Rex Kerr
1 min readFeb 3, 2023

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This stance seems reasonable--and Shapiro's does not--but I wonder whether you actually want to endorse the i-see-i-say version of pronoun use: you don't explicitly do that, but these are the "social characteristics" used in in-person interactions save when someone is well-known. A lot of people don't look like "they", nobody looks like any of the rarely-used pronouns, and some people argue that misgendering can induce gender dysphoria in people who don't pass (and who therefore will, under the i-see-i-say rules, be referred to by pronouns they disfavor).

If you don't endorse an i-see-i-say policy, then the argument you need to use against Shapiro is more complicated, because you have to argue that he's attending to the wrong social characteristics and you're attending to the right ones. (Which might be doable, but it's not as clean as the argument you presented. It's a very clean argument for online interactions, but may have unintended consequences for in-person ones.)

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Rex Kerr
Rex Kerr

Written by Rex Kerr

One who rejoices when everything is made as simple as possible, but no simpler. Sayer of things that may be wrong, but not so bad that they're not even wrong.

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