> New research by Mastercard across 16 countries in North America and Europe revealed that 59% of people who identity as nonbinary say they feel unsafe while shopping
We should do what we can to make life easier for everyone, but we should stop encouraging and accommodating this “everything makes me feel unsafe” attitude. It harms everyone when we redefine safety to include awkwardness or very minor psychological discomfort.
>but we should stop encouraging and accommodating this “everything makes me feel unsafe” attitude. It harms everyone when we redefine safety to include awkwardness or very minor psychological discomfort.
It's pretty clear that the thing he's objecting to is the inflation of "feel unsafe" to include "awkwardness or very minor psychological discomfort", which might draw attention to the issue in the short term, but over the long term dilutes the term and makes the issue worse. It's like the euphemism treadmill but in reverse.
Who are you (or OP) to tell someone how they should or should not feel.
If someone says they feel unsafe, maybe we should default to believing them rather than minimising them. A tiny bit of compassion and empathy goes a long way.
>If someone says they feel unsafe, maybe we should default to believing them rather than minimising them. A tiny bit of compassion and empathy goes a long way.
Okay but surely you must agree that there are limits to how much we as a society should believe? Portraying yourself as being oppressed is an effective way to garner sympathy and resources from society, so people are incentivized to use language that makes their plight seem worse. That's not to say everyone making such claims are acting in bad faith, or even misrepresenting their internal feelings, but we can't take everyone's statements at face value either.
People can feel unsafe for a variety of reasons. Characterizing your "side" on this issue as the sole champion of compassion and empathy is a dishonest way to avoid rational debate.
We understand that people with schizophrenia have delusions which result from their condition. Those delusions often cause them to feel unsafe. We are compassionate and seek to treat the the underlying causes, not by joining in on their delusions. Gender dysphoria is much the same--transgender activists love to confound the issue by conflating dysphoria and intersex, but these are two entirely separate conditions. I have empathy and compassion for people struggling with dysphoria, and that expresses itself in my desire to help them get better.
If it were only a very minor psychological discomfort, you'd be right. Unfortunately, other clientele in the store may harass you and follow you out of the store.
As someone who has been on the receiving end of incredibly violent threats, being able to not be outed publicly is critical to everyday safety for trans people.
i thought the minor discomfort being referred to was that of changing your name and reissuing a new ID card. i can definitely understand how it would get grating to explain the change at every security check
It can be procedurally very long and drawn out, especially in less welcoming states.
To your point, transitioning is a massive process. Making something bureaucratically painful significantly easier is very welcome to an overwhelming process.
This isn't just useful for transitioning of course. I'm cis, but the way my name is spelled in official documents makes Americans pronounce it wrong (not their fault: it's just bad transliteration).
Going and changing it is a pain, and would make many simple beurocractic tasks more complicated, having to explain that every document printed before the change does indeed belong to me, and here are the name change documents, and yes, I know this makes your computer system barf, etc etc.
Systems that have a separate field for a government name are great: I can have the Americanized spelling for the display name, without the hassle.
The vast majority of people who are trans do not have surgery and being trans has nothing to do with your genitals. I feel like this really shouldn't need to be explained in 2024.
You should read more carefully. GP wrote "minor psychological discomfort". They're definitely trying to downplay the danger that transgender people sometimes get put in.
Not parent, but I agree with the general point. Leaving this specific example aside which is a real world interaction, we (America) have gone to far to redefine what "safety" is. Ben Shapiro speaking at your school is not "putting you in danger".
He is saying it harms everyone when being called by the name you don't want is redefined as unsafe because it makes it difficult to differentiate between significant issues.
The language surrounding these topics is so nebulous that I often have no clue what they mean.
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And beyond the general topic discussing these things generally I've had one anecdotal incident involving such nebulous concepts of "safe". I worked at a place where HR notified us that a member of our team "did not feel safe or welcome". I had no idea what to do with this information. They obviously didn't want to identify the person, or what happened (i can understand the desire to do so) ... but then what does that mean, what of any helpful things could we even do if we don't know what is going on?
Then we got a second notice just as vague as the first about someone (it seemed to be implied it was the same person) still felt that way. This notice (sent to a few hundred people) had a more finger wagging tone to it.
At that point I was actually angry. I responded that I did not feel safe working in an environment with vague notices that someone(s), maybe, did something to make someone(s) else uncomfortable or feel something ... and that to some unknown extent I and others were now on notice in some vague way about it. Maybe I did it, heck if I know, if so what could I do!??!
Shortly after a clarification email went out that nobody was in trouble and any specific incidents would be handled with those involved only and no further group emails would go out.
Someone did leave the company not long after. I was told (not sure if it was true) they were the source of the complaints. That person was "sensitive" to the extent that they seemed upset by every little thing. They were pretty hard to be around, every day events upset them, and frankly they were an asshole too. It struck me how such nebulous language in that case allows someone to impose on others.
I suspect that someone expressing that they did not feel "safe or welcome" in such a vague way contributed to the equally vague and weird "solution" to just spam out a warning(s) to everyone. The result was absurd. It really illustrates how this kind of language can be very confusing.
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Now the Mastercard thing isn't that exactly, and I hope it helps someone. But the vague language always throws me off a bit.
Trans people are victims of hate crimes. It’s not “minor psychological discomfort.” For many people, it’s life-and-death. Giving people control to share this very sensitive information when and how they see fit makes trans people safer.
Step 1. Go to google news or whatever news aggregation website you want.
Step 2. Search for "transgender attack".
Step 3. Take some time to digest the horrible news you're reading.
Step 4. Try to figure out the common thread between these stories. The people in question usually get outed in public during some kind of ID check, and got jumped by some intolerant moron who witnessed it.
This is happening. Today. Including in "North America and Europe". The people who say they feel unsafe because they feel unsafe for their physical integrity and safety. Not because of "awkwardness or very minor psychological discomfort".
in that case it's an argument for getting the name change done properly right from the start, right? i don't think having a different name on your mastercard is a solution here (especially since choosing "mx" as a prefix is hardly keeping things secret..)
There’s nothing MasterCard can do to help you change your name. This is something they can do. Plus, it makes MasterCard more appealing to this market. I think it was a great move.
I fully agree. We do too much to keep people who are already safe from feeling slightly awkward or experiencing minor psychological discomfort.
We should do what we can to make life easier for everyone. If that makes a majority of people aware of the suffering of a particular group, ultimately I think it helps cultivate compassion, and compassion benefits us all.
I applaud your progressive, optimistic, and compassionate position, author
Edit: I’m being told I’m misconstruing your comments and not at all what you meant
Why do you assume their use of the word "unsafe" was limited to awkwardness?
There is a growing group of people willing to confront anyone in public that is transgender, with a smaller (yet still growing) group who are emboldened enough to inflict physical harm.
>When Asher DiGiuseppe tried to make a purchase at his local Toronto liquor store, the clerk looked at him with suspicion and questioned his card, which was still printed with the name he had used before transitioning.
>[...] New research by Mastercard across 16 countries in North America and Europe revealed that 59% of people who identity as nonbinary say they feel unsafe while shopping, and 57% say they think it’s important that companies and organizations address them in a way that respects their identity.
Is this a serious issue? I don't think anyone ever checked the name on my credit card. Even when I was carded at a liquor store, they'd only check my government id, not the credit card itself. Also for online payments I don't think the "cardholder name" field is even checked, so you can put whatever you want. Therefore I'm not sure what the point of this is, other than trying to score some PR points.
How is that supposed to work? The toll free number on the back of my card just goes to some customer support line with 30+ minute wait times. There's absolutely no chance that a cashier is going through that for a typical transaction. Also, the whole point of this program is to make this less awkward for transgender people. Being deadnamed might be bad, but at least it's straightforward. The cardholder name matches the one on your government id, and the picture in the government id matches your face, done. I'm not sure how having mismatched names and having to call the bank is more pleasant.
Not being able to call your card issuer is a reason to change issuer. I would put 30+ minutes wait time in this category, although I know someone who is a seasoned hand when it comes to getting through tasks during phone waiting times.
It would be nice if card issuers avoided deadnaming, but there could be an innocent explanation for why a card was issued with the wrong name.
This has to be a USA thing right? In the 15 years i have had debit/credit cards in the EU nobody has ever checked the name on it. In fact, since the rise of contactless all the card info is now on the backside and not on front as before. Not to mention the fact that quite a few people today pay by phone contactless.
In South Africa, I tap to pay practically everywhere and no one ever looks at my phone (or prior to my getting Apple Pay, my physical card). In the last 12 months I had to insert my card for chip and PIN maybe twice.
Speaking of chip and PIN, before tap to pay became prominent, people actually never touched my card, I would insert it myself (reducing risk of fraud) enter my PIN and all the merchant cared about was whether the the machine said “approved” or “declined” after doing an online check.
A bigoted store clerk might decide to apply different standards to trans people, to find a way to kick them out of the store. So yeah, my experience is similar to yours, but I don’t doubt that credit card names could be weaponized against trans people.
True, but does having another name on the credit card actually address this genuine problem?
(I think people should be able to use their chosen name on their credit card; I think that adds comfort to their regular interactions and daily life; I just don’t think it will act as an Uno Reverse card against someone prone to bigotry against them.)
Yes. Some of us like to imagine trans* people as those drag like personas, a clownish caricatures of their genders. This isn't the case though: most are just, you know, people. You wouldn't know they are trans*, except for their name. And unlike that Johnny Cash song, being a boy named Sue doesn't build character. It just makes your life miserable.
That doesn't answer the question. How are you so sure that you're not missing out on any? It's not like at the end of the year you get a report of all the trans people that you missed.
trans* people aren't crossdressers, and no, you wouldn't.
Pick a random thirst-trap influencer: on almost every post on their TikTok or Insta you'd see multiple comments suggesting they are trans.
Simply, there isn't a way to tell because as there is no biological marker that is a binary, as much as some would like to believe otherwise. Sex is a bimodal distribution, and as such there are people, cis and trans, that don't look like the gender you'd imagine them to be.
Sex is not bimodal, it’s binary. We as a society have to be able to just get past this. I, for example, am a male (sex) - but I identify as a woman (gender identity). These two things can be true at the same time, and do not conflict.
That’s fine, but sex itself is still a binary concept and is very well defined, and is not controversial. For example, my sex is “0” (and not “1”) because my body is capable of producing “0”-style gametes, not “1”-style gametes (feel free to substitute the usual names for each sex, but you get the point).
One of your sexes, perhaps: there isn't a single marker for sex (and some of those we like to think of such markers aren't binary, but we can drop those for this exercise)
There are still only two types of gametes, and a body may produce only one. Infertility and other disorders don’t change that fact, and your linked material says nothing to contradict this.
You could at least bother to read the titles; "Ovulation in a cytogenetically proved phenotypically male fertile hermaphrodite" is pretty clear.
> Histology of his removed ovary suggested that ovulation had, at some time, occurred. He had also fathered a child and this is believed to be the first case of a cytogenetically proved true hermaphrodite who is fertile as a male.
That's a single human body that produced both forms of gamete.
This comment and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38903037 go beyond just posting about a controversial topic and cross into attack, name-calling, and slur. We ban accounts that post such things, so please don't do it again.
A very popular POS used by many order-at-counter restaurants and cafes has an option, configured by the merchant, not the customer (!), to use the name on the credit card as the name called when the order is ready.
Eons ago when I first started to transition I was prevented from making a purchase once because my card didn’t match my female me.
The clerk then seemingly took delight in increasing the volume of their voice when informing me.
The irony being that at work one our cute “pretty plastic people” girls used the male bosses CC all the time.
Should it matter? No, but until people evolve into human beings and leave their bigoted transphobic selves behind, anything like this can, and will, be used as a tool to embarrass and harass transgender people.
Not living in north america, there's something i must be missing - who looks at the name on a credit card? who even touches your credit card anymore? in europe and uk you're either contactless or you're given the terminal to enter your card yourself, and I'm 99% certain the "name" that is written on the card never comes up on screen
I've been called by my name many times by store clerks after paying contactless, without having given my name, so I assume it does get surfaced to them on the billing UI. It's also fairly common (in my experience, here in southern California) for the name on the card to be automatically used as the name on your order for, e.g., calling out when it's ready to be picked up at the counter.
Interesting, is this some US thing? Because in Europe for VISA/Mastercard payments I'm quite sure the name of the card owner is never transmitted to the vendor. Not in the past, and not now. It would also be quite in conflict with data protection laws.
Also it's a risk for stolen credit card information. I think the vendor doesn't even get the credit card number when processing a payment, otherwise shop clerks could just take screenshots and abuse a credit card for online shopping.
>Interesting, is this some US thing? Because in Europe for VISA/Mastercard payments I'm quite sure the name of the card owner is never transmitted to the vendor
I was surprised too but apparently it's a field that exists on the magstripe itself. Presumably something similar exists on EMV (for chip/contactless) as well.
Payments with the magnetic stripe is something that’s long gone in Europe. More than 20 years. Some devices may still support it (for US tourists), but I haven’t seen anyone using it for over a decade.
I doubt that the number and the name can be read via EMC. Otherwise you could easily read strangers name in the subway by just holding your NFC Android phone close to their wallet. And HN would be full with such stories :)
I actually have been to a gas station in france a few years ago (like in the late 2010s) whose terminal only accepted magnetic stripe. I was extremely surprised, i really thought they didn't exist anymore
Late 2010s sounds about right, the EU directive PSD2 became effective by September 2019, which banned most of those machines accepting payment without a PIN or magnetic stripe. There might have been some extended timelines in some member countries and also some providers that just didn't implement it in time (and might had to pay a fine).
Ah, memories of a "cool trick" we did in the late '80s: overwrite your name on the magstripe, so when you go to an ATM with your friends, you can show them that the machine greeted you with "HELLO MASTER!". Oh, the joys of unencrypted info in pure ASCII...
When you eat at a sit down restaurant, part of the service is not forcing you to walk to the register up front to pay. Hence you leave your card with the waiter and they disappear with it for up to 15 minutes to process the payment at the terminal.
This is also their opportunity to copy your magnetic strip and/or add a tip without your permission. (Though the latter only happened to me once, I guess the former may have happened a few times over the years it's hard to know.)
For what it’s worth, everywhere else in the world they just bring a small hand held terminal over to your table and you just insert or tap your card yourself.
In europe they bring the pos to your table once done with your custom. Although in the uk table service is uncommon and people queue up at the till to order. No one checks the name as it would be a waste of time anyway.
American banking (including point-of-sale and credit cards) is largely a decade behind Western Europe.
But, apart from restaurants (which continue to inexplicably swipe cards out of sight), most major retailers use chip/pin or chip/signature (and the sig is only ever checked if the salesperson feels a need, which is rare).
"swiping" in context of using the magnetic strip on the card? Most European cards have this kind of payment disabled by default.
But how do you enter the PIN in those cases? We used to have the option to authorize payments with signature until a few years ago. But I think those cards completely vanished now.
At restaurants, they usually swipe and then bring you a receipt to sign. Yes, we still have the magnetic strip enabled.
Most retailers it’s tap/RFID or chip read, but I still run into old POS hardware that requires a mag swipe (not often - I think Visa charges the merchant more for these transactions).
EDIT - I much prefer chip/PIN and wish it were the default here. And wish all US cards had a PIN (some don’t, and those that support it usually need it enabled explicitly). This causes problems in Europe with unmanned terminals (gas stations after hours, train ticket self-service).
> This causes problems in Europe with unmanned terminals (gas stations after hours, train ticket self-service).
I think you should be safe with a NFC enabled card for now. Apple Pay for example works in most places in my experience (even all around the world, except US). Physical cards might have a limit for contactless payment somewhere between 20-100€. And not all devices have a pin pad to enter the required pin then.
The problem I had in the UK was unmanned gas stations (at night). My main card apparently didn’t support a PIN at the time (2018?). So filling up at night was problematic (had to use my ATM card which did have a PIN). I ran into something similar in Italy in 2017 at the Florence train station - self-service terminal wanted a PIN.
Yes, if your card doesn't have a pin, then it's probably not usable on unmanned terminals. But this is kind of by design, isn't it? Like those NFC credit card stickers, that can only be used on NFC terminals, because they aren't a smart card and don't have a magstripe.
I think the operators could still charge the card without a PIN, but the card owner could dispute the charge and just get the money back. That's why they don't accept it, they want to get paid, and not give away free gas.
I had issues with a chip+signature card already 10 years ago in London. Some bars just didn’t accept it. Probably because they were too lazy to archive the receipts (signing CC transactions on a screen like in the US was never a thing in Europe).
Car rental agencies and airlines come to mind as well. I was almost unable to purchase a ticket for my better half after we got married as we were slow to process paperwork for name changes on our credit cards. We were able to clear the matter up, with some effort, but …
>do they still copy the details with a carbon machine?
Lol. No.
I have more than 20 American credit cards plus a handful of debit cards. The vast majority of can't be copied with those old carbon machines - they are not embossed.
The last time I've seen anyone use those old carbon machines was to pay for parasailing in the Caribbean in 2009.
>here they'll just ask you to put it in the chip&pin machine and authorise the deposit
The first example given is for a liquor store - where a clerk is very likely to ask for one piece of ID, and in some locations, two - one photo ID, one with the customer's name embossed or printed on it.
For readers of this site, I think it should serve as a reminder, that when designing systems, that people's name as it appears on official government documents may not be their name, and we should take care to have the systems we build recognize that.
New research by Mastercard across 16 countries in North America and Europe revealed that 59% of people who identity as nonbinary say they feel unsafe while shopping
what about the control group
For Emme Reynolds of Ottawa, credit and debit cards also carry with them a certain amount of stress because they’re just another opportunity in one’s day to be “deadnamed” or misgendered. “It’s wild to see how many times in a day your old name can pop up,” they say. “It’s exhausting to see the name and to be misgendered.”
really? and not hidden fees or card being lost? debit cards should be avoided if possible. no buyer protection
I don't think you're familiar with how debit cards work across the planet if you think that "just losing it" is somehow a problem, or that debit cards don't come with buyer protection?
If you lose your card, you report it lost with a quick phonecall to your bank's dedicated security number, and that card is now dead. If someone tries to use it before you report your card, you get to dispute those charges, and if they try to use it after the card got blocked, nothing happens. Which is why you always report lost cards immediately, because you'll have a new one in at most a few days, and until then you can use online banking just fine, let that be a lesson to you to not lose your cards again. It's an important lesson.
Telling people that debit cards should be avoided is a bit like telling people that "busses should be avoided" just because where you live, bus service is terrible.
credit card has much longer dispute window and higher odds of refund. merchant can delay shipment knowing that if you use debit that you cannot dispute. it happens a lot.
Again: strongly depends on where you live, and what businesses are legally required to do? If you live in a world where people pay for everything by credit card and banks are hyper-for-profit institutions, like the US, then it might blow your mind to learn that that large parts of the world never allowed credit card companies to replace banks, with banks actually offering services that people want need banks to offer, rather than having to rely on visa or mastercard.
Sounds like a good thing, though I can't help but feel that this is a workaround for the real issue. Because frankly it shouldn't have to be that hard to get the official documentation correct.
Incredibly minor, but I dislike that my Amex card has “Mr Initial LastName” on it, or worse, my full government name rather than the shortened name that I consistently go by everywhere else.
Thankfully my bank card from a UK bank just allows you to print your preferred name on your card.
laudable, but meaningless since they are also moving to biometrics such as fingerprints and palm scanners (against every single security advisory). and stores are moving to cashier-less automation.
It seems like people in this thread are unaware of the very real threats, harassment, and assaults that happen as a trans person in public. Using a name that matches your gender identity is important for both psychological safety, as well as avoiding being outed and threatened by others in public.
Laws in different states can make changing your legal name incredibly complicated and time consuming. Having an easy process to avoid some daily danger is wonderful for trans people, regardless of the motivation from MasterCard.
Seems like many are just feigning lack of awareness, imo. Casual observation shows a pattern of looking the other way when bad things are happening to people they don’t like.
I also think there’s some amount of intellectualization about these issues, for varying reasons. In my own social group the most common one I observe is that it’s an academic exercise to those who aren’t part of an affected group. I don’t say that from a place of judgement, it makes perfect sense that in those cases a lack of lived experience would make it academic. For others it’s reality, and that’s why it’s important to address these kinds of issues.
Seems like a good way to help make credit products more attractive to an under-served market segment at near-zero cost in terms of established legacy markets
Mastercard's US card activation service (both phone and computer) were down from Jan 2nd to Jan 4th. As someone with a Mastercard that expired on Jan/2024 this was quite a hassle for me. In the end in order to pay my due bills I had to use bitcoin.
I’m trans and I don’t. Only weirdo leftists love that stuff. We’re not all like that, but… an uncomfortable percentage do seem to be pretty out there with their belief systems.
Nowadays nobody ever looks at my cards. I just put them into a machine, and enter the PIN. Or just tap them for a contactless payment. When using Apple Pay or Google Pay there is no name shown on the screen of the phone. Neither is the name shown on the screen of the cash register nor printed on the receipt.
So someone seeing the name on your card is not really a thing any more, or am I missing something?
The terminology makes me laugh and I think of schismatic churches.
If you investigate the seedy underbelly of Eastern Orthodoxy, you will find many splinter groups which claim that the main bodies have committed apostasy and lost the faith. Therefore these small, schismatic groups, sometimes with limited clergy resources, will name themselves "True Orthodox" or "Really Truly Orthodox and We Mean It This Time". Generally these groups will themselves experience schism as they quibble about trivial things, and so devolve into "Truer than True Orthodoxy" and "Old True Believers of the Truth About Cats, Dogs, and Orthodoxy".
It's a bizarre concept that someone should have a "True Name" that's truer than their legally recorded name(s) and truer still than the names which they were given by their legal parents and names which were used for them throughout their lives. A new name that someone takes for himself is commonly known as an "assumed name" or "alias".
As Pontius Pilate was heard to remark, "What is Truth?"
> It's a bizarre concept that someone should have a "True Name" that's truer than their legally recorded name(s) and truer still than the names which they were given by their legal parents
Why use a name someone else gave you if you don’t like it anymore ? What prevents us from changing it ?
Bizarre means "very strange or unusual", but the scenario you described happens often.
An assumed name or alias is a part-time name used for a specific purpose; the definition does not extend to a new name used as an individual's full-time name.
> As Pontius Pilate was heard to remark, "What is Truth?"
And as we know, Jesus replied: "Check the dictionary."
Hmm. The only occasion in the past few years I can recall handing a card to any clerk for inspection or payment processing is host-stand restaurant pickup, and never gotten a second glance when presenting my partner's card.
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[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 233 ms ] threadWe should do what we can to make life easier for everyone, but we should stop encouraging and accommodating this “everything makes me feel unsafe” attitude. It harms everyone when we redefine safety to include awkwardness or very minor psychological discomfort.
>but we should stop encouraging and accommodating this “everything makes me feel unsafe” attitude. It harms everyone when we redefine safety to include awkwardness or very minor psychological discomfort.
It's pretty clear that the thing he's objecting to is the inflation of "feel unsafe" to include "awkwardness or very minor psychological discomfort", which might draw attention to the issue in the short term, but over the long term dilutes the term and makes the issue worse. It's like the euphemism treadmill but in reverse.
If someone says they feel unsafe, maybe we should default to believing them rather than minimising them. A tiny bit of compassion and empathy goes a long way.
Okay but surely you must agree that there are limits to how much we as a society should believe? Portraying yourself as being oppressed is an effective way to garner sympathy and resources from society, so people are incentivized to use language that makes their plight seem worse. That's not to say everyone making such claims are acting in bad faith, or even misrepresenting their internal feelings, but we can't take everyone's statements at face value either.
There are limits, but the idea that American society is too nice, or takes concerns too seriously, is beyond laughable.
In the context of this article, why not?
Why are we objecting to "the name on my credit card makes me feel uncomfortable and I wish I could change it"?
We understand that people with schizophrenia have delusions which result from their condition. Those delusions often cause them to feel unsafe. We are compassionate and seek to treat the the underlying causes, not by joining in on their delusions. Gender dysphoria is much the same--transgender activists love to confound the issue by conflating dysphoria and intersex, but these are two entirely separate conditions. I have empathy and compassion for people struggling with dysphoria, and that expresses itself in my desire to help them get better.
As someone who has been on the receiving end of incredibly violent threats, being able to not be outed publicly is critical to everyday safety for trans people.
To your point, transitioning is a massive process. Making something bureaucratically painful significantly easier is very welcome to an overwhelming process.
Going and changing it is a pain, and would make many simple beurocractic tasks more complicated, having to explain that every document printed before the change does indeed belong to me, and here are the name change documents, and yes, I know this makes your computer system barf, etc etc.
Systems that have a separate field for a government name are great: I can have the Americanized spelling for the display name, without the hassle.
How is allowing someone to use a different name harmful to everyone ?
> It harms everyone when we redefine safety
He is saying it harms everyone when being called by the name you don't want is redefined as unsafe because it makes it difficult to differentiate between significant issues.
How is allowing someone to use a different name harmful to everyone ?
Legally I'm Pizza. My buddies call me Za.
I don't care for my legal name and don't identify by it. I haven't legally changed it for many reasons.
I am not harmed by someone using my legal name.
Verifying someone's identity should be against a legal identity as contracts are bound to legal entity.
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And beyond the general topic discussing these things generally I've had one anecdotal incident involving such nebulous concepts of "safe". I worked at a place where HR notified us that a member of our team "did not feel safe or welcome". I had no idea what to do with this information. They obviously didn't want to identify the person, or what happened (i can understand the desire to do so) ... but then what does that mean, what of any helpful things could we even do if we don't know what is going on?
Then we got a second notice just as vague as the first about someone (it seemed to be implied it was the same person) still felt that way. This notice (sent to a few hundred people) had a more finger wagging tone to it.
At that point I was actually angry. I responded that I did not feel safe working in an environment with vague notices that someone(s), maybe, did something to make someone(s) else uncomfortable or feel something ... and that to some unknown extent I and others were now on notice in some vague way about it. Maybe I did it, heck if I know, if so what could I do!??!
Shortly after a clarification email went out that nobody was in trouble and any specific incidents would be handled with those involved only and no further group emails would go out.
Someone did leave the company not long after. I was told (not sure if it was true) they were the source of the complaints. That person was "sensitive" to the extent that they seemed upset by every little thing. They were pretty hard to be around, every day events upset them, and frankly they were an asshole too. It struck me how such nebulous language in that case allows someone to impose on others.
I suspect that someone expressing that they did not feel "safe or welcome" in such a vague way contributed to the equally vague and weird "solution" to just spam out a warning(s) to everyone. The result was absurd. It really illustrates how this kind of language can be very confusing.
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Now the Mastercard thing isn't that exactly, and I hope it helps someone. But the vague language always throws me off a bit.
It’s not for you to decide.
Step 2. Search for "transgender attack".
Step 3. Take some time to digest the horrible news you're reading.
Step 4. Try to figure out the common thread between these stories. The people in question usually get outed in public during some kind of ID check, and got jumped by some intolerant moron who witnessed it.
This is happening. Today. Including in "North America and Europe". The people who say they feel unsafe because they feel unsafe for their physical integrity and safety. Not because of "awkwardness or very minor psychological discomfort".
We should do what we can to make life easier for everyone. If that makes a majority of people aware of the suffering of a particular group, ultimately I think it helps cultivate compassion, and compassion benefits us all.
I applaud your progressive, optimistic, and compassionate position, author
Edit: I’m being told I’m misconstruing your comments and not at all what you meant
There is a growing group of people willing to confront anyone in public that is transgender, with a smaller (yet still growing) group who are emboldened enough to inflict physical harm.
>[...] New research by Mastercard across 16 countries in North America and Europe revealed that 59% of people who identity as nonbinary say they feel unsafe while shopping, and 57% say they think it’s important that companies and organizations address them in a way that respects their identity.
Is this a serious issue? I don't think anyone ever checked the name on my credit card. Even when I was carded at a liquor store, they'd only check my government id, not the credit card itself. Also for online payments I don't think the "cardholder name" field is even checked, so you can put whatever you want. Therefore I'm not sure what the point of this is, other than trying to score some PR points.
It would be nice if card issuers avoided deadnaming, but there could be an innocent explanation for why a card was issued with the wrong name.
But in most countries they don't require ID in order to make a credit card purchase.
Speaking of chip and PIN, before tap to pay became prominent, people actually never touched my card, I would insert it myself (reducing risk of fraud) enter my PIN and all the merchant cared about was whether the the machine said “approved” or “declined” after doing an online check.
A bigoted store clerk might decide to apply different standards to trans people, to find a way to kick them out of the store. So yeah, my experience is similar to yours, but I don’t doubt that credit card names could be weaponized against trans people.
(I think people should be able to use their chosen name on their credit card; I think that adds comfort to their regular interactions and daily life; I just don’t think it will act as an Uno Reverse card against someone prone to bigotry against them.)
How would you possibly know the false negatives (the ones you “missed”)?
Pick a random thirst-trap influencer: on almost every post on their TikTok or Insta you'd see multiple comments suggesting they are trans.
Simply, there isn't a way to tell because as there is no biological marker that is a binary, as much as some would like to believe otherwise. Sex is a bimodal distribution, and as such there are people, cis and trans, that don't look like the gender you'd imagine them to be.
Less trivial: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/46,XX/46,XY
https://academic.oup.com/bjs/article-abstract/69/5/279/61857... "Ovulation in a cytogenetically proved phenotypically male fertile hermaphrodite"
Ovotesticular syndrome: https://rarediseases.org/rare-diseases/ovotesticular-disorde...
> Histology of his removed ovary suggested that ovulation had, at some time, occurred. He had also fathered a child and this is believed to be the first case of a cytogenetically proved true hermaphrodite who is fertile as a male.
That's a single human body that produced both forms of gamete.
So, which is this individual, who produces both forms of gametes?
Am I, with no gametes, a null?
Once my hormones kicked in I was able to blend in so well that some of my friends didn’t believe me when I said I was trans.
And I got that confirmed from a third party who is honest beyond a fault.
And there’s a world of difference between crisscrossing and being transgendered.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
In Toronto liquor stores, the point of sale payment terminal is on a stand, facing the customer, and you tap or use chip + pin yourself.
If you get asked, you to have to show your government ID.
Eons ago when I first started to transition I was prevented from making a purchase once because my card didn’t match my female me.
The clerk then seemingly took delight in increasing the volume of their voice when informing me.
The irony being that at work one our cute “pretty plastic people” girls used the male bosses CC all the time.
Should it matter? No, but until people evolve into human beings and leave their bigoted transphobic selves behind, anything like this can, and will, be used as a tool to embarrass and harass transgender people.
What does this mean?
I might make a mean spirited remark about boy racer rev heads, but that's directed at a specific subset of the much broader male spectrum.
Might as well ignore the whole signal, and more now that anonymous and prepaid are gaining share.
Also it's a risk for stolen credit card information. I think the vendor doesn't even get the credit card number when processing a payment, otherwise shop clerks could just take screenshots and abuse a credit card for online shopping.
I was surprised too but apparently it's a field that exists on the magstripe itself. Presumably something similar exists on EMV (for chip/contactless) as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_card#Track_1
I doubt that the number and the name can be read via EMC. Otherwise you could easily read strangers name in the subway by just holding your NFC Android phone close to their wallet. And HN would be full with such stories :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_Services_Directive#Rev...
This is also their opportunity to copy your magnetic strip and/or add a tip without your permission. (Though the latter only happened to me once, I guess the former may have happened a few times over the years it's hard to know.)
But, apart from restaurants (which continue to inexplicably swipe cards out of sight), most major retailers use chip/pin or chip/signature (and the sig is only ever checked if the salesperson feels a need, which is rare).
But how do you enter the PIN in those cases? We used to have the option to authorize payments with signature until a few years ago. But I think those cards completely vanished now.
Most retailers it’s tap/RFID or chip read, but I still run into old POS hardware that requires a mag swipe (not often - I think Visa charges the merchant more for these transactions).
EDIT - I much prefer chip/PIN and wish it were the default here. And wish all US cards had a PIN (some don’t, and those that support it usually need it enabled explicitly). This causes problems in Europe with unmanned terminals (gas stations after hours, train ticket self-service).
I think you should be safe with a NFC enabled card for now. Apple Pay for example works in most places in my experience (even all around the world, except US). Physical cards might have a limit for contactless payment somewhere between 20-100€. And not all devices have a pin pad to enter the required pin then.
I think the operators could still charge the card without a PIN, but the card owner could dispute the charge and just get the money back. That's why they don't accept it, they want to get paid, and not give away free gas.
Hotels. All of them.
Lol. No.
I have more than 20 American credit cards plus a handful of debit cards. The vast majority of can't be copied with those old carbon machines - they are not embossed.
The last time I've seen anyone use those old carbon machines was to pay for parasailing in the Caribbean in 2009.
>here they'll just ask you to put it in the chip&pin machine and authorise the deposit
Same in the US except there no PIN.
In reality way too many people will use it as a weapon when they suspect the cardholder may be transgendered.
Source: it happened to me when I first started transitioning.
For readers of this site, I think it should serve as a reminder, that when designing systems, that people's name as it appears on official government documents may not be their name, and we should take care to have the systems we build recognize that.
what about the control group
For Emme Reynolds of Ottawa, credit and debit cards also carry with them a certain amount of stress because they’re just another opportunity in one’s day to be “deadnamed” or misgendered. “It’s wild to see how many times in a day your old name can pop up,” they say. “It’s exhausting to see the name and to be misgendered.”
really? and not hidden fees or card being lost? debit cards should be avoided if possible. no buyer protection
If you lose your card, you report it lost with a quick phonecall to your bank's dedicated security number, and that card is now dead. If someone tries to use it before you report your card, you get to dispute those charges, and if they try to use it after the card got blocked, nothing happens. Which is why you always report lost cards immediately, because you'll have a new one in at most a few days, and until then you can use online banking just fine, let that be a lesson to you to not lose your cards again. It's an important lesson.
Telling people that debit cards should be avoided is a bit like telling people that "busses should be avoided" just because where you live, bus service is terrible.
Thankfully my bank card from a UK bank just allows you to print your preferred name on your card.
Laws in different states can make changing your legal name incredibly complicated and time consuming. Having an easy process to avoid some daily danger is wonderful for trans people, regardless of the motivation from MasterCard.
I hate that sorta thing.
Please don’t label.
So someone seeing the name on your card is not really a thing any more, or am I missing something?
If you investigate the seedy underbelly of Eastern Orthodoxy, you will find many splinter groups which claim that the main bodies have committed apostasy and lost the faith. Therefore these small, schismatic groups, sometimes with limited clergy resources, will name themselves "True Orthodox" or "Really Truly Orthodox and We Mean It This Time". Generally these groups will themselves experience schism as they quibble about trivial things, and so devolve into "Truer than True Orthodoxy" and "Old True Believers of the Truth About Cats, Dogs, and Orthodoxy".
It's a bizarre concept that someone should have a "True Name" that's truer than their legally recorded name(s) and truer still than the names which they were given by their legal parents and names which were used for them throughout their lives. A new name that someone takes for himself is commonly known as an "assumed name" or "alias".
As Pontius Pilate was heard to remark, "What is Truth?"
Why use a name someone else gave you if you don’t like it anymore ? What prevents us from changing it ?
An assumed name or alias is a part-time name used for a specific purpose; the definition does not extend to a new name used as an individual's full-time name.
> As Pontius Pilate was heard to remark, "What is Truth?"
And as we know, Jesus replied: "Check the dictionary."
A healthy dialogue can take place because this is:
a. a first of it's kind of service
b. introduces interesting regulatory KYC challenges (I imagine)
c. is being done, by a company at scale