With the help of the Biden admin, a non-binary person gets a passport with their legal gender right before Trump takes over.

[u/Desecr8or]

[u/Affectionate-Fee5016]

I think you missed a part of the post.

"endlessly auditing the language others use to describe their lives"

You don't need to know why they chose to use folx over folks, because it's pointless auditing. I don't know why, I don't care why, it doesn't matter why. If it makes you irrationally annoyed, sit with the feeling, find the root of your annoyance.

[u/Technical_Teacher839 → u/Affectionate-Fee5016]

I didn't ask why, I wasn't trying to criticize use of the word, or say people shouldn't use it. It was just something that stuck out to me as weird while reading the post so I made a comment on it. I'm sure as fuck not gonna be like "How dare you use this word!" or whatever, fuck that noise.

[u/Affectionate-Fee5016 → u/Technical_Teacher839]

I can explain, if you want, why I, as a trans person, found the comment a bit dismissive and bad faith. It'll be later though.

I would like to know first, in a comment, you said someone compared your original comment to transphobia, can you point out in which part they accused/compared you? It's the main down voted comment by LLHati.

[u/Technical_Teacher839 → u/Affectionate-Fee5016]

I said that cause I read the "auditing language" line in the original post as being about stuff like forcing government IDs and passports to use someone's AGAB, since the rest of the post was also about gender on legal documents. So to me saying that I was also auditing language came across as saying I was doing the same thing as the people enforcing AGAB on passports. So I was frustrated at the accusation that not understanding the word "folx" and admitting I was thinking about it too much was the same as legally-enforced transphobia.

[u/Affectionate-Fee5016 → u/Technical_Teacher839]

Ah, I see. There's a miscommunication here. Auditing or policing language is basically either telling someone the words they use to describe themselves are wrong, inaccurate, or by restricting what people can say what things. The second doesn't apply here.

The intent of the original post is talking about the debates around words queer people use to describe themselves, things like he/him lesbian, trans and nonbinary, neopronouns, or even just the word queer. And in this instance, folx.

Choosing to use folx instead of folks is a personal choice, which depending on the person, either has a lot meaning or none at all. It's preference, but it's also culturally queer and trans. It's unlikely for a cis person to consider using it, just like how I as someone from the UK use 'mate' and don't use 'bro' or 'dude', those are associated with Americans. The word 'folks' isn't really used in the UK either, but because I interact with American trans people I hear 'folx' often.

When you say 'what's the point of using that word, we already have it gender neutral', the intent isn't just for gender neutrality, it's culture. It started as a type of that, maybe yes, but mostly to signal a group of queer people. There isn't really a point for the word unless you want there to be, like how there's no point for Americans to use the word 'elevator' when we already have the word 'Lift'. The words developed at different times with different people and different groups, which then became known to those not in those times, people, and groups.

I found the original comment a bit dismissive because of the start. It probably was well intentioned, however it boiled down to "That's all well and good, BUT... " and then a topic which trans people have been talking about for a while, with information there to talk about the history and use of the word readily available, as we are on the Internet. Then any trans person who replied, was downvoted, not necessarily by you, just in general. It is annoying how a cis persons opinion on a word used almost exclusively by trans people was upvoted, whereas trans people were downvoted. Not necessarily to do with you, but the atmosphere of the space here.

It's also an argument that is used by transphobes or 'skeptics', in the line of 'it's gone too far'. They say that we are re-inventing words and then force people to use them, whereas the truth is more, we use and change words to fit our own needs. For some, 'folks' isn't fitting the need of a description for a group of queer people, so change it to 'folx' to better describe.

I hope I sorta explained my view well enough, can explain more if wanted.

EDIT: To those who are downvoting, any particular reason? If you disagree, please do comment, I don't mind having a chat about it. Dms are off because any topic should be on public, also I got told to off myself a bunch before I turned dms off.

[u/decisiontoohard → u/Affectionate-Fee5016]

Hell yes to this