David Strauss wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Mark Williamson wrote:
Can you guarantee the safety of a male-to-female
pre-op transsexual in
Alexandria or Cairo?
Do you have any data about the number who would otherwise want to attend
Wikimania at an equivalent distance from home and expense? ... or is
this just a made-up problem?
It's quite demeaning to ask people who face discrimination to stand up
and be counted. It's objectifying, and it's not acceptable to allow
discrimination even in the presumed absence of the target group. Often,
a target group will silently watch and exclude itself once it discovers
that the reluctance to accommodate its needs is being discussed.
I'm certainly not expecting specific individuals to be identified. It's
still important to know whether we are dealing with a statistically
significant minority. If the combined incidence of being transexual or
transgendered is only 1 in 2000, and the normal attendance at Wikimania
is 500 then we can expect such a person to attend once in every four
years. Similarly, when a child has peanut allergies schools need to
accommodate this, but don't need to do anything about this when the
problem doesn't exist We can imagine all sorts of special groups which
could require special consideration, but at some point the cost
effectiveness of all these extraordinary steps needs to be taken into
account.
For example, someone might object to having a
Confederate flag at a
party. If the response is asking, "Are there going to be black people?"
then it's more likely that black people considering coming to the party
will simply not come rather than object and come to an event where their
interests are clearly second-class.
The incidence of blacks in the general population is much higher.
It's probably clear by this point that I'm not
a utilitarian. :-)
Indeed.
Ec