RE: Content Usable pronouns and Tal

Hi John,

I’ll start with the caveat that I have little personal experience here, and I defer to those who do. (And chair-hat off.)

To me, it would be odd not to include someone with a non-binary pronoun once you have more than a handful of personas.  We have people in the W3C community using non-binary pronouns, and advice in the CEPC about it. Things change.

On your 4 points:

  1.  Internationalisation: This won’t be the first thing to be translated into any particular language that includes a plural pronoun. W3C documents rarely talk about people(!), but other documents that get translated must do. If it really isn’t possible, translators could use a different name & pronoun, it isn’t normative language.

  2.  Extending to all personas: My understanding is that providing pronouns for everyone is recommended but not required. The goal isn’t to “neutralize or normalize” anything, it’s to be inclusive of different people, so we wouldn’t be making a statement for all the personas.

  3.  Ethnicity/race: The personas do indicate a variety of ethnicities, and the language used for Tal is about as subtle as it can be, like the other indicators.

  4.  Form scenario: Using a scenario with a form that doesn’t offer more than male/female options doesn’t seem very relevant to Dyslexia and Impaired Eye Hand Coordination.  That would go beyond what the persona is aiming to convey.

For me, the aim is representation with a variety of (hypothetical) people. It is not a big step in any particular direction, and it’s not aiming to change anyone’s views. It is just a small thing where we can try to show inclusiveness.

Kind regards,

-Alastair


From: John Foliot

Hi Rachael,

I echo the comment regarding the sensitive exploration of this topic. Sadly, at this time I prefer Option 4 - remove this reference.

I offer this perspective with the following items to consider:

  1.  As I noted on Tuesday's call, we are authoring to an international audience: multiple languages, multiple societal perspectives, multiple cultures. It is laudable that there is a desire to demonstrate a sense of openness and acceptance within the W3C, but is that really our remit?
Here we are (supposed to be) focused on the needs of persons with disabilities, and specifically users with cognitive disabilities. As an open question, is Tal's preference to be referred to as they/them/theirs part of their disability? (And sadly, that could be an assumption of some readers, especially as authored now.) Is the TF sensitive to the fact that they may be perpetuating a stereotype that non-binary gender recognition is considered a "mental defect" in some cultures? Is that really the message we want to be sending?
  2.  I note that with regard to 'label preferences', Tal's is the only persona that mentions a preference. Why is this? If the goal is to neutralize or normalize non-binary 'labels', then why are we only labeling one persona with this information? Is the assumption that all the other personas prefer to use more traditional 'labels', or that Tal is the only non-binary persona? If we must continue to include this information, then it should be extended to all of the personas.
  3.  While we are at it, what about race/ethnicity? While the name "Gopal" suggests a heritage from south-asia (India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, etc.), and "Kwame" suggests a name-origin from the African continent (assumptions/presumptions), we make no direct reference to race or ethnicity in our personas - why then highlight sexuality/gender?  (We are all hearing lately of a significant uptick in racism directed to those of Asian decent, so oppression comes in many forms)
  4.  If we *are* going to invoke one or more non-bianry personas as part of our collection (which I do not agree with, but...), and related to cognitive disabilities, why isn't the one persona who doesn't adhere to traditional labels like this have, as one of the case studies, struggling with a form that doesn't offer additional options beyond Male or Female? (we've all seen these forms before). I mean, if we're going to highlight user-struggles, that would seem to me to clearly be one for any user who does not use male or Female (and the 'trouble' may be amplified for some users with some forms of cognitive disability).
This isn't a hill to die on, but I worry that we're headed toward a slippery slope. The W3C is a technical standards organization, and I personally feel that we should not stray too far from that remit: we can be supportive of societal change (heck, we're all trying to make the world change, to improve things for users with disabilities), however there is such a thing as trying to boil the ocean.

Here, I see little true value: I see a potential for some pushback internationally, I see a squandered opportunity (the forms issue), and I see what appears to me to be tokenism. I respect the desire to be as inclusive as possible, but perhaps we should focus on one task at a time?

With respect.

JF

On Tue, Mar 23, 2021 at 5:02 PM Rachael Bradley Montgomery <rachael@accessiblecommunity.org<mailto:rachael@accessiblecommunity.org>> wrote:
Hello,

Thank you for the thoughtful discussion at today's meeting about the plural pronoun used in Tal. A resource you can read if this is a new area for you is https://www.mypronouns.org/


We discussed the following options:

  1.  no change
  2.  add it in 1 or 2 places in the main persona
  3.  Tal like to be referred to (pronouns) as Tal/they/them/theirs
  4.  change the persona to remove gender diversity
  5.  use the pronouns as frequently as would be used naturally
COGA had voted against 5 because of readability and translatability challenges and compromised with using the minimal pronouns in option 1.  I have created a google document with all of the options at  https://docs.google.com/document/d/18FabK-X1AgOMPqG2YydOrcyl1d89rHxbcfqso2du1vo/edit#<https://docs.google.com/document/d/18FabK-X1AgOMPqG2YydOrcyl1d89rHxbcfqso2du1vo/edit>

Please take a look and weigh in with your thoughts on how to proceed.

Best regards,

Rachael
--
Rachael Montgomery, PhD
Director, Accessible Community
rachael@accessiblecommunity.org<mailto:rachael@accessiblecommunity.org>

"I will paint this day with laughter;
I will frame this night in song."
 - Og Mandino