Thank you for educating people in this community about the harm caused by deadnames.
My personal impression is that no one here meant to cause harm by it and I’m pleased to see that the OP has updated the post twice. I do expect that there is a bit of defensiveness going on as a result of Émile’s (to my mind, extremely bad faith) attacks on the community and in reaction to accusations of ill intent that people believe are unfounded, but “rationalizing bigotry” seems to me an exaggeration. I think people can reasonably disagree on whether exaggerations, strong language etc are usually necessary to achieve justice, but I think people in this community generally think it’s very rare that that’s the most effective approach, so I think this sort of thing is why you’ve been getting a lot of downvotes.
I also admit that I was thinking “Surely sometimes it’s okay to mention a deadname to provide relevant clarification, but I don’t have enough understanding to know how to do it sensitively in this case yet” and now I think that something similar to your suggestion here would be a good solution. I expect you are feeling very hurt and angry as a result of the comments on this post, but if you feel up to engaging further, I’d be interested to know if you think the following phrasing might be okay:
“However, they did not disclose that Émile P. Torres (who used to go by a different first name) was a co-author on the article...”
I’m hoping that it might be okay (although of course I know I’m not asking Émile themself but it seems like you have a lot more knowledge about this sort of thing than others here) and also might be sufficiently clear who is being referred to.
You can actually use a deadname to reference people when it’s necessary, but because the OP put it all in context, no one needed the reference, everyone who cares knew who they were talking about. And generally in academic circles, especially self referencing ones like EA, using last names only is entirely acceptable.
The problem here is that the OP quite intentionally chose to use a deadname to begin with while they were quite clearly posting an otherwise maligning post about someone who also happened to be transgender. It’s incredibly suspect and the fact that the OP ignored me regarding the deadname just confirms the suspicion.
Sacrificing concern for harm brought to others in pursuit of rational purity over some petty drama post about the inconsequential politics of EA intrigue is not a serious altruistic argument. I’m sorry, I can never take that seriously.
Thank you for educating people in this community about the harm caused by deadnames.
My personal impression is that no one here meant to cause harm by it and I’m pleased to see that the OP has updated the post twice. I do expect that there is a bit of defensiveness going on as a result of Émile’s (to my mind, extremely bad faith) attacks on the community and in reaction to accusations of ill intent that people believe are unfounded, but “rationalizing bigotry” seems to me an exaggeration. I think people can reasonably disagree on whether exaggerations, strong language etc are usually necessary to achieve justice, but I think people in this community generally think it’s very rare that that’s the most effective approach, so I think this sort of thing is why you’ve been getting a lot of downvotes.
I also admit that I was thinking “Surely sometimes it’s okay to mention a deadname to provide relevant clarification, but I don’t have enough understanding to know how to do it sensitively in this case yet” and now I think that something similar to your suggestion here would be a good solution. I expect you are feeling very hurt and angry as a result of the comments on this post, but if you feel up to engaging further, I’d be interested to know if you think the following phrasing might be okay:
“However, they did not disclose that Émile P. Torres (who used to go by a different first name) was a co-author on the article...”
I’m hoping that it might be okay (although of course I know I’m not asking Émile themself but it seems like you have a lot more knowledge about this sort of thing than others here) and also might be sufficiently clear who is being referred to.
You can actually use a deadname to reference people when it’s necessary, but because the OP put it all in context, no one needed the reference, everyone who cares knew who they were talking about. And generally in academic circles, especially self referencing ones like EA, using last names only is entirely acceptable.
The problem here is that the OP quite intentionally chose to use a deadname to begin with while they were quite clearly posting an otherwise maligning post about someone who also happened to be transgender. It’s incredibly suspect and the fact that the OP ignored me regarding the deadname just confirms the suspicion.
Sacrificing concern for harm brought to others in pursuit of rational purity over some petty drama post about the inconsequential politics of EA intrigue is not a serious altruistic argument. I’m sorry, I can never take that seriously.
What do you consider to be the etiquette when the person refers to themselves as ‘formerly X’, or something to that effect?