Is failing to use a transgendered person's preferred name and pronouns discrimination, and should it be punishable by fines/imprisonment?

Question

The California state senate does.  We'll see if the other organs of the California state legislative process feel the same.

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180SB219

"...the bill would make it unlawful...for any long-term care facility to...willfully and repeatedly [fail] to use a resident’s preferred name or pronouns after being clearly informed of the preferred name or pronouns..."

It would be a misdemeanor punishable by a $1000 fine and/or a year in prison.

"But how can you be against being respectful to sick people and old people!"

Because this is how it starts.  The government and I have a deal, signed upon by my forefathers, where it agrees, among other things, to not punish me for my words.

The government is beginning to break its deal with me.

So do the words you use to describe someone now fall outside of the realm of protected speech, and can using the wrong words make you guilty of committing a crime?  Bonus points to the first ignoramus to talk about crowded fires in theaters.

This is a question for the Politics board.

Anonymous · Answer

It is rude and it can be used to discriminate.. however it shouldn't be a punishable offense except in certain circumstances. Like if you are following someone around the street shouting pronouns at them.

Sasha Whitefur · Answer

It's impolite, if done deliberately.

Cam · Answer

This is about a long term care facility, not a casual on the street interaction, these are extremely different things.

A person in a long term care facility is there for all major functions of their life, it is their home and the people who interact with them in this context are nurses, caretakers, etc. who have vast amounts of power in regards to that person's day to day life activities.

Any sort of repeated ignoring of the person's basic wishes and autonomy in that context is a very intimate violation and this is a form of day to day harassment from someone who the victim has to rely on for basic survival.  This is a worker/client or doctor/patient interaction not a casual situation.  And, yes, this treatment should be punished with fines and imprisonment, it's a form of harassment and abuse of a person who absolutely cannot escape that situation otherwise.

Your hatred of disabled people and desire to deny basic rights to those in long term care is as glaring here as your hatred for transgender people.

STEVEN F · Answer

That law is PATENTLY ABSURD.  What does it say about refusing to accept a person that insists on being called anything other than what appears on their birth certificate?

? · Answer

Liberals are succeeding at taking psychiatric conditions.....and, calling them " normal."

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Is failing to use a transgendered person's preferred name and pronouns discrimination, and should it be punishable by fines/imprisonment?

5 Answers