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There are several aspects of social interaction in which such a issues of gender identity, stereotyping, and expressing of "views," which can fall into the category of political correctness/incorrectness. Are these appropriate to query and address (on or off topic) on the site?

Here I will offer a hypothetical example question

"How should a person undergoing gender reassignment be referred to? Should it be by their birth designation, their present status, or according to their preferred identity (or he, she, they)?"

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    I'm not sure I fully understand the subjects you're talking about. Can you give examples of the sort of questions you expect? Thanks.
    – HDE 226868
    Commented Jul 1, 2017 at 14:12
  • I have added an example, which is only meant to be illustrative.
    – r m
    Commented Jul 2, 2017 at 13:24
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    To make any PC-Question answerable it absolutely needs to provide cultural background . I think that´s maybe missing from your example to make it into something that would not be closed?
    – user6109
    Commented Apr 11, 2018 at 8:40

2 Answers 2

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Why would they be off topic?

Seems like they involve interpersonal skills...

As long as they aren't asking people to argue over controversial topics like religion or politics and can be answered more or less without bias.

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For the question to not get closed, it would need to be phrased in such a way that answers are not completely opinion based. These types of topics can easily fall into that category if not carefully worded.

Your example you used:

"How should a person undergoing gender reassignment be referred to? Should it be by their birth designation, their present status, or according to their preferred identity (or he, she, they)?"

would be an example of a primarily opinion-based question that should get closed because the answer depends entirely on a political opinion. In order to reword that question to not be primarily opinion-based, you'd need to preface it like so:

As someone who dissociates gender from biological sex and believes gender may be fluid, how would I refer to a person undergoing gender reassignment? Should it be by their birth designation, their present status, or according to their preferred identity (or he, she, they)?

By prefacing it with your assumptions, the question becomes more precise and excludes opposing opinions which would give radically different answers. You now target a single opinion (political view) and are exploring answers within that.

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    Why is being polite political?
    – apaul
    Commented Apr 11, 2018 at 0:18
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    I'm not really sure how that affects the question... the answer is still "address them the way they wish to be addressed". If you don't agree with their preference to use the gender pronouns they wish, I don't really think you'd be asking the question in the first place.
    – Catija
    Commented Apr 11, 2018 at 0:24
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    There is no place on this network for saying that people who are trans have a "mental disorder".
    – Catija
    Commented Apr 11, 2018 at 14:26
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    @Catija deleting comments that answer your comment-questions in an objective manner is a bit of an emotional overstep, no? I'm did not make such a claim, just that there exist opinions on both sides of an issue, which is why prefacing your question with your assumptions is necessary in order to avoid it being primarily opinion-based.
    – user2921
    Commented Apr 11, 2018 at 14:39
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    Saying that a group of people has a "mental disorder" probably violates Be Nice, and is grounds for comment deletion.
    – HDE 226868
    Commented Apr 11, 2018 at 16:58
  • I'm curious to hear explanations on the down-votes. Have people not read site usage guides?
    – user2921
    Commented Apr 11, 2018 at 20:40
  • @HDE226868 If it happens to be verifiably true (ex: calling a group of people with a specific disorder, a group of X disorder) then I don't see how a true statement is not nice. That aside, my comments did NOT say someone(s) has a mental disorder, but rather there are opinions on both sides and one side holds the opinion that it's a mental disorder to illustrate that if you're coming from the other opinion, that answer is not helpful. Stating that Nazis believe Jews are inferior is not a "not nice" statement, it's just stating a fact that that's what they believe. Please note the difference.
    – user2921
    Commented Apr 11, 2018 at 20:46
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    On meta (where rep is not affected), votes on answers indicate agreement or disagreement. This is standard for StackExchange sites.
    – Em C
    Commented Apr 11, 2018 at 20:48

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