Is the Spanish language offensive to trans people?

[Brian Peacock]

...

Sounds like a situation on a less progressive rationalist forum, where one of the moderators persistently referred to another member as "it".

Hey everyone! We're progressives!!

[JimC]

These days, I'm feeling a little regressive...

[NineBerry]

Turkish is a genderless language. Neutral pronouns are used for all genders.

For example

"O bir doktor. O bir hemşire." means "He/She is a doctor. He/She is a nurse."

English being a gendered language means, google translate has to pick one gender. Since Google Translate is based on a translation engine having learned from normal texts, it also contains the gender bias and produces "He is a doctor. She is a nurse."

https://translate.google.com/#tr/en/O%2 ... %C5%9Fire.

Talk from this years Chaos Computer Congress making this point:

[pErvinalia]

Interesting.

[Forty Two]

42 is it

[Strontium Dog]

Turkish is a genderless language. Neutral pronouns are used for all genders.

For example

"O bir doktor. O bir hemşire." means "He/She is a doctor. He/She is a nurse."

English being a gendered language means, google translate has to pick one gender. Since Google Translate is based on a translation engine having learned from normal texts, it also contains the gender bias and produces "He is a doctor. She is a nurse."

Google Translate is a computer programme. It has no gender bias. It is a simple fact that most doctors are male, and most nurses female. So what you are seeing is nothing more than a probability calculation.

[Jason]

I think NineBerry's point was that the heuristic algorithms that drive the translation matrix have picked up the gender bias already present in the historical use of the English language - it learned gender bias because its learning materials contained them.

[Strontium Dog]

The point I'm making is that the "gender bias" is purely mathematical, and nothing to do with sexism. Google doesn't think that women can't be doctors, or that men can't be nurses.

[JimC]

The point I'm making is that the "gender bias" is purely mathematical, and nothing to do with sexism. Google doesn't think that women can't be doctors, or that men can't be nurses.

Not directly or explicitly, sure, and the reason, as you said, is a statistical algorithm.

However, the effect on human readers is to confirm and maintain the bias; children reading that will unconsciously absorb the bias, without taking on board the fact that we know that men can be nurses and women can be doctors.

[Svartalf]

42 is it

Playing wisecracks, Pennywise?

[JimC]

Poundfoolish...

[Brian Peacock]

Ronald Mcdonald looks like he's in need of a happy meal.

[Forty Two]

So, did we settle on the Spanish language yet? Is it high time they got rid of all their "la" this and "el" that. Instead of la muchacha and el muchacho they need to have lx muchachx or something. And, don't get me started on senor and senorita and senora. it's time for the Spanish speakers to start dealing with zhenor and zhenorita and zhenora and a bunch of other gender pronouns. And el and ella -- time for zhel and zhella and xel and xella.

Anything less is a denial of peoples basic humanity.

[NineBerry]

That's correct. And English should get rid of the gendered pronouns as well and introduce a neutral one.

[Jason]