are right now. Because of that, courts are not a sufficient venue, it must be argued at the political level.
Like “mix”. It’s fairly simple to most people who have common sense and aren’t actively trying to be offended over nothing.
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”Good morning, I am Mx. Vary, your science teacher." That’s it, that’s all you need for the entire year.
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Do your classes take place entirely over text? They’re asking how you pronounce that in speech.
Mr. Is short for “Mister” Mrs is short for mistress, but is usually pronounced “Misses”
So how does one pronounce Mx.? Mix or Mixter? Mixes? And sometimes Xs are pronounced like Z, so is it just Mmmz?
Asking how to pronounce someone’s preferred pronouns is entirely reasonable when their preferred pronoun is not a regular part of the English language. I’d rather know how to say something and not offend someone than say it wrong for who knows how long and definitely offend them.
If they’re saying it, they just told you how to pronounce it. That’s my point.
Yeah, but I’m trying to learn for myself, and have never had anyone say it to me.
So you’re not really helping by assuming I should know how to pronounce a new word
I’m not assuming you would know. Nobody is. If they’re introducing themselves, that’s how you would know. If you are a third party and want to learn for yourself, there is a very easy way to do that.
Okay, but like, if you were in their class you would hear them say it to you and then you’d know.
If you actually cared you’d just look it up tbh.
Your version of “common sense” in this situation only applies to a small minority that naturally extrapolates beyond the meaning of the statement alone.
“Mx.” as a prefix is not in any way established in common vernacular, nor does it easily make sense unless you assume they’re doing something specific that most people don’t do.
However, the law says that anyone is free to do so as they please; you can sexually identify in any way and must not be discriminated against for that in terms of your employment.
It’s not “fairly simple if you have common sense”. The known abbreviations have been in use for a hundred or more years and are widely known. Everyone knows how to pronounce them, the only curveball is Mrs being misses since it was originallymistress but that word later became associated with cheating and “ladies of the night”.
Mx was made up recently, it stands for nothing AFAIK. They just took the standard M beginning and slapped X on it because X tends to mean “unknown”.
It’s akin to asking you to address me as “Zf. Cat” because that’s what makes me feel comfortable.
Ok, Zf. Cat :) If that makes you feel comfortable it costs me nothing to be considerate of your preference. See?
Now you have to remember that for every interaction with me. If you happen to call me sometime else, I’ll grit my teeth and have to correct you or if I’m an asshole, I’ll berate you about it, constantly. You will also have to refer to me as Zf. Cat to everyone you know, regardless of whether or not they know me, or are in my presence.
You should be asking yourself why you assume the person would react angrily instead of just politely correcting the pronunciation. If someone accidentally mispronounces my name I gently correct them, while smiling, and I have never once been offended or take it personally. You also assume it is a heavy burden on others to simply call people what they’d like to be called. When it is not. Being angry over this is not a healthy attitude. It’s simple manners to be considerate of others and that is precisely what the person is asking for, nothing more.
If you have to correct someone about your name/title every single time it gets pretty damn annoying. I met a girl years ago whose name was spelled Remy but pronounced Ray-me she said “I hate my parents for it” (I doubt she actually hated her parents, but hated the fact that they gave her a “bad” name).
Except it’s not like that at all, because you just made that honorific up!
Mx. has an actual cultural context outside of their classroom. Sure, it’s new, but it’s not like this teacher just made it up themselves.
What is that context? You failed to include it.
The context is Mx. already being used and recognized around the country and around the world. It’s new, but it’s not just something the teacher made up.
So common sense is dictated now by a few members of niche social media circles?
You’d think someone using the name CaptPretentious would be all in favor of things being made up by niche social circles.
Sorry was I supposed to put my first name, last name, social Security number, and mother’s maiden name as my username?
Well see, common sense would have me ask “hm, how do I say that?” then google it, then when I see that it’s simply pronounced “mix” I’d say “oh, okay”. And then go on about my day… instead of ranting about how hard it is to figure out and how angry it should make everyone. But that’s just me.
If it were me, I would probably figure out what the person I’m trying to argue arguing with was actually arguing about. Instead of getting up on a soapbox and pretending like I know what I’m arguing about. But that would take effort.
But you keep using those canned responses you got ready to go.
Wow, those two letters really shook you. Deep breaths.
My position has fuck all to do with the letters.
But you really need it to be don’t you. Because your canned responses only work if that’s what I’m arguing about.
You don’t need to have kids call you weird names, it’s really not necessary. Just be normal.
“Just be normal” is the first step toward “just be straight” then “just be white” then “just be Christian” then “just be our version of Christian”. Why can’t people just be who they are? Like, literally no one is hurting anyone in this scenario, yet your absolute paper thin fragile porcelain toilet of an ego is hurt because the teacher isn’t exactly how you picture the ideal person your children think the world is filled with.
What if who they are is a literal Nazi? Do the get to just be who they are too?
Read my comment again. No one is being hurt here. That’s the one part that matters.
