I am glad someone is calling the Florida school system on their bullshit. Being non-binary hard and being treated like the coping mechanisms you use for avoiding hating the experience of dealing with people and existing in your body are somehow a delusion, some sort of sexual kink or deliberately confusing is like trying to go about your day with weights strapped to you. It makes dealing with every social interaction so tiring. It really feels like everybody else in the room is obsessed with your sex organs and characteristics like complete perverts that they don’t see the question is about how happy you are and how you feel about all the people in your life and whether you feel anxious and isolated being around them or just comfortable and able to express your full range of personhood.
This teacher is standing up because they know there’s others much worse off who aren’t secure enough to do it. Pretty admirable I think.
Thank you for sharing how thus affects you. It’s important for people to see that this is affecting actual people and not some strawman concept they don’t understand.
It’s something even a lot of my friends don’t even really get. I ended up going to a Birthday party where across the street from the restaurant there was a 250 plus rally of anti-trans protesters with zero counter protesters. We didn’t realize the thing would be there. I ended up not being able to eat because the stress from proximity made me throw up everything.
I know we get called sensitive snowflakes but having that level of outright hate shoved in your face can easily make anyone feel very small and very vulnerable and at some level it’s visceral.
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It’s harder to feel like a capable badass when you’ve borrowed a friend’s hat to cover your rainbow colored hair and are ralphing korean food into a strip mall garbage can.
At some level we as a demographic are sensitive, I can’t really control the way I feel about my body and my place in society. Being out does mean exposing that vulnerability where other people can see. Sensitivity isn’t cowardice but it does mean having to realize where your limits are and how you work. A lot of us learn to put on a tough as nails affect over time so we can get through a regular ass day. Realistically I know I am not a coward any more than I am Superman. I am just doing my best
Not only that, but then have the hate be called “reasonable debate”
As if we aren’t actual real people that just want to exist in the world. It’s like you have to fight against the fucking river in making anyone even believe you that what they are seeing is hate, transphobia.
We’re simply not treated like real people in these debates, and it’s frustrating and exhausting. If they faced the same treatment you would bet they would protest severely.
But I guess that is also the case for cis women in the abortion debate. I guess the debate being about half of the population still isn’t enough for empathy.
Pretty real stuff. A feels like lot of people just want to punch through us to hit somebody on the other side. I can’t say I like the way they frame things about parents rights either. It’s like they want to own their children like property not just be a major influence in their lives. The lack of empathy doesn’t even really extend to their own flesh and blood much less us.
My hometown’s council is like a microcosm of the whole thing. A vocal group storms the trustee meetings to rail on and on about how we need to Protect children from gender ideology, they run over their alloted time so nobody can get any regular business done and the board turns their mic off so they can just function as a government. The “spurned Conservatives” then go to the local paper and tell everyone that their freedom of speech was unjustly curtailed because a hypocritical progressive turned their mic off. The paper prints the story uncritically and all of a sudden we’re a threat to freedom of speech and democracy… They then turn around and say “I’m not transphobic” as though they didn’t just paint us as bogeyman who are dangerous to be around women, kids, polling stations, government, pens and paper etc. etc. etc.
Some days it’s just a lot.
Yeah…
This isn’t calling out Florida schools, this only calls out Florida employers. A teacher can be directed not to talk about gay in matters of education, and can be fired for not following such direction, but they cannot be discriminated against for their own sexual identity as a matter of their employment.
US law is shite.
A lot of people do not draw the distinction between talking about things in an educational context versus it being a way they express themselves for their own needs. Laws like this make people afraid to do so until it is contested because the act of contesting it is itself punitive. The cooling effect is implicit in the design of the law because it recognizes law removes people’s ability to support themselves in a society before it has a chance to be tested meaning only the secure of a minority under extreme fire can contest it and that means becoming very visible in circumstances where one’s safety often relies on being invisible.
This teacher is likely under extreme fire right now by a mob of people telling them they are a pedophile, delusional, harmful and trying to exploit every shred of exposed weaknesses to gendered nonsense one naturally lets be known when one comes out as non-binary.
Where legal protections are shaky schools will fire teachers under concerns for that teacher’s physical and mental safety if enough parents are valued at being a threat by feeling empowered by their interpretation of the law or the idea that a school is operating outside the law. Ultimately running a school is government money that needs to be paid so an employee going up against a school board for wrongful dismissal will not impact the individual school as much when the main currency for the school board employees is time and complexity of a bunch of individual parents suing because their little darling asked them what someone calling themselves Mx. means when they came home.
That’s a good point. Gorsuch’s surprising cross over to rule with the liberal justices in a recent supreme court ruling (Bostock vs Clayton County) allowed gender and sexual identifies to be protected by current federal employment law. The very logical conclusion that comes from, any discrimination on the basis of sexual or gender identity revolves around a person’ s assigned sex at birth, which is definitely prohibited, and you can’t discriminate on those things without it being an illegal discrimination test based on sex. Basically if you fire someone assigned male at birth for wearing a dress but not someone assigned female at birth for wearing a dress, this is sex discrimination, already protected by current federal law. Similarly if you’re firing a male for marrying a male but not firing a female for marrying a male, than that’s sex discrimination already prohibited by current law.
Unfortunately I don’t know if the current Supreme Court reasoning would extend the existing federal law to protect non binary honorifics, since the school could argue it would fire anyone using a non binary honorific regardless of that person’s assigned sex at birth. Though maybe if you could get the school to admit they’d allow a non binary honorific for an intersex individual that would open up the door for non binary protections too via current law? But this is why we need a real updated federal law explicity protecting against discrimination on the basis of sexual and gender identifies, including non binary identities. In the meantime the states that do have explicit protections in their state laws are going to be much better places for non cis and hetero people to work in.
Very interesting and informative, thanks.
We absolutely do need updated Federal law, discrimination in general should be simplified and more comprehensive. It’s somewhat strange that Title II doesn’t cover sex - I can understand why (eg women’s hostels only allowing women) but I feel this should be an exception to a rule, not an absence of any rule whatsoever. Title II already has an exemption for “private clubs” so it wouldn’t be that unusual.
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Title VII of the Civil Rights Act explicitly prohibits discrimination because of sex in matters of employment. Florida is free to prevent teachers from teaching things, but they cannot fire people for their own sexual identity, per federal law.
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Meanwhile, Title II of CRA covers interstate commerce and prohibits discrimination because of race, color, religion, or national origin - but not sex. Under Federal Law, if your business has a lot of out of state customers (primarily hospitality) or includes supply chains that cross state lines, you can’t discriminate on race, etc but you can discriminate on sex.
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The 14th Amendment states that the law must apply to everyone equally. However, this only applies to governments (and their contractors) - a black person cannot be refused to be heard in court and a gay person cannot be refused a marriage.
The way US law is supposed to work is that states can set their own laws where Federal Law doesn’t cover it. However, they must do this within the bounds of Federal Law. This is why we have 1st Amendment challenges against state laws that fill in the gaps of federal law - a business can discriminate based on sex, or any other reason (so long as they don’t fall under Title II), even if state law says otherwise.
US law is so shit. It’s unnecessarily hard to read, distributed across multiple yet interwoven jurisdictions, and full of holes. But hey, at least it isn’t financial regulations - reading those will cause a sane person to lose the will to live.
TL;DR This should be a slam dunk for the teacher, per Federal Law: Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which overrules anything the states write. However, who knows how the current Supreme Court might try to spin it - if they even opt to hear it (they absolutely should).
The teacher will make millions from the settlement, paid squarely out of the pocket of working Floridians. And despite that, half the state will continue voting for politicians and supporting police whose actions have no real consequences for them - the tax payers will foot the bill for their actions. Until we start hitting these people in their own pocket books and pensions, their behavior won’t change.
This may not be the slam dunk you think it is. To the best of my understanding, the current coverage under title vii for gender and sexuality has only been extended so far as “would this behaviour be unacceptable for the opposite sex?”
Florida could argue (within the scope of existing supreme Court decisions) that the use of certain “new” titles are never acceptable, regardless of the person’s sex.
As written, the rule is illegal, but it could possibly be upheld in the context of this specific case.
They would have to argue that sex and gender are not the same thing in court, under oath. It’s been a longstanding argument for the GOP that they are the same. And if they argue biological sex and gender are not 1:1, then they’re acknowledging that a different gender identity than one’s birth sex is possible, and setting that precedent immediately takes the wind out of a lot of their arguments on transgender folk.
They’ll be happy to say one thing in public and argue another in court. For example, when Fox News argued that a reasonable person is not expected to believe anything Tucker Carlson is saying.
This may not be the slam dunk you think it is.
Yeah, that’s why I said “should”.
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However, regular guys from Florida succeeded in being waaaay worse than the memed Florida Man, good job guys
“Florida Man” is a representation of all the US. The only difference is that Florida allows the publication of personal information about people for merely being arrested, let alone accused or even actually convicted of a crime. This gives a disproportionate view of how bad Florida is - it isn’t that much worse than most other US states.
But it is worse. The whole state is literally a swamp, and Ron DeSantis is a war criminal, alongside his criminal actions as Governor (eg using ringfenced state money to benefit other states and his friend who owns a chartered airline business).
Florida Mx if you want to lose your job.
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.Just wait until Mike Johnson allows a convention of the states (state governments are predominantly Republican, in contrast to the majority of state and national population) where they rewrite state adherance to the Constitution and every federal civil rights law they don’t want states to have to adhere to - but not the ones you hold dear.
We call people what they want to be called. (Credit for this to Charlie Worroll from Crimelines and other podcasts)
Repression has historically always won… right? !
Thank you for giving your insight on this. For a long time I had a hard time grasping what non-binary meant and it took some NB friends of mine explaining it to me for get it finally (not that I needed that understanding to accept them, but I truly wanted to understand what being NB meant) and I think people sharing how these horrible policies affect them opens the door for understanding.
Online Public School, what’s that?
My brother did Florida Virtual School and graduated in 2011 or so. It was actually pretty great, and what they should have switched all the students to during COVID. It’s exactly what it sounds like, online coursework, just like if you’ve ever taken a college class online, but its a public high school option meaning its free. Some stuff doesn’t work quite as well, the lab kit they sent my brother to use wasn’t quite as good as my in person lab classes. Florida actually invested the time and money to make it good because a lot of child actors and some of the kids training at sports schools use it.
Edit: to clarify, “public” in the US means state government funded, I’m aware that some places mean the opposite when they talk about public/private schools.
It’s a public school that’s attended primarily online.
When I was enrolled in one, they had us do 99% of our work at home, and we could do the work at our own pace, but we had to come in to the building to take the more important tests to move to the next semester-equivalent. That was to make sure that we weren’t cheating like we were fully able to do for the regular tests, because this was before spyware was the norm.
It was great for anyone who could stay motivated to do school work and would go out of their way to interact with other students, and it was the worst possible method of schooling for my lazy, unsociable ass. I’d likely not have graduated if my high school hadn’t started giving what basically amounted to a GED test for seniors who couldn’t pass their classes in time. I knew the stuff, I just refused to actually do the stuff. Highly recommend for extraverts. Cannot recommend for introverts.
How about we come up with a better term rather than use a stupid one that someone has to tell you how to pronounce.
To be fair Mrs. (And to a lesser extent Mr.) Don’t have an obvious pronunciation from the spelling either. You’ve just been hearing them said out loud for most of your life.
Fair, but they are also shorthand for words: Mister, Miss, Missus. All of which are pronounced as you’d expect.
Is Mx short for something? I’ve not heard so but that doesn’t mean it isn’t.
Apparently it’s short for “Mix”. I only learned that in this post, which suggests it’s far from established - I assumed it was along the lines of “latino/latina -> latinx”.
Obligatory “Latine” is the preferred gender neutral term for spanish speakers because it actually follows the gendering rules of the language, rather than english speakers making shit up.
Yesss that sounds far better.
Even if it sounds close to a word for “toilet” - but then, half the argument revolves around toilets.
Let people piss and shit in peace.
It takes 10 seconds to learn its pronounced mix. Its not difficult in the slightest
I’m not saying it’s difficult to teach or learn, but if you first encounter it in a book are you going to know it’s pronounced “mix?” And if you hear is are you going to know it’s spelled “Mx?” You can argue difficulty all you want but if you have something that is spelled how it sounds and pronounced how it looks it’s still easier and there will be less confusion.
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Where was @Alexstarfire@lemmy.world supposed to have learned that definition before this thread? Where were the students of this teacher’s class supposed to have learned it?
Given that English adopts definitions based on a critical mass of people using it, why should Mx. be adopted when it is only used by an exceedingly small minority?
Where were the students of this teacher’s class supposed to have learned it?
“Hello class, I’m mix Jones. I’ll be your teacher this year”
Or you know, you could just ask. Not a burden in the slightest. Why should I learn how to say your name? The answer is it’s a matter of respect.
Where were the students of this teacher’s class supposed to have learned it?“Hello class, I’m mix Jones. I’ll be your teacher this year”
That is the real nuance in this case. A teacher is not allowed to “say gay” to their students under Florida state law. However, an employee cannot be discriminated against for their sex under Federal law.
By a plain reading of the law, a gay teacher cannot be fired for being gay. A reasonable extension of that is that they cannot be fired for explaining to students that they are gay. This should hold true for any sexual characteristics that the teacher holds. Federal law overrules state law, thus, even though the state finds it illegal, they should still be protected under Federal law. It might be different if the teacher talked about other people being gay when they are not, but Federal law protects them against discrimination for their sex.
The question is whether “sex” includes being gay, or non-standard gender definitions. I think and hope it does. I worry that the current Supreme Court might rule otherwise.
Or you know, you could just ask… Why should I learn how to say your name?
These two statements kind of contradict each other. Asking implies you need to learn something new. There’s nothing wrong with asking or learning something new, but the person presenting a new idea should be prepared that it is a new idea for people to learn, which people might not immediately accept. That doesn’t excuse discrimination, but neither is acceptance demandable.
Once some critical mass of a population has accepted the new terminology, then and only then should acceptance be expected - and even then, that only applies to that specific population.
I mean if you see “Mx” and you don’t assume it’s pronounced “mix”, you might have some elementary language difficulties. I understand not being sure, but it is pronounced how it’s spelled.
I don’t see anything stupid about this, but if you have better ideas, let’s hear them.
The better idea is not to make up terminology that only suits you and an exceptionally small minority and then expect everyone else to adopt it.
By all means, define yourself as you like - but don’t expect others to immediately recognise that definition without reasonable explanation.
This case has nuance. On the one hand, a teacher in Florida is not allowed to talk about gay people or anything about alternate genders, per state law. On the other, Federal Law states that no one can be fired over matters regarding sex. Federal law overrules any laws states make, hence the ruling in 303 Creative vs Elenis, however the question is what “sex” covers in the Federal domain.
What honorific should nonbinary people use?
Whatever they like, and other people should be reasonably accommodating to that. Meanwhile, people using rarer honorifics should be accepting that others might find it unusual and sometimes hard to remember.
I think most of them do accept that. Just like most trans people accept that their friends might mess up on gender on occasion after they transition.
fake school upset by fake honorific
All words are “fake”
Mx. isn’t fake. People get to be called what they desire.
To a certain extent. How about profanities or protected titles (such as dr.) or another people’s identities?
What an excellent strawman. Shoo, troll. No one is suggesting that.
Same to you, strawman… Im on your side with this, but you did say people can be called whatever they desire… here I am, I want to be doctor. 🤷🏻♂️
What makes a word a fake word?
How do you even say that? “Mexico Smith, can I get a hall pass?”
I agree that Mx is made up bullshit, much like “Latinx” is nonsense in Spanish, but the law does not make any such distinction. You cannot be discriminated against in your job based on your sexual identity, even if you identified as an Apache helicopter (“oh yes daddy, let me fuck you in your missile tubes” - “hah, as if you’d even touch the sides”).
Boo, get new material.
Seriously, sexually identifying as an Apache helicopter? Go back to edgy 2012.
I’m merely pointing to that as a ridiculous exception that is still technically valid in this instance. Sexual identity is a protected class, if only in matters of employment.
Frankly, I think it should be a universally protected class, in almost all cases and for all classifications, but it bears mentioning the limitations of the law.
Like “mix”. It’s fairly simple to most people who have common sense and aren’t actively trying to be offended over nothing.
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I pronounce it phonetically precisely because this is not an abbreviation of any word. But honestly I have no idea, this asking.
”Good morning, I am Mx. Vary, your science teacher." That’s it, that’s all you need for the entire year.
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And I thought it is m-ex, like reading the letter “x”.
It’s pronounced emacs
I thought that they were declaring themselves as a mail exchange
I’m more of a ‘vi’ guy.
:q
It’s not immediately intuitive in my opinion, but it does make sense once you remember that other M- honorifics start “Mi”. Mister, missus, miss. Then it makes sense to follow, mix.
I think some people use it one way and others the other. I don’t think there’s one universal correct way.
I’ve heard it both ways. I’m sure no one would be offended either way you say it.
Your version of “common sense” in this situation only applies to a small minority that naturally extrapolates beyond the meaning of the statement alone.
“Mx.” as a prefix is not in any way established in common vernacular, nor does it easily make sense unless you assume they’re doing something specific that most people don’t do.
However, the law says that anyone is free to do so as they please; you can sexually identify in any way and must not be discriminated against for that in terms of your employment.
You’re the divisive one here, suggesting people are hateful for having legitimate questions.
It’s so simple, just like Mr. Is pronounced merr.
You’re very much part of the problem.
I don’t remember writing that anyone was hateful. Actively trying to be offended, yes. Legitimate questions ask questions like this “So how is Mx pronounced?”. The comment was I replied to intended to mock it, not ask in good faith. But see, you’d have to come to that conclusion by using common sense, so here we are again.
It’s not “fairly simple if you have common sense”. The known abbreviations have been in use for a hundred or more years and are widely known. Everyone knows how to pronounce them, the only curveball is Mrs being misses since it was originallymistress but that word later became associated with cheating and “ladies of the night”.
Mx was made up recently, it stands for nothing AFAIK. They just took the standard M beginning and slapped X on it because X tends to mean “unknown”.
It’s akin to asking you to address me as “Zf. Cat” because that’s what makes me feel comfortable.
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They weren’t introduced in anything like an analogous way. Mr and Mrs evolved slowly over decades and even centuries from older forms referring to master and mistress.
I don’t have a strong opinion about Mx either way, but as an amateur linguistics nerd I can assure you that the way it’s been introduced to our lexicon is very different from these much older terms.
Yep, language flows and changes over long periods of time, not through a court order or “marginalized” people screaming “we want our own pronoun that we just came up with to be culturally except! If you don’t comply, you are an insensitive asshole!”
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Most floppy disks aren’t floppy either, so maybe not the best example.
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Ok, Zf. Cat :) If that makes you feel comfortable it costs me nothing to be considerate of your preference. See?
Now you have to remember that for every interaction with me. If you happen to call me sometime else, I’ll grit my teeth and have to correct you or if I’m an asshole, I’ll berate you about it, constantly. You will also have to refer to me as Zf. Cat to everyone you know, regardless of whether or not they know me, or are in my presence.
You should be asking yourself why you assume the person would react angrily instead of just politely correcting the pronunciation. If someone accidentally mispronounces my name I gently correct them, while smiling, and I have never once been offended or take it personally. You also assume it is a heavy burden on others to simply call people what they’d like to be called. When it is not. Being angry over this is not a healthy attitude. It’s simple manners to be considerate of others and that is precisely what the person is asking for, nothing more.
If you have to correct someone about your name/title every single time it gets pretty damn annoying. I met a girl years ago whose name was spelled Remy but pronounced Ray-me she said “I hate my parents for it” (I doubt she actually hated her parents, but hated the fact that they gave her a “bad” name).
You don’t need to have kids call you weird names, it’s really not necessary. Just be normal.
Just be normal.
People are normal no matter what honorific or pronouns they prefer. Bigots on the other hand can suck it.
My mistake, it’s definitely lamron to ask little kids to call you “Mx”.
Well I guess you confirmed you’re a Hoover.
“Just be normal” is the first step toward “just be straight” then “just be white” then “just be Christian” then “just be our version of Christian”. Why can’t people just be who they are? Like, literally no one is hurting anyone in this scenario, yet your absolute paper thin fragile porcelain toilet of an ego is hurt because the teacher isn’t exactly how you picture the ideal person your children think the world is filled with.
What if who they are is a literal Nazi? Do the get to just be who they are too?
Read my comment again. No one is being hurt here. That’s the one part that matters.
