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This post describes the experience of a user (whose pronouns happen to be similar to mine). The pronouns were a derivative of the user name. To sum up the post, these pronouns were removed from this users profile, and an about me from one Stack Exchange site was copied over to all Stack Exchange sites, including those sites where the user had an anonymized profile.

I do not know this user personally, but by post history, the user does not appear to be a troll at all. In fact, this user appears to be an ally, who, by identifying with nonstandard pronouns, is expressing a de facto non-binary gender identity and being punished and mocked for it.

Why not just report this as a CoC violation

I have written this as a post rather than using the Contact Me mechanism because I believe, now that we have seen a clear example of CoC enforcement being used to restrict nonnormative gender expression, the issue of unfamiliar moderators policing gender needs to be discussed by the community and addressed in that context. For that matter, I feel for the moderator and staff member in question. I believe they are trying their best, and should not have been asked to do this.

Is this a duplicate?

This is not a duplicate of the suggested post. It is relevant to discuss the manner in which current actual enforcement is being used to punish and mock non-normative gender expression, which is counter to the intention of the CoC changes. We've had a number of posts discussing concerns about a hypothetical troll, offering statistics about how normal or abnormal individual pronoun sets might be. This post is about the actual effect of requiring untrained and unfamiliar people to use their judgement to determine whether a user’s gender expression is appropriate. It is in the context of actual, not hypothetical, actions taken by staff and moderators, and whether we should reconsider the methods this site now uses to regulate the gender expression of its users.

How can we avoid the problems policing gender expression has brought up?

This post describes the experience of a user (whose pronouns happen to be similar to mine). The pronouns were a derivative of the user name.

To summarize the post, pronouns were removed from this user's profile and an about me from one Stack Exchange site was copied over to all Stack Exchange sites, including those sites where the user had an anonymized profile.

I do not know this user personally, but by post history, the user does not appear to be a troll at all. In fact, this user appears to be an ally who, by identifying with nonstandard pronouns, is expressing a de facto non-binary gender identity and being punished and mocked for this.

Why not just report this as a CoC violation?

I have written this as a post rather than using the Contact Me mechanism because I believe, now that we have seen a clear example of CoC enforcement being used to restrict nonnormative gender expression, the issue of unfamiliar moderators policing gender needs to be discussed by the community and addressed in that context. For that matter, I empathize with the moderator and staff member in question. I believe they are trying their best and should not have been asked to do this.

Is this question a duplicate?

This is not a duplicate of the suggested post. It is relevant to discuss the manner in which current actual enforcement is being used to punish and mock non-normative gender expression, which is counter to the intention of the CoC changes.

We've had several posts discussing concerns about a hypothetical troll, offering statistics about how normal or abnormal individual neopronouns might be. This post is about the actual effect of requiring untrained and unfamiliar people to use their judgement to determine whether a user’s gender expression is appropriate. It is in the context of actual, not hypothetical, actions taken by staff and moderators, and whether we should reconsider the methods this site now uses to regulate the gender expression of its users.

How can we avoid the problems created by policing users' gender expression?

This post describes the experience of a user (whose pronouns happen to be similar to mine). The pronouns were a derivative of the user name.

To sum up the post, these pronouns were removed from this users profile, and an about me from one Stack Exchange site was copied over to all Stack Exchange sites, including those sites where the user had an anonymized profile.

A moderator responded to the post explaining that a staff member had done this, speculating that it was because the pronouns were not considered legitimate. I can see why a person who is not familiar with non-normative gender expression could think this. It happens to be a manner of gender expression that is used by others (though this is a highly problematic standard, equating a valid gender expression with one that conforms to norms). It is also similar to my gender expression on this site (though, again, I hate to have to use myself as a norm against which other gender expressions should be measured). Regardless, it does not use offensive content. It was believed to be inappropriate merely because it was that user’s name not a pronoun. That is the wrong standard.

I do not know this user personally, but by their post history, they do not appear to be a troll at all. They in fact appear to be an ally who, by identifying with nonstandard pronouns, is expressing a de-facto non-binary gender identity and being punished and mocked for this.

Why not just report this as a CoC violation?

I have written this as a post rather than using the Contact Me mechanism because I believe, now that we have seen a clear example of CoC enforcement being used to restrict non-normative gender expression, the issue of unfamiliar moderators policing gender needs to be discussed by the community and addressed in that context. For that matter, I feel sorry for the staff member in question. I believe they were trying their best but should not have been asked to do this without proper training.

Is this question a duplicate?

This is not a duplicate of the suggested post. It is relevant to discuss the manner in which current actual enforcement is being used to punish and mock non-normative gender expression, which is counter to the intention of the CoC changes.

We've had several posts discussing concerns about a hypothetical troll, offering statistics about how normal or abnormal individual neopronouns might be. This post is about the actual effect of requiring untrained and unfamiliar people to use their judgement to determine whether a user’s gender expression is appropriate. It is in the context of actual, not hypothetical, actions taken by staff and moderators, and whether we should reconsider the methods this site now uses to regulate compliance with its users’ expressed gender expression.

How can we avoid the problems created by policing users’ gender expression?

This post describes the experience of a user (whose pronouns happen to be similar to mine). The pronouns were a derivative of the user name. To sum up the post, these pronouns were removed from this users profile, and an about me from one Stack Exchange site was copied over to all Stack Exchange sites, including those sites where the user had an anonymized profile.

A moderator responded to the post explaining that a staff member had done this, speculating that it was because the pronouns were not considered legitimate. I can see why a person who is not familiar with nonnormative gender expression could think this. It happens to be a manner of gender expression that is used by others (though this is a highly problematic standard, equating a valid gender expression with one that conforms to norms). It is also similar to my gender expression on this site (though, again, I hate to have to use myself as a norm against which other gender expressions should be measured). Regardless, it does not use offensive content. It was believed to be inappropriate merely because it was unique. That is the wrong standard.

I do not know this user personally, but by post history, the user does not appear to be a troll at all. In fact, this user appears to be an ally, who, by identifying with nonstandard pronouns, is expressing a de facto non-binary gender identity and being punished and mocked for it.

Why not just report this as a CoC violation

I have written this as a post rather than using the Contact Me mechanism because I believe, now that we have seen a clear example of CoC enforcement being used to restrict nonnormative gender expression, the issue of unfamiliar moderators policing gender needs to be discussed by the community and addressed in that context. For that matter, I feel for the moderator and staff member in question. I believe they are trying their best, and should not have been asked to do this.

Is this a duplicate?

This is not a duplicate of the suggested post. It is relevant to discuss the manner in which current actual enforcement is being used to punish and mock non-normative gender expression, which is counter to the intention of the CoC changes. We've had a number of posts discussing concerns about a hypothetical troll, offering statistics about how normal or abnormal individual pronoun sets might be. This post is about the actual effect of requiring untrained and unfamiliar people to use their judgement to determine whether a user’s gender expression is appropriate. It is in the context of actual, not hypothetical, actions taken by staff and moderators, and whether we should reconsider the methods this site now uses to regulate the gender expression of its users.

How can we avoid the problems policing gender expression has brought up?

This post describes the experience of a user (whose pronouns happen to be similar to mine). The pronouns were a derivative of the user name. To sum up the post, these pronouns were removed from this users profile, and an about me from one Stack Exchange site was copied over to all Stack Exchange sites, including those sites where the user had an anonymized profile.

A moderator responded to the post explaining that a staff member had done this, speculating that it was because the pronouns were not considered legitimate. I can see why a person who is not familiar with nonnormative gender expression could think this. It happens to be a manner of gender expression that is used by others (though this is a highly problematic standard, equating a valid gender expression with one that conforms to norms). It is also similar to my gender expression on this site (though, again, I hate to have to use myself as a norm against which other gender expressions should be measured). Regardless, it does not use offensive content. It was believed to be inappropriate merely because it was unique. That is the wrong standard.

I do not know this user personally, but by post history, the user does not appear to be a troll at all. In fact, this user appears to be an ally, who, by identifying with nonstandard pronouns, is expressing a de facto non-binary gender identity and being punished and mocked for it.

Why not just report this as a CoC violation

I have written this as a post rather than using the Contact Me mechanism because I believe, now that we have seen a clear example of CoC enforcement being used to restrict nonnormative gender expression, the issue of unfamiliar moderators policing gender needs to be discussed by the community and addressed in that context. For that matter, I feel for the moderator and staff member in question. I believe they are trying their best, and should not have been asked to do this.

Is this a duplicate?

This is not a duplicate of the suggested post. It is relevant to discuss the manner in which current actual enforcement is being used to punish and mock non-normative gender expression, which is counter to the intention of the CoC changes. We've had a number of posts discussing concerns about a hypothetical troll, offering statistics about how normal or abnormal individual pronoun sets might be. This post is about the actual effect of requiring untrained and unfamiliar people to use their judgement to determine whether a user’s gender expression is appropriate. It is in the context of actual, not hypothetical, actions taken by staff and moderators, and whether we should reconsider the methods this site now uses to regulate the gender expression of its users.

How can we avoid the problems policing gender expression has brought up?

This post describes the experience of a user (whose pronouns happen to be similar to mine). The pronouns were a derivative of the user name.

To sum up the post, these pronouns were removed from this users profile, and an about me from one Stack Exchange site was copied over to all Stack Exchange sites, including those sites where the user had an anonymized profile.

A moderator responded to the post explaining that a staff member had done this, speculating that it was because the pronouns were not considered legitimate. I can see why a person who is not familiar with non-normative gender expression could think this. It happens to be a manner of gender expression that is used by others (though this is a highly problematic standard, equating a valid gender expression with one that conforms to norms). It is also similar to my gender expression on this site (though, again, I hate to have to use myself as a norm against which other gender expressions should be measured). Regardless, it does not use offensive content. It was believed to be inappropriate merely because it was that user’s name not a pronoun. That is the wrong standard.

I do not know this user personally, but by their post history, they do not appear to be a troll at all. They in fact appear to be an ally who, by identifying with nonstandard pronouns, is expressing a de-facto non-binary gender identity and being punished and mocked for this.

Why not just report this as a CoC violation?

I have written this as a post rather than using the Contact Me mechanism because I believe, now that we have seen a clear example of CoC enforcement being used to restrict non-normative gender expression, the issue of unfamiliar moderators policing gender needs to be discussed by the community and addressed in that context. For that matter, I feel sorry for the staff member in question. I believe they were trying their best but should not have been asked to do this without proper training.

Is this question a duplicate?

This is not a duplicate of the suggested post. It is relevant to discuss the manner in which current actual enforcement is being used to punish and mock non-normative gender expression, which is counter to the intention of the CoC changes.

We've had several posts discussing concerns about a hypothetical troll, offering statistics about how normal or abnormal individual neopronouns might be. This post is about the actual effect of requiring untrained and unfamiliar people to use their judgement to determine whether a user’s gender expression is appropriate. It is in the context of actual, not hypothetical, actions taken by staff and moderators, and whether we should reconsider the methods this site now uses to regulate compliance with its users’ expressed gender expression.

How can we avoid the problems created by policing users’ gender expression?