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You said: "Yes, and I'm in the process of persuading society that there should be no consequences for this particular thing, Do you mind?"
You are indeed trying to impose a social norm. A social norm against doing something is still a social norm after all.
You also said: "Your right to believe you're a cat ends at my right to not be forced to say "heeereee kitty, kitty, kitty!" when I see you. This applies to all other identities. Muslims don't have to recognize me as a Muslim, the Japanase don't have to recognize me as a Japanaese, etc."
But then as you point out yourself, you are actually trying to influence people. Using your own analogy, you are trying to convince Muslims that they do not have to recognize someone as Muslim. Even though you recognize that your statement about rights is false as you recognize the truth is that you have to persuade society to grant you those rights, You again: "Yes, and I'm in the process of persuading society.." using statements you know to be false in order to persuade people is a textbook culture war tactic, and generally there is nothing wrong with that. It's a time honoured political and rhetorical technique. When I worked in politics I did it myself plenty of times. In the service of a goal you believe in I don't even think it is morally wrong.
But here in this space we are supposed to avoid doing that. And I see a lot of signs that we are getting worse at avoiding that. Just to be clear, I don't think people should be forced to use pronouns or cat names or whatever. I don't want to try to persuade you to change your position. I want to try and preserve the norm here that we do our very best to not use those techniques on each other, so that we can discuss not wage.
Persuading people that there's no good reason to shame others for not doing something is not "imposing a social norm" under any reasonable definition of "imposing" or "social norm"
Sure, I think I have a better argument then others do, and I'm trying to show that. On the flip side, I'm also trying to expose it to scrutiny,
Stop. I don't. I recognize your argument as technically correct, in the "do words even mean anything" sense. I do not think your argument is in any way meaningful.
No, I'm pretty sure we're allowed to make arguments. If you disagree, feel free to report me.
This doesn't make any sense. My argument isn't about whether words mean anything. It is that your statement was by your own admission incorrect. That's not irrelevant. It's not about "do words even mean anything". It's that your statement was actually factually false, and when I pointed that out and your responded yes, I assumed we were on the same page at least about that.
Again to be clear, I think there are good arguments for your position. But that a declaration that my rights start at x and yours end there, is a bad one because it is demonstrably untrue. Not in some relativist stance, but actually factually in the real world untrue. And that when you segued into talking about trying to persuade society that your rights should start at x, you were acknowledging that, because otherwise that position does not make any sense. If your rights do start at X, you wouldn't need to persuade society of it. It would already be.
I am not sure where the inferential gap is here. But if I was wrong that you were acknowledging that the first statement was a deliberate lie in the service to persuading readers here, then I do withdraw that objection and apologize for it.
Unless this is a simple is/ought issue? When you said "Your right to believe you're a cat ends at my right to not be forced to say "heeereee kitty, kitty, kitty!" when I see you." did you mean instead that "Your right to believe you're a cat SHOULD end at my right to not be forced..." but that you acknowledge it currently does not necessarily end there, hence why you need to persuade society of it?
Again - stop. I never admitted that. I "admitted" it in the same way I'd "admit" you're right if I was discussing whether or the Matrix is an allegory for trans issues, and you jumped in with ultra-relativist Death Of The Author take. Death Of The Author is a vacuous meta-argument that is completely irrelevant to anything to a conversation like that, so saying "sure, I suppose things only mean what everyone agrees they mean. So I'm trying to get people to agree with my meaning, do you mind?" is not conceding my object level point, it's pointing out you're making an irrelevant meta point.
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