definitions

> Personally, I believe you're guilty of sexism if you believe
> that people have non-sex-linked characteristics in greater
> or lesser amounts merely because of their sex; a much broader
> spectrum.

Well, that's the entirety of our disconnect.

I don't much care what your beliefs are if your behaviour remains acceptable.

And I don't care very much about the statistics of minor infractions if there's an existence proof of offensive behaviour.

There's a long and vigorous discussion to be had around the definition of sexism, and another more interesting one to be had around the particular definition you've given, but any scrupulous efforts to avoid sexist *beliefs* according to that definition have little to do with avoiding behaviour which other people will recognise as sexist. And frankly while sexism in your sense might involve believing a falsehood, I don't see how "guilt" applies. Being wrong does not, of itself, cause injury.

I mean, *I* have no good sense of whether one's thick-skinned-ness in an online forum is a gender-identity-linked characteristic, an XY-chromosome-linked one or a non-sex-linked one. And it shouldn't matter.

Logical people cling very hard to their beliefs about universal matters, whereas it's not too hard to convince them that certain behaviour isn't considered polite by some other people -- it is a pretty basic fact of social interaction that different people have different sensitivities.

From there, it shouldn't be too much of a stretch to propose that people try to avoid causing offence.