Caleb posted the following to Christianity.SE's meta (excerpted):
Personally I have yet to face the specific issue [pronouns], nobody to my knowledge has taken offense at the pronouns I used for them. But the "law" laid down quite suddenly and directly to moderators by several staff members was that henceforth we all had to do whatever was requested of us. It used to be that the ground rules were limited to a "be nice" policy that could have been boiled down to "if you can't say something nice don't say anything at all", and how that was enforced varied a bit by site. Even though I often disagree with the world at large on what is considered nice and constructive, I can usually figure out how to live within a system with boundaries. You can do X, but not Y. Given the framework of this secular platform those were rules I could play by.
What changed is this: now it isn't enough to not be rude to people you disagree with, the new policy forces us to positively affirm things we don't agree with. Even disengaging has been ruled out as an allowable solution, since that's discrimination and potentially hurtful. That avoidance of potentially compromising scenarios is not allowed has been directly affirmed by staff members several times over the weekend.
If person A comes along and demands that I refer to them by their "preferred pronoun" (even if it is a mismatch for their genetic sex or the grammar of the language being spoken) and I refuse, that's considered an insult. Now if I avoid pronouns altogether by sticking to proper names or disengaging from the individual, that's being considered an insult too.
I have added emphasis in a few places to focus on what the actual policy is. I do not endorse Caleb's opinion; this answer is strictly a factual description of what the new policy is. Anyone wanting to discuss whether this policy is a Good Idea, please ask a separate question.
Finally, my read of this, in a slightly more neutral tone of voice:
- Use of a person's preferred pronouns will be required.
- Deliberately avoiding trans people, or using their names instead of pronouns, will be disallowed.
- Moderators will (probably?) be required to enforce these rules against regular users.
As multiple people have pointed out in the comments, we don't know for sure that this is accurate or complete. However, I've seen several other moderators talk about this in more vague terms on other metas, and I've not yet seen anyone directly contradict the above summary.
