9:48pm June 20, 2014

clatterbane-youneedacat-madeofpatterns

clatterbane:

youneedacat:

madeofpatterns:

ajax-daughter-of-telamon:

blood-and-vitriol:

ajax-daughter-of-telamon:

madeofpatterns:

iguanafish replied to your post “Also using really really long phrases isn’t an effective way to…”

I saw someone…

Yes. Sorry if I didn’t make it as clear as possible that I am not actually comfortable with any of the options brought up.

Assignment-based terms do seem like about the least bad option to me, personally, if someone does need something more general than addressing specific relevant physical characteristics in a given medical context. Pretty much on the grounds you mentioned: “But at a bare minimum it acknowledges that hey, somebody decided on the basis of these features that I belonged in *this* box (without explicitly endorsing that assignment).”

Better put than I was trying to rephrase it.

That’s looking like about the best we can do, with the caveats also mentioned. There aren’t a lot of good options. But, that is just my own personal take on the matter.

I mostly wish things were not set up in ways that trying to figure out stuff like this—in ways that hopefully do less harm to actual human beings trying to live our lives—would even seem necessary.

I also wish that people who were seriously trying to figure out the best option, and coming up with none, and ending up using some other option, because it’s the best we can find, weren’t treated as if we were creating the problem.

Notes: