re Opal thread. Yeah, reading meh's comments was like chatterbots from the late 90's or something. This person had no people skills or was trolling. Although I lost it, someone gave me article by meh that indicated he knew of these radicals, knew they'd hit the project eventually, and was basically trolling them. He's probably an asshole. Barely relevant, though, given he made them show true colors by just saying (paraphrased) "we'll only discuss what's relevant to the project, not people's differences." That would be OK if avoiding discrimination was goal. It wasn't. That's because Coraline's group want forced compliance with their views at any cost to target. They showed they'll hit hard and stoop super-low. Those same people also trash folks in their outgroups all the time on Twitter and forums: they have no intention of being nice to us since disagreement = attacks so their attacks they see as self-defense. Warped.

re trans folks. It's more like cultural appropriation to me than calling gay people mentally ill. The two genders were defined in terms of biology (or tradition or religion), they match people well as models, psychology (i.e. life experiences) got added to them, and many people have these beliefs. And then a vocal minority in gender politics said the terms created by religion, biology, etc should have their meaning changed in the minds of all those people since an even rarer group of people disagrees with what those peoples' words should mean. They also want this done to not offend minority members or include them. Yet, a huge chunk of people that disagree with this change are minority members. So, I think rejection of them trying to redefine these words makes sense. I also call them out on not really caring about or protecting minority members if they'll censor and/or damage millions of them to force their beliefs on them.

From there, trans people and others supporting their position told me about things like brain studies showing they were different and they have existed in various cultures. However, as I suspected, at least one brain study someone gave me said the trans people were different than men or women. As in, their own evidence refuted that they were like that gender. Given origins and evidence, my position rejected that trans people were their claimed gender. To me, trans people are a different type of person: an exception to existing categories needing new terms to note that and their preference. So, I'd say "not a woman, but a trans woman." Given I only have three pronouns, I did redefine the pronouns to include them where. Ex: she equals biological woman or trans woman. If not pronouns, I'd note the difference due to the biological and psychological situation with trans woman often being different than biological women.

I support your get along position. I worked to block CoC's elsewhere with one forum having trans people, including a moderator. The debates got tough (esp for them I'd guess). They went with free speech long as civil disagreement with votes able to drop stuff to bottom, but not censor or ban. Results are almost everyone that disagreed are all still there, occasionally teaching each other things or helping each other out. We made it work. That's like we do it in the South for folks trying to tolerate each other's differences, esp in workplace. If Coraline was right, all that would implode or something. They're wrong: we can be civil to each other without analyzing, policing, and dominating on every thought or action. The baseline can be a lower bar with each person doing their part balancing tolerance of what can offend and respecting others boundaries.