Re: Some thoughts about Diversity and the CoC

[Sam Hartman <hartmans@debian.org>]

>>>>> "Marco" == Marco d'Itri <md@Linux.IT> writes:

    Marco> But feel free to ignore that sentence, it does not really
    Marco> matter.  I would still like to know the answer to my post.

Hi.
This is my personal opinion.  I think the question you raise is one
where there is not a crystal clear project consensus besides try to be
respectful and handle things on a case by case basis.

So, as I understand it, the big question is how to handle pronouns that
you don't consider to be part of English.

I think the answer is "it depends."  I suspect there are ways of
approaching  your concern that are respectful and ways of approaching
your concern that are not respectful.

Ultimately, the question is are you trying to make people feel
welcoming.  Are you being compassionate.

So, in a one-on-one interaction, how do you respond when someone
indicates they are uncomfortable with how you are treating them?
Do you listen?  Do you try and find something that works for both of
you?
Do you reassure them you treat them with dignety and humanity and
respect how they identify themselves?

Or do you just make it about hard and fast rules?

If you're not able to honor their request about how they want to be
treated, are you compassionate in your refusal?

In mailing lists, do you focus on trying to make people feel welcome or
on trying to create an issue.
For example, do you simply try to avoid using pronouns in cases where
you don't feel comfortable with the specific pronoun, or do you try and
make a big issue out of it.
If you find yourself needing to acknowledge in a specific situation that
you aren't able to honor someone's pronoun then do you find a way to
acknowledge the pain you're causing by doing that?

There are a couple of areas where it is more clear than for pronouns.
You specifically talk about male/female/nonbinary.  I think that when
referring to a specific person especially, I hope you're willing to use
whatever labels (or no labels) that person chooses for themselves.
Again, this is a try your best thing, and we all make mistakes.

The above said, I'd urge you to think carefully about what  English is,
and whether it really is standardized.  Chicago Style (which is far to
conservative in its handling of gender and pronouns for Debian) gives up
on Grammar fairly quickly.  It notes that there are many schools of
thought and not a lot of agreement:
    There are many schools of grammatical thought—and differing vocabularies
    for describing grammar. Grammatical theories have been in upheaval in
    recent years. It seems that the more we learn, the less we
    know. (CMOS 17 5.2)

Grammarians cannot even agree on how many parts of speech there are.
    As traditionally understood, grammar is both a science and an art. Often
    it has focused—as it does here—on parts of speech and their syntax. Each
    part of speech performs a particular function in a sentence or
    phrase. Traditional grammar has held that there are eight parts of
    speech: nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, prepositions,
    conjunctions, and interjections. Somewhat surprisingly, modern
    grammarians cannot agree on precisely how many parts of speech there are
    in English. At least one grammarian says there are as few as three.
    Another insists that there are “about fifteen,” noting that “the precise
    number is still being debated.” (CMOS 17 5.3, internal citations
    omitted)

Which is to say, the particular view  of grammar that is used in a
context and the rules for applying that grammar are a matter of style
rather than of anything more formal.  It is preposterous to claim that
here in Debian we use a single coherent style guide for our English.
Were we to do so, it would doubtless be rather more liberal than Chicago
Style.  My point though is that these sorts of things are very much
different from one set of style rules to another---and some style rules
definitely do not meet our standards of respect.

You might be on better ground talking about your feelings in using some
word rather than appealing to Platonic English.  We're a might practical
here for Plato's ideals, and besides he predates English by a few years
anyway.

"I feel silly using that word," might start a better compassionate
conversation than "That's not really English."
Although, as you already acknowledge, singular they is something that is
well established in our local style.