There’s no reason you can’t respond to the arguments as arguments, without making assumptions one way or the other about the position of your interlocutors. There’s no reason Debbie the ostensible cis woman can’t talk to you about your use of language, and no reason you can’t listen to her. Her opinion doesn’t constitute silencing. On the other hand, I think that avoiding these conversations because you’re afraid that the scary hardassed queers will trip you up might count as silencing.

I’m curious to hear how someone who doesn’t know how to respectfully refer to a trans woman is supposed to explain her right to respectful treatment, language included, from corrections officers or media representatives.

Also, you’re right — it’s a derail. Please quit it, speaking as a moderator. Your comment about “shouldn’t we spend our time on something better than talking about how to address each other respectfully” is also in danger of being a derail. That kind of comment, in my experience, can rarely be made in good faith. You should know perfectly well that just because someone takes a few minutes out of the day to engage in a discussion of this sort, about respectful language, it doesn’t mean that they’re not also doing a WHOLE LOT of real, tangible work in the rest of their life. And it doesn’t mean they’re incapable of distinguishing the two. Get real and get back on topic, please.

Calling a person out on their privilege is not something that only members of non-privileged group can or should do, it’s something that privileged people should be doing more of.

Debbie-
This is kind of a derail, but your comment about “And i think it’s a little telling that you assume that the people who pointed out your glaring privilege with regard to language must be trans women themselves. It just adds to the nasty taste your comment left in my mouth” is actually an example of why I, personally, don’t spend my time on debates about language because they often turn into a quagmire. If I assume that you are a member of the class in question and therefore have a very personal stake in the words I use, then I am “nasty.” But if I don’t assume that you’re a member of the class in question, then I am letting you, an outsider, speak for that class and therefore “silencing”, essentializing, or misunderstanding the class itself (i.e., privileging the statements of an apparently self-assigned spokes person over members of the class themselves). There’s no way to win.

And i think it’s a little telling that you assume that the people who pointed out your glaring privilege with regard to language must be trans women themselves. It just adds to the nasty taste your comment left in my mouth.

The problem with this post is that it’s so badly written that it doesn’t present as a reponse to an ongoing discussion. The debate is so mangled by the site’s inept presentation that it all seems incoherent rather than contested. Doesn’t anyone on XX know how to index or link properly?

“Grey rape” is contrary to the understanding of sexual violence popularized by those dinosaur feminists. Their emphasis on consent and female subjectivity was a hell of a lot clearer and more consistent than the fallen-woman standard that preceded it, let alone the more sheepish misogyny underlying “grey rape.”

I thought gender-feminists were supposed to be doctrinaire and nuance-free. Now we’re supposed to accept that moderation will release us from all that troublesome complexity?