Quick hit: “Microsoft’s ‘Chuck Norris’” thinks trans people are liars
While Chen doesn’t use the example of changing one’s sex marker to illustrate his point, the same reasoning applies, since a sex or gender marker is just another kind of name (one that happens to be shared by many people — but so are the names “John” and “Jane”). Like a person’s name, their sex is assigned; the difference is that no one has an inherent sense of what their name is, but many of us do have an inherent sense of what our sex is. Most people are assigned the correct sex at birth, and never need to think about it again — but sometimes, as with the people who assumed I was a baby girl when I was born, people make a mistake.
Why am I writing about this here? Because it illustrates the kinds of microaggressions that those of us who aren’t cissexual, heterosexual men have to endure every day when working in the tech industry. We can’t even read an innocent-looking technical blog post without being unexpectedly told that our lives are lies.
Thanks to Sumana and Liz for their comments!
Edited to add: I’ll be deleting any comments concerning Chen’s intent. If you’re inclined to make such a comment, consider how you would feel if you were told that somebody didn’t mean to dehumanize you — you just weren’t important enough for them to even bother to think about the effect of their speech on you.
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Alan Bell:
January 24th, 2013 at 4:12 pm
what does “inquiry-resistant dialogue” mean?
Tim Chevalier:
January 24th, 2013 at 4:37 pm
It’s a term coined by my friend Ken Shan (@ccshan on Twitter) that I’m trying to popularize! Basically, it means speech that protects itself at the outset from a countervailing narrative, frequently by taking advantage of the speaker’s social power. So an example is a cis person saying that trans women are biologically male, because this appears to be a scientific (hence potentially falsifiable) statement, but it’s really not, because “biologically male” here is really just a placeholder for “Because of who I am in society, I get to decide who people are.”
To me, lots of the derailing strategies listed at http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Silencing_tactics are examples of inquiry-resistant dialogue too — for example, “You’re overreacting” is inquiry-resistant because any attempt to prove that one is *not* overreacting will just be taken as further evidence that one is overreacting.
Alan Bell:
January 24th, 2013 at 4:59 pm
OK, I think I understand, there is a philosophical concept of inquiry resistance http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/vagueness/#InqRes
which appears from my reading to be mostly about thresholds on spectrums but it might be the same thing. (and yes, I did spot the questionable examples at the top and bottom of that section)
Tim Chevalier:
January 24th, 2013 at 5:04 pm
Huh, I’ll have to read that more carefully. I’d assumed this phrase was original to Ken because there weren’t too many unrelated google hits, but I guess it wasn’t turning up hits for “inquiry resistance”. Interesting!
Tim Chevalier:
January 24th, 2013 at 5:22 pm
A few friends pointed out other examples of people who amend their birth certificate:
* One friend has a young child whose name was misspelled on her birth certificate when she was born. My friend had to petition to have the name corrected to the one she intended to name her kid.
* Adoptees often have their birth certificate changed to reflect their adoptive parent or parents’ surname. (And people can undergo adoption as adults, too. I’m not sure how often adult adoptees take their new adoptive parents’ names.)
* In some countries, when a minor gets a legal name change (due to adoption, parents’ divorce, or any other reason), their birth certificate is automatically changed to reflect the new name.
I don’t think that Chen, and the commenters agreeing with him, would say that my friend’s child, or adopted children, or minors with divorced and remarried parents, are liars, at least not automatically. So I think what’s at stake here is who is socially valued and worthy enough to get mistakes about their personal information corrected. It’s about who gets considered as in possession of fact and of truth.
Tom L:
January 24th, 2013 at 6:18 pm
I think there’s an appropriate separation to be made here between the deeply offensive language Chen uses – which is to be reviled – and procedural issues about birth certificates and other identifying documents (for example academic transcripts).
It seems totally appropriate for agencies to amend or reissue identifying documents in a new name or with other changes as requested by their subjects – with the usual caveats on the cost of implementing such a system (usually small processing fees, forms to complete etc).
But isn’t it also generally fine for them to track and keep a history of all changes that have been made, and maintain systems that respond to searches on former names, and other historical artefacts where reasonable?
Then this history of personal information needs to be subject to the same principles of privacy, retention, replication and sharing of personal information that generally applies in public databases.
Tim Chevalier:
January 24th, 2013 at 6:23 pm
Yes, but those principles need to be balanced with the unique privacy needs that trans people, particularly trans women, who have changed their names have — disclosure of a previous name can result in unemployment and in violence (physical and otherwise) when you’re trans.
I’m not saying “throw all principles out the window”, it’s just that I’m in this debate mainly from the perspective of a vulnerable minority group that is under attack from a majority, and I don’t hold much stock in any set of principles that disregards that.
To give you an example, in many places where a minor who is trans gets a legal name change (this may be true for all minors’ name changes, I’m not sure) and has their birth certificate updated, the old birth certificate is sealed by the courthouse. Basically nobody can get access to it. And I am totally fine with that, and wouldn’t object to that rule being extended to adults who request it.
Tom L:
January 24th, 2013 at 7:18 pm
Sure – I think we agree, but your perspective helps. In general one’s personal information and personal history should be extremely difficult for the general public to access, and carefully controlled for agents of the appropriate state departments.
There are many other privacy issues that can have a similarly damaging effect on employment or other aspects of life.
However, sometimes the boot is on the other foot and natural justice can only be supported by agencies finding and assessing historical personal data. To give an example, child support enforcement.
Danielle:
January 27th, 2013 at 11:40 am
In my state of birth, this is how it is done – a new certificate is issued, bearing no mention of being amended, and the original is impounded.
That said, I will likely have to take some extra legal action to get that document updated as the state refuse to recognize my name change order from another state (my current state of residence) as legal due to a procedural difference between the two states.