Aside: I am curious about the lawyer's use of the word 'oppression' in the context of lower-case initials. If you take her experience of opprobrium or disbelief in response to this usage as negative, which surely we would, because, hey, who gives a fuck about letters, right?, then you can see what she means.
On the other hand, framing such experience as 'oppression' is inherently problematic as per our standards of language (are these in turn oppressive? When does simple functional necessity give way to oppression of choice?), given by that definition we are all oppressed in one way or another by society, and yet that term has deeply negative connotations in everyday discourse - and indeed, in specialist discourse too. I am sure they're reject a false equivalence between that 'oppression' and say, that exhibited in sex slavery, or even strictly dogmatic households raising children, but what else are people perturbed, ignorant or simply in general disagreement, or those who are merely curious, with this idea going to conclude? I am oppressed in that I cannot be precisely who I choose to be, by definition, because of myriad societal, internal and external (and internalised and externalised) reasons. But there is a minimum acceptable standard which I feel I am privileged enough to live above. (Let alone that what I chose to be is inherently dependent and contingent on the society around me, in almost every way - excluding gender/sexual/'biological' things etc, which I have not experienced, being cisgender and straight).
I dunno, just rambling. I just feel there is a tricky discussion to be had at the core of this individual vs carceral society and its full ramifications and meanings that is assumed to have taken place (not for 99.9% of people), elided by defensive rhetoric, or ignored in favour of buzzwords and hot-takes.
