It seems that with any cause, advocates typically break down into two camps: militant and inclusive.
The militant camp feels the only way to right the wrong they perceive is through positive action and active repression of the repressors. The inclusive camp feels that incremental change that improves the injustice they see will, given enough time, right the wrong without the need for punitive actions.
This has been the case with civil rights (MLK vs Black Panthers), environmentalism (WWF vs GreenPeace), animal rights (ASPCA vs PETA), and on, and on...
If I had to guess, I'd suppose that activists tend to break down along these lines because those they oppose break down in a similar fashion. There will be those who embrace the injustice and actively defend its existence. Then there will be those who don't perceive the injustice, or don't recognize its severity, but are open minded and willing to change.
I point this out, because I think it's useful to recognize these camps and to which you belong. I'm not willing to say one is right and the other is wrong. I suspect both are necessary to some degree. But if you look at the whole discourse in question here, some of the most disheartening exchanges are between individuals on the same side of the issue, but in different camps.
My impression was that the problem with the original post was a denial accepting a change, which the author took to mean a militant exclusion of gender neutral language.
The author wasn't taking a militant stand against someone who simply writes gendered language, but against someone who made a decision to exclude gender-neutral language specifically.
I think the other feature of these two camps is that they tend to see the opposition through the mirror of their own preconceptions. I took the pull request rejection at face value: "trivial change; denied". I don't agree with the policy, but I did not sense any overt anti-gender-parity agenda in the action.
That the author of the pull request viewed this action as a militant attack tells me, with some measure of certainty, to which camp they belong.
It's a matter of degree then. Saying "doing work to change pronouns isn't worth it to me" is one thing - you may find the benefits of that too trivial to be worth your time.
Rejecting (multiple times) work that has already been done for you leans much more in the direction of some sort of agenda.
That's a very interesting point of view. I had never thought of the fact that disheartening exchanges are performed between individuals on the same side, but I guess that's true in many similar discussions...
The militant camp feels the only way to right the wrong they perceive is through positive action and active repression of the repressors. The inclusive camp feels that incremental change that improves the injustice they see will, given enough time, right the wrong without the need for punitive actions.
This has been the case with civil rights (MLK vs Black Panthers), environmentalism (WWF vs GreenPeace), animal rights (ASPCA vs PETA), and on, and on...
If I had to guess, I'd suppose that activists tend to break down along these lines because those they oppose break down in a similar fashion. There will be those who embrace the injustice and actively defend its existence. Then there will be those who don't perceive the injustice, or don't recognize its severity, but are open minded and willing to change.
I point this out, because I think it's useful to recognize these camps and to which you belong. I'm not willing to say one is right and the other is wrong. I suspect both are necessary to some degree. But if you look at the whole discourse in question here, some of the most disheartening exchanges are between individuals on the same side of the issue, but in different camps.