Revision d7fd4ffb-a9c1-4569-aa49-e4bc58122e31 - Meta Stack Exchange

Thanks for the letter. Now that the [crux of the story](https://christianity.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6718/brothers-i-must-go) has been laid out by [Caleb](https://christianity.meta.stackexchange.com/users/30/caleb) (emphasis mine), my opinion of Stack Overflow Inc. has reached a new low. 

> In light of all the things we went through just to open this site much
> less make it work, **the touch-stone issue is almost comical. Pronouns.
> No seriously, pronouns**.
> 
> Personally I have yet to face the specific issue; nobody, to my
> knowledge, has taken offense at the pronouns I used for them. But the
> "law" laid down quite suddenly and directly to moderators by several
> staff members was that henceforth we all had to do whatever was
> requested of us by other parties. It used to be that the ground rules
> were limited to a "be nice" policy⁴ and how that was enforced varied a
> bit by site. Even though I often disagree with the world at large on
> what is considered nice and constructive, I can usually figure out how
> to live within a system of boundaries. You can do X or Y but not Z.
> Given the framework of a secular platform that hosted a diversity of
> viewpoints those were rules I could play by.
> 
> What changed is this: now it isn't enough just to avoid being rude to
> people you disagree with, the new policy forces us to positively
> affirm the other parties' position. Even disengaging was specifically
> ruled out as an allowable solution since that would be discrimination
> and potentially "hurtful". That avoidance of potentially compromising
> scenarios is not allowed has been directly affirmed by staff members
> several times.
> 
> **If person A comes along and demands that I refer to them by their
> "preferred pronoun" (even if it is a mismatch for their genetic sex or
> the grammar of the language being spoken) and I refuse, that's
> considered an insult. Now, SE staff's enforced interpretation is that
> if I deliberately avoid pronouns altogether, whether by carefully
> avoiding sentences that even need pronouns at all or by sticking to
> proper names or by disengaging from the individual — those are all
> being considered insults too if the other party says they are
> insulted.**

I *might* have been on the same page with Stack Exchange had they restricted themselves to making legislations on what a user *is not* allowed to say. **However, they decided to *mandate* users to use a pronoun of another person's choice even if they don't feel comfortable doing so, and over and above not even giving them the *choice* to disengage, in the guise of "protecting people's feelings".** <sup>†</sup> This kind of appropriation of speech is an utterly stupid and absolutely reprehensible move. In fact, it makes me very much fear about the direction the site is headed into, in the name of making itself more *welcoming* for the so-called "minority groups" and "new users". 

**I shall *not* come to terms with a policy that forces me or anyone else to display a specific *mode of respect* towards another individual, by employing specific wordings or sentence framings in my speech, under the threat of punitive action.** I am ***not*** willing to give up my *freedom of choice*, just so that the company can attempt to improve its image with some cheap publicity stunts. I fear that the company is currently in *extremely* incompetent hands as evident from [these boilerplate responses](https://meta.stackoverflow.com/a/389908/10648668) and [lies to the press](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/10/01/stack_exchange_controversy/) by some "[director of public Q&A](https://meta.stackoverflow.com/users/4140/sara-chipps)". Absolutely pathetic. 

**It's not really the *essence* of these policies (being more inclusive and welcoming) that the resounding disapproval is against but the fact that these policies will, in all probability, be enforced by *the last kind* of people on the planet you'd want** i.e., who not only claim that *their interpretation* of the policies are absolutely sound but also that *their understanding* of the situations they're policing is always perfect and beyond public criticism (as is evident from the company's response following Monica's firing). And *this* is *exactly* the reason we should draw the line when the company decides to enforce some kind of ["ideological compliance, rather than the ideology itself"](https://writing.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2228/se-has-removed-a-moderator#comment5850_2233). 

I'll [quote](https://writing.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2228/se-has-removed-a-moderator#comment5874_2233) [Mark Baker](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Baker_(linguist)) as he summarizes the pressing issue far more succinctly than I could:

> **It is the compulsion, rather than what is being compelled, the forcing of ideological compliance, rather than the ideology itself,
> that is the red line for me.** The treatment of Monica is appalling
> too, but the two things, the compulsion and the expulsion, arise from
> the same intolerant instinct. They are born of the same spirit and
> made of the same cloth. Stack Exchange is a private company. They can
> impose whatever ideological speech codes they like and conduct
> whatever pogroms they like. But they will have to do it without me.
> 
> The question of whether one can choose one's own identity, as opposed
> to your identity being what the world sees when it looks at you, is
> one with profound and wide-reaching philosophical, epistemological,
> and even theological implications. **Making personal preference in
> pronouns mandatory is making the rejection of the objective view
> mandatory.** At that point is has nothing to do with whether or not one
> wished to make people feel comfortable. Philosophically, sophisticated
> arguments can be made for both the objective view and the social
> constructionist view. My objection is to the imposition of the
> philosophical test. The fact that I happen to be one side of the issue
> isn't the point. For many decades British officers had to take an oath
> against transubstantiation. Its aim was to keep Catholics out of the
> ranks of officers. **A relatively small matter was used to impose a big
> restriction. This is a requirement of the same kind. The request seems
> small but the implications are vast.**

Henceforth, I have decided to abort all my community moderation activities on all Stack Exchange sites, including but not limited to editing posts, handling review queues, raising flags and guiding new users, until the company mends the damage it has caused and puts forth a public apology. I'm sad to say that I now feel that I've wasted a lot of my time in essentially [working and creating value for free](https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/333980/437611) for a company that doesn't even give the bare minimum respect to its primary userbase.

<sup>†: For the record, I am personally *not comfortable* with using singular 'they' or any of the gazillion non-binary pronouns like 'zhe', 'sie', 'hir', 'co', etc. although I would agree to go with the former if *explicitly* requested by an individual. I'd still *prefer* to refer to them by their username though, in such cases, and *that choice* is ***not*** a *slight* against them in any rational sense. </sup>