I ' ve seen a video of him telling a trans student that he ' d have to know their motivation for being called X . Yes . If your motivation for being called something is wanting to be a dick about it , then you don ' t deserve to be called that thing . If they ' re the bully that gets a kick from threatening you with social exclusion , then not listening to them is literally a good thing . He is not the arbiter or what ' s acceptable and what isn ' t anymore than he ' s the arbiter of saying that nigger isn ' t a discriminatory term to black people . No , society decides that . Over here , the equivalent of nigger is far from as offensive , and that comes from a common understanding of the language . Now , according to Peterson , and plenty of other people He and She isn ' t offensive , and they ' re the two personal pronouns we have to choose between . What makes their claim less valid ?