Those guidelines also noted that the Commission can impose penalties of up to $250,000 "for violations that are the result of willful, wanton, or malicious conduct.


[A]n individual who simply mistakenly uses the wrong pronoun when referring to a transgender individual will not be fined under the new law. However, a person who intentionally and repeatedly refuses to use an individual's preferred pronoun would be subject to fines (that could reach as high as $250,000 for multiple violations) under the the law.

Emphasis mine. Like... it CLEARLY states unintentional uses wont be fined. This law is not for that. You're missing the bigger picture.

Originally Posted by The Wandering Poet

To put it into perspective, if a white man identifies as a black man, we are not going to automatically call them a black man. This is unusual and unnatural so it would take a long time for society as a whole to adjust to. Secondly their legal papers label them as white. To require us to call this person black simply because he thinks he is black, and to impose a fine if we refuse is absurd.

It's not the same because the color of your skin is not a social construct (like gender).

Of course I would be willing to try to adjust to it, but given the way my mind works I will not get it right for a while.

And that's great. Keep working at it. It's about growing and learning. No one is going to fine you.

Other parts of societal advancement did not require extortion to make progress. They did not have to force their views on the rest of the world by threat. The world is adapting over time. Younger generations are more tolerant than older generations.

If ya'll think the tolerance we do have today towards things like race, sexuality, and sex weren't hard fought - you're wrong. Every moment encounters this kind of backlash.

The approvable pronouns is an issue because unless you limit it, the number of pronouns that you have to learn will continue to expand.

You've met one person, as you've said. In all my YEARS of queer politics and activism - activity working in queer communities, attending conferences - I have only ever used 4 different pronouns. He/her/they and zir. You're fear of having to memorize a million pronouns is unfounded. It's just not going to happen to you. It's not some slippery slope.

If they removed the fine, and chose a single gender neutral pronoun to be the official pronoun for the community (such as Zir for example), I could see them making a lot more progress. Of course it will still take the next generation to begin to fully adapt to this change.

Not everyone in the older generations are intolerant. And to not inform them because 'they're set in their ways' leads to abuse of queer and trans people in nursing homes. It's one of the things I advocate for (proper care and safe environments for LGBTQ+ elders).

The fine isn't just for pronouns. Who is going to follow the law if there is no penalty?? And not everyone is going to identify with zir. And, as I've said a ton of times - Their is already a gender neutral go-to until you are corrected otherwise.

But who is to decide if it's intentional? The government. The lawyers. My word against another is worth nothing. They can bring up that I haven't "converted" in a few weeks so it's clearly intentional. A jury would condemn me pretty fast.

Perhaps skin color isn't a social construct, but I see a lot of that sort of thing. White people acting black, black people acting white. It's real. Maybe that's a ghetto thing... where I live has a lot of weird stuff.

Yes, the rights that the others have was hard fought. But they didn't bring money into it at the civil level.
But every individual faces some kind of social issue.

One that I have actively spoken to. I have spoken to another, and upon the first misgender they threw a major tantrum.

Maybe I wont have to memorize a million pronouns, but I am viewing the potential, not the reality. The potential could result in a lot of damage, the reality hasn't happened yet. One must never ignore the worst case scenario.

I'm not saying to "not inform them". What I'm saying is to say "if you refuse to call me female I will fine you" is not going to go well.
Who is going to follow it? Businesses will.
It is not against the law for an individual to be racist. It is not illegal for an individual to be sexist. However they want to make it illegal for an individual to misgender. They are asking to be put on a pedestal.

To be entirely honest, the proper pronoun for a gender neutral person is "it". When taking into account how documentaries and the like describe an animals behavior it does not say "they", the documentary says "it".
However... obviously this would be horribly insulting to pretty much everyone on the planet
So not exactly gonna petition for that one.

well "it" is usually reserved for objects or non-human animals

Yes, but humans are of course, animals. We only separate ourselves because we defined the parameters.

"it" sounds less than human

it
it/
pronoun
1.
used to refer to a thing previously mentioned or easily identified.
"a room with two beds in it"
2.
used to identify a person.
"it's me"

Seems it's already used to refer to a person in gender neutral language. "It is me" or "it is I".

Also I want to add to an above statement something I saw a few weeks ago which supports my statement about the law. Exclaiming "kill all x" race, class, sex, etc. Is not illegal. As many anti police protests have been screaming to kill police. I've never seen an arrest during these.
And yet your pronoun is more offensive.

that does seem odd...what you said about how people can say to kill all ___...

Yes. But these people want pampered in a world wide safe space about their gender.

As you said before... this seems unlike me to have this view. But I am a very accommodating and caring person you said. That is because I choose to be this way. This law is trying to force us to be accommodating and caring.
If feminism and the LGBTQ+ got their way, the world would undergo a form of social slavery with all the rubbish they demand.

The biggest pet peeve of all of this Salvete, is the sheer lack of respect for proper care of a disabled person. Gender Dysphoria is a disorder, and when it is severe enough that the person has emotional breakdowns in public, they need put in a home. In that home they will get the proper care by a trained nurse or nurse aid. The nurse will not baby them like this group does, they will not enable them like this group does. The nurse will prompt them away from bad behaviors and toward good behaviors.

I have known patients to do whatever it takes to make a scene and get their way. Home care nurses are trained to ignore the bullshit.
I have seen patients throw themselves into passing cars, to lay down in the middle of the road. They will make a nurse's job a living hell, but the moment that nurse gives in, they reinforce that behavior.

You treat these disabled people like adults that they are. You do not baby them. If you look through my disability thread you will see I do NOT baby. I treat them like adults. I respect them but I do not enable their bad behaviors. Instead I redirect them. I guide them. But I do not baby them. This law calls upon us as a world to baby them. That is against my training as a medical professional and my logic as an engineer.

I never saw any emotional breakdowns in public that you mentioned o.o

---------- Post added 10-08-2017 at 11:49 PM ----------

I've met many people who did not go by he/his/him or she/hers/her, and they were very highly-educated mature people

The educated and mature aren't who benefit from this.
The educated and mature are capable of handling a few mistakes and are willing to correct people politely. The educated will understand it takes time for society to adapt.
The uneducated and immature are impatient.

Take Martin Luther King for example. He didn't say "We need this NOW". He said "One day.." He knew it would take time.
Likely he said he had a dream because it would not be within his lifetime that his dream came true.

As for the emotional breakdowns. I've seen them because of my last job. Part of why I'm not in that job anymore. Was stressful.

hmm well there are menewshans who do use non-binary pronouns but I don't remember who they are

I do remember there was a menewshan who put her pronouns in her signature in yellow font, and I accidentally used the wrong pronoun because I literally could not read her signature (I was using flux to dim the screen, so yellow font was impossible to see). And she immediately became angry at me. I apologized and showed her a screenshot, proving that I could not actually read her signature, so she was civil towards me again. But other people in the thread continued the argument, and then I think she quit menewsha after a very short time on here.

I know of a couple. They were respectful about it and willing to explain their reasoning. So I was polite and now only use their username.
Nothing had to be put in place to force me to do it.

Likely the reason people continued it was because their first reaction was to become aggressive. To become aggressive the FIRST time someone misgenders you is a very toxic and immature attitude. And if someone's first reaction is to be aggressive instead of simply explaining it respectfully like an adult, then we do not have to respect them.
We were not satisfied with simply "you misgendered me" as an excuse to treat us poorly. So we wanted a proper reasoning for the foul behavior.

....you want to put people with gender dysphoria in a nursing home instead of learning some pronouns?

As a nurse - I'm actually horrified. I think I'm done with this discussion.

People with gender dysphoria can attend therapy, counselling, etc... they are still capable humans who don't need to be in homes. If their mental health is so sever that they do - there is more going on.

I've said repeatedly- this law is not about person to person fines. The article was inflammatory.
This would be about businesses refusing to let an employee use their name on a nametag because their legal name hasn't been changed yet.
Or a prof purposefully misgendering students because they're transphobic trash.

But, given that I'm a feminist, and queer I just want the world to be in a bubble so I don't get my feelings hurt I guess.

:////////

I am saying if they are so incapacitated by a word, they will not be able to handle society.

As a nurse? Then you should know very well that patients that are put in a bubble are not happy. I've seen it myself. The more of a bubble they are put in the farther they are put from others. Essentially you are putting them back in the psyche hospitals they used to live in most of their lives.
No... they need progress to being human, because they deserve to feel human.

Well, if the person simply gets frustrated or annoyed then the issue just needs therapy. If the person can't even leave their dorm, that's far too severe. When it impairs with your ability to function it becomes a disorder.

Well you are calling the teacher "transphobic trash", instead of simply "professor". Quite frankly I wouldn't heed the words of a student who calls people that.
As for that law being about businesses. They could easily drag the rest of the world in on it by crying about hate crime and discrimination. I also could not find any explicit mention that it was exclusive to businesses.

Feminism should be long over. Women thrive in the modern world now. They are our equals at some things, and best us at much of the law. (lower sentences and much of the custody) So I'm no feminist as new age (third wave?) feminism from what I am seeing is all about putting minorities on pedestals and capping men at the knees.
I treat everyone as an equal until they give me a reason not to.

But... there's a huge flaw with your ideal of everyone living in a bubble. Not everyone WANTS your bubble. The more restrictive your bubble gets the more freedoms we will eventually sacrifice to accommodate the next trend of laws.
I know I for one could not grow and develop as I have with your "bubble". I would not be able to have cultivated the amount of knowledge I did if the world was sheltered by every single little thing.

Life is all about challenging your ideas and growing. College is the same way. Or it was until they became a safe space.
History would need to be banned to help create your bubble. History is horribly graphic and terrible. Literature, most books would need to come with trigger warnings for something or be completely banned. Some of the best poets would be banned literature. Movies would be incredibly censored. Crime shows would be banned, any sort of violence in movies would be banned, comedy films too.

This is what happens when we safe space the world for everyone. When we try to make a bubble for the world. Sure it's not like that now of course, but what I see is not the current setting. I see the end result as people demand more and more accommodations.

Hey OP, unless you run or work in a care home in the state of California (in an alternative dimension where the bill has been passed) or are a New York Land Lordlord with a vendetta against a trans tennant or employee then none of this legislation applies to you.

So yeah, that's that duck shot dead in the water.

Yeah there is a lot of craziness flying about the Internet in 2017, but most of it is drama and nonsense based on the poorly inferences and conjecture. All one needs to do to combat the madness is to approach these sensationalist headlines with a healthy dose of skepticism and scrutiny. Once you have achieved that you will be able differentiate between the mountains and the mole hills.

Perhaps it doesn't currently affect me, but things like this spread.

I've been looking into this bill more, and I've found it does not specify specific gender pronouns. So there is no limit to the number of pronouns that can be selected from. "gender identity or expression". Meaning there is no limit to the number of pronouns they must select from.
It also does not have any guidelines visible on how long they would have to have this state of mind. You could simply change genders to walk into the women's restroom and then change back when you leave. I believe gender fluid individuals can do this, and anyone acting like a gender fluid person can also get away with this.

The reason for my concerns is that I am looking not at the current state of the laws, but the future of the law. The law does not specify much and leaves things extremely vague, which gives way to the possibility of many future lawsuits. It was a rushed job and poorly executed. It is very easy to abuse that law.

The guidelines are clearly anti-harramentment and anti-discriminatory laws designed to protect transgendered individuals - it even states it in the guidelines here.

The commission further clarified...

Accidentally misusing a transgender person's preferred pronoun is not a violation of the law and will not result in a fine...In fact, our guidance encourages people to ask transgender and gender non-conforming individuals how they would like to be addressed. The law is meant to address situations in which individuals intentionally and repeatedly target transgender and gender non-conforming people with this type of harassment. Transgender and gender non-conforming people experience discrimination on a daily basis, from exclusion from bathrooms to verbal harassment and even violence. We issued this guidance last year so employers and individuals understand what the law says and to ensure that every transgender individual in New York City is treated with the respect and dignity they deserve.

An example of where this legislation is being used is in the case of Victor King who is transitioning male. When he went to work for Chelsea Whole Foods he found despite making his employers aware that he wanted to be referred to as a man, his colleagues would repeatedly refer to him as 'it' and in one case was referred to as a 'she/it/whatever' in front of a customer. There were other things his colleagues did to harass and belittle him which you can read about here.

So, now we have grounded this in reality we can understand the purpose and importance of this legislation in the protection of transgendered individuals.

As for the pronoun issue - it's simple, you ask.

I have no issues with the protection of these people. I simply find the law poorly written.

which requires that employers use an individual's preferred name, pronoun, and title

So you can pick whatever name you want, whatever pronoun, and you can pick any title you desire.
Okay. So Lord is the title, master is the pronoun and the name is God. According to this law you must accommodate this person.

As for the bathroom issue. That is quite honestly a huge concern for some people. I know people who are terrified of a man who identifies as a woman coming into the women's restroom and putting them at risk.
The best solution for this really would be focusing heavily on bathroom regulation not laws. Our bathrooms are absolutely trash. You can make eye contact with a person in a stall walking by. This is the reason people are uncomfortable with trans people in the opposite bathroom.
But there's still a ton of bias in bathroom so that's going to be a long fight.

Also it seems that a man identifying as female can walk into a women's changing room at say a pool or a gym. They can be a fully functioning biological male and this law does not restrict that.

Referring to them as it isn't a very polite thing to do.
It does take time to adjust to things like that, especially if you knew them as the other gender previously. Though they lacked tact in that regard.
Looking at your link it states that even after a court order they refused. Well of course the company is at fault.

I have nothing against the protection of these people so long as the law can not be exploited. Use of pronouns such as He and She, as well as one gender neutral pronoun should be included in law. Not any pronoun they want. A title is not required to be given at all so that does not need included as a neutral one is already presented by not having one. Preferred name is a tricky one as given what I said before, you could ask people to call you "god" at work.

People would pick the appropriate title, pronoun, etc based on their gender. What you are suggesting is highly unlikely and even if it was brought before court of law than it would be considered legal abuse. As the guidance states:

The NYCHRL requires employers and covered entities to use an individual’s preferred name, pronoun and title (e.g., Ms./Mrs.) regardless of the individual’s sex assigned at birth, anatomy, gender, medical history, appearance, or the sex indicated on the individual’s identification.

Most individuals and many transgender people use female or male pronouns and titles. Some transgender and gender non-conforming people prefer to use pronouns other than he/him/his or she/her/hers, such as they/them/theirs or ze/hir. 10 Many transgender and gender non-conforming people choose to use a different name than the one they were given at birth.

Also master is a noun, it's not a pronoun.

Regarding bathroom legislation, I can understand the social anxiety and think that people should work together to come up with a solution where both parties feel safe. However is worth mentioning that so far they have been no recorded attacks in a restroom by a transgender individual *. So this really does seem to be a case of social anxiety rather than a real threat.

The bathroom issue isn't about transgender people. It's about people claiming to be who are not in order to exploit the system.
I mean it's especially concerning when you bring in changing rooms into the equation. When they walk into that changing room and change, odds are a LOT of people are going to feel unsafe regardless of the danger they possess.

"Such as..." which means there is more choices than that.

Highly unlikely to happen? We will find out soon. I've seen cases of exploitation of the law regarding religion. This will be no different.

So I was incorrect about master. But as this law does not limit, you can essentially invent a new pronoun for yourself. And if this person thinks their name should be god who are you to decide? The law lets them pick their own name, Jesus, god, it does not state any limit to the names you can choose. AND no legal name change is required to do this. The law simply states "call them what they want to be called"

Yeah, I get what you are saying but the point still stands - none of this is grounded in reality but your own hypothetical imaginings. The law isn't there to pander to your social anxieties. The NYC guidelines have been insitu since 2015 and there has been no reports of what you are suggesting might happen.

As for voyeruism and sexual assault in changing rooms or bathrooms - the bathroom laws does not make this illegal behaviour legal. It's still illegal.

Furthermore, there has only been one reported case where a man pretended to be a woman to gain access to a female changing room so that they could sexually attack women *.

The sad reality is that men don't need to pretend to be women to access these public spaces, they can just go in anyway. I do think that voyeurism and sexual assault in these spaces is a problem, however as transgender bathroom legislation has been statistically shown not to be a contributing factor *, then we need to pursue other lines of enquiry instead of barking up the wrong tree.

It is apparently there to pander to their social anxieties however.

It of course doesn't make it legal. However if he decides that day he's going to be a woman so he can go into the women's restroom, who are you to say that he isn't?
Guidelines need put in place for these sorts of things. Even if that means including Gender identity on our ID. Quite frankly would love that idea for protecting them as well as everyone else. Police could check the ID and everyone could get on with their lives. It would give the people in stores much easier access to knowing what pronoun to use for them (sir or madam)
But there is no part of that law I can see which makes these changes concrete. It allows you to be one gender one day, another gender another day, and people are expected to accept that you can use both bathrooms depending on how you feel on a given day without any physical evidence.
Without that physical ID there is no way to prove that this person isn't just "changing for the day" just to go into the women's changing room.
Could be as easy as "Gender Identity: M(male),F(Female),N(nonbinary/other)". If a clerk sees N they can simply ask or find an alternative method of their choosing, such as an officially designated gender neutral pronoun that the full community accepts. (If they can come to agreement on a gender neutral term specifically for gender neutral individuals as a whole)

You seem a bit mistaken. I am not blaming the trans community for it. I am saying that people may exploit this community and it would cause a lot of reputation damage and heavily hinder their progress or potentially cause a major back-step.
If you want a good example of what my concern is look at modern (third wave?) feminism, and the reputation damage that is being done to it by people claiming to be feminists. It used to be an incredible movement.

Such legislation would be extremely costly and without proper justification, pointless. Why should the government be forking out millions dollars for extra police and an identification system when there is no evidence that of an epidemic of men abusing the law to attack women? No policy maker would touch it, especially at a time goverment is tightening its purse strings.

I understand exactly what you are saying, but again without any kind of proof that people are abusing the system, than you are making an issue out of a non-issue.

I don't see anything particularly problematic about the legislation in question. Granted all I know of it comes from my quick skim reading of this thread. It seems to boil down to basic decency and respect. Refusing to address someone in the appropriate manner is harassment. So I for one am glad that steps are being taken to address it.

At a few points members addressed the issue of there potentially being too many pronouns. This strikes me as a little bit of a weird complaint, as it seems to me that there are plenty of names. Yet I don't hear anyone complaining about how there are too many names which a person can have.

An attempt to use race as an example was given, which also surprised me. Here in New Zealand, you can't always recognize a person's ethnic identity based on appearance. For instance Maori can appear to be Pakeha. Yet if I thought someone was Pakeha and they told me they were Maori, I would recognize them as Maori. I don't see how that is an issue. Now you could argue that the racial environment in NZ and U.S.A. are quite different in this regard. Maybe they are. But I believe the legislation we are discussing is set in Australia? If so, I would venture a guess that it is closer culturally to New Zealand than it is to U.S.A.

Una - Who said anything about extra police?
All it would really take is adding a single line to the next card. I see 2 nice little blank spots on my ID where it could go. Given modern technology it would presumably cost little to nothing to make that change.

I suppose we will see what kind of abuse takes place. Though for anyone who abuses it well, you wont even know. America is currently a sue-happy country so I know that people will find any way to sue another. With the application of physical ID the lawsuit will be thrown out if it's a fraud.

Crimson - Basic decency yes. I've said earlier in this thread, my issue with that is the large potential fine I could face. It takes me upwards of a month to get someone's gender identity down and by then I'm pretty sure I would get fired or be put in a lawsuit or fine.

There are a lot of names yes, but typically you can say "ma'am or sir" if you have difficulty with names. The name is not required. There isn't any official gender neutral honorific which you can use for every single person so as to offend nobody.
Sure you can say just "pick a pronoun", but gender neutral pronouns can offend nonbinary individuals. I have had this happen as I typically say "you people" instead of "you guys". It irritates people for some reason.

The difference with race is that you are that race, as you said "you can recognize it" after they told you. Gender identity is exclusively in the head. There is no physical outline that reinforces that thought.

As for culturally. I have already seen legislature in Canada and New York and a quick google search shows quite a lot more.