Unfortunately I think he and Katie might be missing the point of my and Snags’ comments that they read.
Because the emails they shared don’t really contradict our comments, even though J+K present them as if they do. My objection wasn’t that workers in classified environments should be expected to never …
Unfortunately I think he and Katie might be missing the point of my and Snags’ comments that they read.
Because the emails they shared don’t really contradict our comments, even though J+K present them as if they do. My objection wasn’t that workers in classified environments should be expected to never discuss or post *anything* off topic, that would clearly be unreasonable for humans shut in a closed area. Certainly I’ve had more than a few non-work talks with my work buddies behind a secure facility door. That’s fine!
Rather, my objection is to the notion that discussions about sexual penetration, butthole zapping, and tucking your dick to pee would be considered appropriate for work by any reasonable employee. Jesse can claim it isn’t “explicit”, but that requires a weird definition of “explicit”!
One of the emails talks about some previous attempts to crack down on extraneous discussion. Again, J+K seem to interpret this as a sign that the transition talk is being unfairly singled out. I think it means the opposite - if the higher ups were going after even tame off topic posting, how could they reasonably conclude that much more clearly “not safe for work” content would be tolerated?
This is “laughably obvious example in a sexual harassment training” level stuff here people.
Yeah, if any guy started talking about his penis in work slack, there’s a very good chance he’d get reported, and would either be penalized in some way or outright fired. You can get reported for saying just about anything in the office, including the private sector. Half of the workplace stories on this podcast have been more tame than what was going on here.
Having listened to episode 250 just before listening to this one, I don't think they misunderstood what you said, but I respectfully suggest that you might be misunderstanding the crux of their concern, at least in part. The problem that K+J are highlighting has more to do with the curious importance assigned** to these conversations by Rufo, not by the government. Moreover, this is about *how* these conversations have been singled out and to what end.
Based on Katie's description of Rufo's reporting (and Jesse's dramatic readings), his goal here seems to have been the hyper-sexualization of the content of these conversations. Yeah, it's all super gross and inappropriate, no doubt, but it's not sexual in a prurient way, and it certainly isn't geared toward seeking out sexual acts, either at work or elsewhere. Nevertheless, that is the picture that Rufo wanted to paint, while the prejudicial pink-slipping of the perforated-pelvic-mounded perps on these scandalous grounds was the outcome he sought.
This is borderline sexual harassment training fodder at best. Not all references to procedures being done to naughty parts are themselves naughty. My sense is that what is bothering you and others here is the TRANS-sexual content of these conversation. Hey, it bothers me too. Can't help it! I grew up on "Dude Looks Like a Lady" and "The Crying Game"; like Popeye, I y'am what I y'am. But that doesn't mean my visceral reactions are correct. In fact, I know they're not. I wouldn't be as bothered if I overheard a coupla gals going on about how these new lululemon seams are over-accentuating their camel toe or how the solar-powered Evie pumps feel a bit "too good" sometimes.
But whether it's the unsung conveniences of vaginoplasty, randy breast pumps, or vasectomy commiseration, it all needs to be treated equally. And that goes both ways**; the government can't turn a blind eye to conversations about sex-change procedures while sidelining discussions about penis pump penny stocks or the trials and tribulations of the poofy-pudded yoga pants contingent.
I agree that Rufo is the crux of their concern, but that’s part of what is bothering me and part of why I believe they are over-reading the emails as a refutation of my comment. The issue is that they actually haven’t established that these conversations had “curious importance assigned”, nor have they established that these conversations were “singled out” (well, they were singled out in the sense that they were individually highlighted. Whether they were “singled out” in the sense of being subjected to unfair treatment has not been established).
But J+K very much want it to be true that these conversations were unfairly handled, because it fits their prior that Rufo is a bad actor. So they are letting confirmation bias affect how they read evidence that provides an “out” for the trans talk (maybe lots of inappropriate conversations were going on! Yeah here’s a guy that says unspecified off topic conversations were a problem all the time, that must mean everyone was talking about their dicks!). While applying a much higher level of scrutiny to the Rufo-friendly version of events. (Ooooh his source claimed they said “gangbangs” but didn’t provide a screenshot! What absurd hearsay that no real journalist would *ever* publish (lol)).
Honestly this seems similar to the recent episode with Maurer, where they thought they had a perfect means to mock Musk, but everyone instead was like “wait they groomed and raped how many girls now?!”. This time they thought they had a great reason to rag on Rufo, but the reaction was “wait the spooks were talking about what on work chat?!”. The common thread is, in a rush to go after a favorite lolcow, they badly misjudged how glibly they could get away with covering an underlying issue they know little about, and are now doing a bit of damage control.
Your comment also reflects another problem, the insistence on downplaying the chats with euphemism rather than engaging with the actual language. Even if some references to “procedures” on “naughty parts” might be allowed to slide (and I still believe you are overestimating the degree to which they would be) we are talking about: discussing sexual pleasure from penetration, “butthole zapping”, and a feeling of “euphoria” from no longer having to tuck their dick while peeing. You can’t just justify any conversation by claiming it’s downstream of a medical procedure, therefore fair game.
I would be shocked at a work sanctioned group chat with any intimate discussion of any individual’s medical procedures, because it’s an HR nightmare - they have legal obligations regarding personal information and are on a hair trigger for anything that might threaten that.
I would appreciate if you not project on me your assumptions about my attitude re: trans people. I have no particular feelings about them working at NSA, I’m only bothered in this case by the specific individuals involved seeming to have a serious lack of appropriate boundaries regarding safe-for-work conversations. No, I would not be okay with cis-Alice posting about how great her last piss felt now that she finally got that UTI handled, nor would I be okay with straight-Bob saying that he enjoys getting pegged by his wife again now that his doc zapped the inflamed hemorrhoids off his butt hole.
IF we can establish that similarly work inappropriate conversations were allowed unchecked so long as they weren’t by trans employees, THEN we can rag on Rufo for his inconsistency. Until then all we can say is, yes these were inappropriate, yes Rufo possibly overstate what the quotes meant, and we can argue about whether firing was overkill or not I guess.
You're doubling down in your pursuit of a different debate. This IS about Rufo and it IS NOT about how the government handled these chats. They were very clear that both they and Rufo lacked the awareness necessary to comment on how this was handled _broadly_ or how these conversations stacked up to other conversations had by non-trans employees in the same or similar spaces. This was about how Rufo's manipulation of the content of these conversations was used as a basis for firing these people. That's it.
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But J+K very much want it to be true that these conversations were unfairly handled, because it fits their prior that Rufo is a bad actor.
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Katie admits to that though, so.... this isn't a revelation. And she got push back on it from Jesse, some of which *I* thought was initially unreasonable (was it? maybe a little, but not as much as I initially thought). This was a very nuanced discussion and it did not attempt to obscure Katie's underlying basis. Indeed, she went pretty deep into the origin of her bias in the lead up to her thesis.
The case that Katie very effectively makes is that Rufo's report fits his stated goal -- STATED... dude copped to this a while back -- of altering the narrative on what he regards as progressive cultural excess, be it DEI or trans ideology, neither of which is something that I champion and certainly not something that K+J support.
Again and again, this seems to coming down to is what *you* want to be true. Or maybe a fairer way to say that is that you want to presume a different set of claims against which you can more effectively deploy your preferred arguments.
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This time they thought they had a great reason to rag on Rufo, but the reaction was “wait the spooks were talking about what on work chat?!”.
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No, that was *your* reaction. Is is not THE reaction any more than mine is.
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Your comment also reflects another problem, the insistence on downplaying the chats with euphemism rather than engaging with the actual language. [...] we are talking about: discussing sexual pleasure from penetration, “butthole zapping”, and a feeling of “euphoria” from no longer having to tuck their dick while peeing. You can’t just justify any conversation by claiming it’s downstream of a medical procedure, therefore fair game.
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The euphemism at work here is not "naughty parts", it's "actual language". You are proving Katie's point be repeatedly returning to this angle which is not a complaint about the broad inappropriateness of hyper-personal medical issues -- which includes sexual function, it. just. does. -- but rather a specific objection to one particular class of inappropriate medical issues. NOBODY here is arguing that these conversations were appropriate or that NSA leadership wasn't correct to cite these conversations as abuse of government property (they seemed a bit hesitant, in fact). So what other distinction is there to make? This is Rufo's game and you seem willing and ready to play it.
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I would appreciate if you not project on me your assumptions about my attitude re: trans people
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I'm sure Katie feels the same way. And yet here we are.
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No, I would not be okay with cis-Alice posting about how great her last piss felt now that she finally got that UTI handled, nor would I be okay with straight-Bob saying that he enjoys getting pegged by his wife again now that his doc zapped the inflamed hemorrhoids off his butt hole.
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Based on how you have explained yourself up to this point, I don't think you be okay with either. But I also don't think you'd be as worked up about it. Your willingness to revise and expand the most vulgar, groomer-adjacent language found in those chats proves the point *again* that Rufo's report, as read by Jesse, purposefully missates the nature of these discussions in such a way as to skew the discussion into the specific direction of icky trans sex stuff. You don't seem capable of seeing the difference, so this likely is falling on deaf ears.
Meanwhile, more people have lost their jobs and we're basing our understanding of why this is happening on an unverifiable stream of information from DOGE itself and Enquirer-level sensationalism masquerading as brave reporting.
We have a disagreement about what “the real story” is here. J+K thinks “Rufo is a bad guy” is the real story, I (and others) think it’s “NSA spooks were using government group chats to talk about their genital surgeries in graphic detail”. It’s fine to assign a different level of importance to these things, that doesn’t mean either weighting is objectively wrong. My objection is a concern that J+K are suffering from confirmation bias because of their history with Rufo.
“Actual language” is not euphemism. It’s in the screenshots. If there is any evidence that the screenshots are not genuine, I’ve not seen it and I’ve frankly not even seen any serious discussion that doesn’t presume they are genuine. It’s as “verified” as anything in this whole discussion.
“Revise and expand” “Groomer adjacent” language? I’m just going off the screenshotted quotes, with at most a bit of artistic license in a lame attempt at humor. But butthole zapping is in the quotes! Sexual pleasure from penetration is in the quotes! Euphoric peeing after surgery is in the quotes! I’m not misstating the nature of the quotes (even if Rufo is) because I don’t need to - they are prima facie extremely inappropriate.
Your interpretation requires giving these quotes an additional level of charity and presumption of innocence because they are downstream of gender affirming surgery and therefore, in your opinion, must include sexual discussion. You seem to be asserting any graphic talk about sexual function becomes mere discussion of “personal medical issues” as long as a medical treatment was involved. You’re also baking in a presumption that other hyper-personal medical talk was allowed, without evidence.
You say that “NOBODY here is arguing that these conversations are appropriate”. Well, you certainly seem to be making an effort to minimize their inappropriateness, continually downplaying them as simple clinical discussion. “But what other distinction is there to make?” There is no distinction required, because we have no evidence that any other inappropriate medical talk existed. I am perfectly comfortable saying that anyone else using a government group chat to discuss the details of surgery or medical treatment to their sex organs should be disciplined. Or really any “hyper-personal” medical discussion, but sexual medical discussion is a special case regardless of gender identify or sexual orientation and you can’t pretend it isn’t.
The trans medical discussions are being “singled out” because they are the only similarly inappropriate conversations we know about! The only conversations of any kind we have literal screenshots of. It’s *possible* that other inappropriate talk existed, and it’s *possible* that non-trans persons similarly discussing their genitals would not be similarly disciplined, but that is pure speculation.
As is your presumption of how I’d react to such speculative scenarios, so please stop insisting you know my feelings better than I do.
There’s a world of difference between benign off-topic small talk and graphic discussions about your nether regions.
I don’t have an issue with people commenting on the weather, recommending local pizza places, celebrating the results of a sports game, asking what’s going on with the construction across the street. Normal, inoffensive small talk.
I don’t want to think about anyone’s bodily functions at my job. If your discussions of bodily functions go beyond “I’m heading to the bathroom, could someone monitor this inbox until I get back?” and you’re not in a profession where there are actual work-related reasons to discuss bodily functions, it seems pretty straight-forwardly inappropriate.
Hey I got my comment read by Jesse!
Unfortunately I think he and Katie might be missing the point of my and Snags’ comments that they read.
Because the emails they shared don’t really contradict our comments, even though J+K present them as if they do. My objection wasn’t that workers in classified environments should be expected to never discuss or post *anything* off topic, that would clearly be unreasonable for humans shut in a closed area. Certainly I’ve had more than a few non-work talks with my work buddies behind a secure facility door. That’s fine!
Rather, my objection is to the notion that discussions about sexual penetration, butthole zapping, and tucking your dick to pee would be considered appropriate for work by any reasonable employee. Jesse can claim it isn’t “explicit”, but that requires a weird definition of “explicit”!
One of the emails talks about some previous attempts to crack down on extraneous discussion. Again, J+K seem to interpret this as a sign that the transition talk is being unfairly singled out. I think it means the opposite - if the higher ups were going after even tame off topic posting, how could they reasonably conclude that much more clearly “not safe for work” content would be tolerated?
This is “laughably obvious example in a sexual harassment training” level stuff here people.
Yeah, pretty disappointed to know Katie went in and downvoted my comment! As a Katie fan-girl, I guess I'll just go jump out a window now.
I think Katie was joking about downvoting your comment, but she definitely didn’t understand it.
There is, in fact, no downvote option in Substack.
Oh yeah, duh! She got me again.
Drunk posting on substack is dangerous
But did Katie know/remember that when she made the comment?
Good question. It’s exactly the kind of thing Katie is constitutionally incapable of understanding.
Yeah, if any guy started talking about his penis in work slack, there’s a very good chance he’d get reported, and would either be penalized in some way or outright fired. You can get reported for saying just about anything in the office, including the private sector. Half of the workplace stories on this podcast have been more tame than what was going on here.
Having listened to episode 250 just before listening to this one, I don't think they misunderstood what you said, but I respectfully suggest that you might be misunderstanding the crux of their concern, at least in part. The problem that K+J are highlighting has more to do with the curious importance assigned** to these conversations by Rufo, not by the government. Moreover, this is about *how* these conversations have been singled out and to what end.
Based on Katie's description of Rufo's reporting (and Jesse's dramatic readings), his goal here seems to have been the hyper-sexualization of the content of these conversations. Yeah, it's all super gross and inappropriate, no doubt, but it's not sexual in a prurient way, and it certainly isn't geared toward seeking out sexual acts, either at work or elsewhere. Nevertheless, that is the picture that Rufo wanted to paint, while the prejudicial pink-slipping of the perforated-pelvic-mounded perps on these scandalous grounds was the outcome he sought.
This is borderline sexual harassment training fodder at best. Not all references to procedures being done to naughty parts are themselves naughty. My sense is that what is bothering you and others here is the TRANS-sexual content of these conversation. Hey, it bothers me too. Can't help it! I grew up on "Dude Looks Like a Lady" and "The Crying Game"; like Popeye, I y'am what I y'am. But that doesn't mean my visceral reactions are correct. In fact, I know they're not. I wouldn't be as bothered if I overheard a coupla gals going on about how these new lululemon seams are over-accentuating their camel toe or how the solar-powered Evie pumps feel a bit "too good" sometimes.
But whether it's the unsung conveniences of vaginoplasty, randy breast pumps, or vasectomy commiseration, it all needs to be treated equally. And that goes both ways**; the government can't turn a blind eye to conversations about sex-change procedures while sidelining discussions about penis pump penny stocks or the trials and tribulations of the poofy-pudded yoga pants contingent.
(**) Pun not entirely unintended.
I agree that Rufo is the crux of their concern, but that’s part of what is bothering me and part of why I believe they are over-reading the emails as a refutation of my comment. The issue is that they actually haven’t established that these conversations had “curious importance assigned”, nor have they established that these conversations were “singled out” (well, they were singled out in the sense that they were individually highlighted. Whether they were “singled out” in the sense of being subjected to unfair treatment has not been established).
But J+K very much want it to be true that these conversations were unfairly handled, because it fits their prior that Rufo is a bad actor. So they are letting confirmation bias affect how they read evidence that provides an “out” for the trans talk (maybe lots of inappropriate conversations were going on! Yeah here’s a guy that says unspecified off topic conversations were a problem all the time, that must mean everyone was talking about their dicks!). While applying a much higher level of scrutiny to the Rufo-friendly version of events. (Ooooh his source claimed they said “gangbangs” but didn’t provide a screenshot! What absurd hearsay that no real journalist would *ever* publish (lol)).
Honestly this seems similar to the recent episode with Maurer, where they thought they had a perfect means to mock Musk, but everyone instead was like “wait they groomed and raped how many girls now?!”. This time they thought they had a great reason to rag on Rufo, but the reaction was “wait the spooks were talking about what on work chat?!”. The common thread is, in a rush to go after a favorite lolcow, they badly misjudged how glibly they could get away with covering an underlying issue they know little about, and are now doing a bit of damage control.
Your comment also reflects another problem, the insistence on downplaying the chats with euphemism rather than engaging with the actual language. Even if some references to “procedures” on “naughty parts” might be allowed to slide (and I still believe you are overestimating the degree to which they would be) we are talking about: discussing sexual pleasure from penetration, “butthole zapping”, and a feeling of “euphoria” from no longer having to tuck their dick while peeing. You can’t just justify any conversation by claiming it’s downstream of a medical procedure, therefore fair game.
I would be shocked at a work sanctioned group chat with any intimate discussion of any individual’s medical procedures, because it’s an HR nightmare - they have legal obligations regarding personal information and are on a hair trigger for anything that might threaten that.
I would appreciate if you not project on me your assumptions about my attitude re: trans people. I have no particular feelings about them working at NSA, I’m only bothered in this case by the specific individuals involved seeming to have a serious lack of appropriate boundaries regarding safe-for-work conversations. No, I would not be okay with cis-Alice posting about how great her last piss felt now that she finally got that UTI handled, nor would I be okay with straight-Bob saying that he enjoys getting pegged by his wife again now that his doc zapped the inflamed hemorrhoids off his butt hole.
IF we can establish that similarly work inappropriate conversations were allowed unchecked so long as they weren’t by trans employees, THEN we can rag on Rufo for his inconsistency. Until then all we can say is, yes these were inappropriate, yes Rufo possibly overstate what the quotes meant, and we can argue about whether firing was overkill or not I guess.
You're doubling down in your pursuit of a different debate. This IS about Rufo and it IS NOT about how the government handled these chats. They were very clear that both they and Rufo lacked the awareness necessary to comment on how this was handled _broadly_ or how these conversations stacked up to other conversations had by non-trans employees in the same or similar spaces. This was about how Rufo's manipulation of the content of these conversations was used as a basis for firing these people. That's it.
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But J+K very much want it to be true that these conversations were unfairly handled, because it fits their prior that Rufo is a bad actor.
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Katie admits to that though, so.... this isn't a revelation. And she got push back on it from Jesse, some of which *I* thought was initially unreasonable (was it? maybe a little, but not as much as I initially thought). This was a very nuanced discussion and it did not attempt to obscure Katie's underlying basis. Indeed, she went pretty deep into the origin of her bias in the lead up to her thesis.
The case that Katie very effectively makes is that Rufo's report fits his stated goal -- STATED... dude copped to this a while back -- of altering the narrative on what he regards as progressive cultural excess, be it DEI or trans ideology, neither of which is something that I champion and certainly not something that K+J support.
Again and again, this seems to coming down to is what *you* want to be true. Or maybe a fairer way to say that is that you want to presume a different set of claims against which you can more effectively deploy your preferred arguments.
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This time they thought they had a great reason to rag on Rufo, but the reaction was “wait the spooks were talking about what on work chat?!”.
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No, that was *your* reaction. Is is not THE reaction any more than mine is.
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Your comment also reflects another problem, the insistence on downplaying the chats with euphemism rather than engaging with the actual language. [...] we are talking about: discussing sexual pleasure from penetration, “butthole zapping”, and a feeling of “euphoria” from no longer having to tuck their dick while peeing. You can’t just justify any conversation by claiming it’s downstream of a medical procedure, therefore fair game.
---------------
The euphemism at work here is not "naughty parts", it's "actual language". You are proving Katie's point be repeatedly returning to this angle which is not a complaint about the broad inappropriateness of hyper-personal medical issues -- which includes sexual function, it. just. does. -- but rather a specific objection to one particular class of inappropriate medical issues. NOBODY here is arguing that these conversations were appropriate or that NSA leadership wasn't correct to cite these conversations as abuse of government property (they seemed a bit hesitant, in fact). So what other distinction is there to make? This is Rufo's game and you seem willing and ready to play it.
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I would appreciate if you not project on me your assumptions about my attitude re: trans people
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I'm sure Katie feels the same way. And yet here we are.
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No, I would not be okay with cis-Alice posting about how great her last piss felt now that she finally got that UTI handled, nor would I be okay with straight-Bob saying that he enjoys getting pegged by his wife again now that his doc zapped the inflamed hemorrhoids off his butt hole.
---------------
Based on how you have explained yourself up to this point, I don't think you be okay with either. But I also don't think you'd be as worked up about it. Your willingness to revise and expand the most vulgar, groomer-adjacent language found in those chats proves the point *again* that Rufo's report, as read by Jesse, purposefully missates the nature of these discussions in such a way as to skew the discussion into the specific direction of icky trans sex stuff. You don't seem capable of seeing the difference, so this likely is falling on deaf ears.
Meanwhile, more people have lost their jobs and we're basing our understanding of why this is happening on an unverifiable stream of information from DOGE itself and Enquirer-level sensationalism masquerading as brave reporting.
We have a disagreement about what “the real story” is here. J+K thinks “Rufo is a bad guy” is the real story, I (and others) think it’s “NSA spooks were using government group chats to talk about their genital surgeries in graphic detail”. It’s fine to assign a different level of importance to these things, that doesn’t mean either weighting is objectively wrong. My objection is a concern that J+K are suffering from confirmation bias because of their history with Rufo.
“Actual language” is not euphemism. It’s in the screenshots. If there is any evidence that the screenshots are not genuine, I’ve not seen it and I’ve frankly not even seen any serious discussion that doesn’t presume they are genuine. It’s as “verified” as anything in this whole discussion.
“Revise and expand” “Groomer adjacent” language? I’m just going off the screenshotted quotes, with at most a bit of artistic license in a lame attempt at humor. But butthole zapping is in the quotes! Sexual pleasure from penetration is in the quotes! Euphoric peeing after surgery is in the quotes! I’m not misstating the nature of the quotes (even if Rufo is) because I don’t need to - they are prima facie extremely inappropriate.
Your interpretation requires giving these quotes an additional level of charity and presumption of innocence because they are downstream of gender affirming surgery and therefore, in your opinion, must include sexual discussion. You seem to be asserting any graphic talk about sexual function becomes mere discussion of “personal medical issues” as long as a medical treatment was involved. You’re also baking in a presumption that other hyper-personal medical talk was allowed, without evidence.
You say that “NOBODY here is arguing that these conversations are appropriate”. Well, you certainly seem to be making an effort to minimize their inappropriateness, continually downplaying them as simple clinical discussion. “But what other distinction is there to make?” There is no distinction required, because we have no evidence that any other inappropriate medical talk existed. I am perfectly comfortable saying that anyone else using a government group chat to discuss the details of surgery or medical treatment to their sex organs should be disciplined. Or really any “hyper-personal” medical discussion, but sexual medical discussion is a special case regardless of gender identify or sexual orientation and you can’t pretend it isn’t.
The trans medical discussions are being “singled out” because they are the only similarly inappropriate conversations we know about! The only conversations of any kind we have literal screenshots of. It’s *possible* that other inappropriate talk existed, and it’s *possible* that non-trans persons similarly discussing their genitals would not be similarly disciplined, but that is pure speculation.
As is your presumption of how I’d react to such speculative scenarios, so please stop insisting you know my feelings better than I do.
Yeah they totally missed the boat on that whole discussion.
Wait! Aren’t we encouraged to bring “our whole selves” to work?
But not your hole selves.
There’s a world of difference between benign off-topic small talk and graphic discussions about your nether regions.
I don’t have an issue with people commenting on the weather, recommending local pizza places, celebrating the results of a sports game, asking what’s going on with the construction across the street. Normal, inoffensive small talk.
I don’t want to think about anyone’s bodily functions at my job. If your discussions of bodily functions go beyond “I’m heading to the bathroom, could someone monitor this inbox until I get back?” and you’re not in a profession where there are actual work-related reasons to discuss bodily functions, it seems pretty straight-forwardly inappropriate.