Thread by @FondOfBeetles

There is a lot to unpick with this tweet.

It starts with use of ‘calling’. I appreciate this is perhaps a very nuanced take, but I feel there is some difference between ‘calling’ and ‘describing as’.

https://twitter.com/sullydish/status/1259896253510553601

I defend, robustly, ‘male’ and ‘female’ as neutral scientific descriptions.

I do not ‘call’ transwomen male/males. I ‘describe’ transwomen as male/males.

I believe this has saved me from several Twitter bans, where complaints regarding my ‘description’ have never been upheld.

If we were to characterise, to the extreme, ‘calling’, we might evoke images, as suggested to me earlier, of red-faced lawyers pointing fingers at two transwomen while screaming ‘Male. Male. Male’.

That would clearly be an abusive use of ‘male’, just as it would be an abusive use of ‘British’ or ‘white’ or ‘whatever’.

Nobody believes that the lawyers in this case are doing that. That would be, rightly, quashed by the judge.

However, while I don’t think various commentators necessarily intend to evoke such extreme imagery, I think use of ‘calling’ implies an aggressive action, albeit a watered-down version of the cartoon presented.

Whether that’s intentional and reflects a bias in assessment of the situation, I don’t know.

But I know that ‘describing trans females as ‘male’ is pointlessly offensive’ doesn’t carry quite the same accusatory tone.

However, we don’t have to puzzle too long over the linguistic intent behind ‘calling’, because Sullivan then describes this act of ‘calling’ as ‘callous’ and ‘hurtful’.

Now, Sullivan seems to be a clever guy (I’m sure he’s glad of the validation 😉) with a fairly good grasp of the sex/gender thingy, so it would be reasonable to assume that he’s probably fairly calm about neutral scientific descriptions.

It seems implausible that he would describe neutral scientific descriptions as ‘callous’ and ‘hurtful’.

Be in no doubt, opposition to use of ‘male’ to describe males in a case hinging on the fact they are biological males, necessitates use of ‘calling’ rather than ‘describing’.

Unless you really think the lawyers *are* screaming apoplectically at two young people.

It seems far more likely that the lawyers have not, in fact, even addressed these two males in the first person. I am happy to be corrected on this.

I agree with him that the case is solid. 😊

He then introduces the idea that ‘male’ is a slur.

Now, I think ‘on paper neutral’ terms can become slurs, depending on their use. We see this argued with ‘TERF’.

I also think to be a slur, a term must be routinely used by one demographic against another, in a deliberate fashion, to degrade, threaten or harm the target demographic.

It is not impossible, in some time and place, that ‘male’ *could be* a slur.

What is manifestly ridiculous is that, in this time and place, ‘male’ is not a slur.

Even if we assume the caricature of the red-faced screaming lawyers with their waggling fingers and chants of ‘male’ is correct, that does not make it, by any definition, a slur.

But wait, that ‘male’ is a slur is not merely some allusion or deeper reading of the tweet, it is directly asserted as such.

Based on ‘callous’ and ‘hurtful’.

Based on ‘calling’.

I’m not usually overly-perceptive to nuances in language. It is only my own experience with use of ‘male’ on platforms like this that have tuned me into the nuances.

But this tweet is an absolute shocker built solely upon use of ‘calling’ rather than ‘describing as’.

On the other hand, I may be reading too much into it. 😂