-(Relatedly, [critics of this blog](/2020/Nov/the-feeling-is-mutual/) sometimes refer to me as _she_, reflecting their belief that I'm a trans woman in denial, even though I think of myself of a man ([adult human male](/2018/Apr/reply-to-the-unit-of-caring-on-adult-human-females/) not trying to appear otherwise). I never correct them—not just because [it's kind of flattering](/2021/May/interlude-xxi/), and not just because I don't think of myself as having the right to dictate how other people talk about me—but because "she" _is_ the correct pronoun to convey the meaning _they're_ trying to express, whether or not _I_ agree with it.)
+I take pains to emphasize that pronouns can have meaningful semantics without being denotative statements that can be straightforwardly "false", because Yudkowsky misrepresents what his political opponents are typically claiming, repeatedly trying to frame the matter of dispute as to whether pronouns can be "lies" (to which Yudkowsky says, No, that would be ontologically confused)—whereas if you _actually read_ what the people on the other side of the policy debate are saying, they're largely _not claiming_ that "pronouns are lies"!
+
+This misrepresentation is a serious problem because, [as Yudkowsky pointed out in 2007](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/qNZM3EGoE5ZeMdCRt/reversed-stupidity-is-not-intelligence), "To argue against an idea honestly, you should argue against the best arguments of the strongest advocates. Arguing against weaker advocates proves _nothing_, because even the strongest idea will attract weak advocates." By [selectively drawing attention to the weaker form of the argument](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/12/weak-men-are-superweapons/), Yudkowsky is likely to leave readers who trusted him to be fair with an unrealistic picture of what people on the other side of the issue actually believe. (It seems fair to regard Kerr's article as representative of gender-critical ("TERF") concerns; I've seen the post linked in those circles more than once, and it's cited in [embattled former University of Sussex professor Kathleen Stock](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathleen_Stock#Views_on_gender_self-identification)'s book _Material Girls_.)